Edward Tomik sat in seat 37C, economy class, window seat, which for once meant he had actually gotten lucky.
The man beside him looked to be somewhere in his thirties and had fallen asleep before they had even finished climbing. His head leaned slightly toward the aisle, mouth open just enough that Edward wondered how anyone could possibly sleep that deeply on an airplane. On the man's other side sat a woman Edward assumed was his wife. She had large silver headphones covering her ears and was reading something on a tablet, occasionally reaching across her sleeping husband to steal pretzels from the little bag balanced precariously on his tray.
Neither of them had shown the slightest interest in talking to Edward.
Perfect.
Edward wasn't antisocial exactly. He liked people. He liked talking, probably more than most people around him liked hearing him talk, but after the last two days he was perfectly happy to spend a few hours alone with his phone and a window.
He leaned against the side of the aircraft and tried to find a position that didn't make some part of his body uncomfortable. His black suit had stopped looking like formal wedding attire several hours ago and now mostly looked like something he'd been forced to sleep in. His white dress shirt was wrinkled around the waist, the top button was undone, and his black tie had been loosened enough that it hung crooked beneath his collar. He still had the polished dress shoes on too, which had seemed fine when he put them on that morning but now felt at least two sizes too small.
He had considered changing before leaving for the airport.
Then Ryan's reception ran late.
Everybody wanted pictures, Ryan's mom hugged him for what felt like five straight minutes, someone convinced the wedding party to take one more group photo after they had already taken approximately a thousand of them, and by the time Edward finally checked the clock he had barely enough time to grab his bag and make it to the airport.
So here he was, flying home from Alaska after watching his best friend get married.
The wedding itself had been beautiful.
Annoyingly beautiful, actually.
Ryan and his bride had gotten married in a small chapel surrounded by mountains and pine trees, the kind of place that barely looked real when sunlight hit the snow still clinging to the distant peaks. The chapel was made from dark timber with huge windows behind the altar, framing the mountains so perfectly that Edward was convinced somebody had chosen the entire building specifically for the photographs.
Ryan had stood at the front looking more nervous than Edward had ever seen him.
Which was impressive.
Edward had once watched Ryan forget almost an entire monologue during their sophomore theater showcase and somehow improvise his way through nearly three minutes of dialogue while sweating through his costume. He'd been calmer during that than he was waiting for his bride to walk through the chapel doors.
Then she appeared.
Ryan immediately started crying.
Not dignified tears either.
Actual crying.
Edward had leaned toward the groomsman beside him and whispered, "He's not making it through the vows."
He hadn't.
Ryan managed maybe three sentences before his voice broke and his bride started crying too, which naturally caused half the room to follow them. Edward had been determined not to join in until Ryan looked toward him while trying to compose himself, and then apparently something in Edward's brain decided twenty-four years old was the perfect age to start crying at weddings.
He blamed Alaska.
There was something about the mountains.
The ceremony had still been incredible.
Most of the bride's family had been there, along with a ridiculous number of people Ryan somehow knew despite only moving to Alaska a few years earlier. There were forest service coworkers, people from church, old mission companions, neighbors, friends, and enough cousins that Edward eventually stopped trying to figure out how anyone was related.
Edward had known Ryan longer than almost all of them.
They were both originally from Spokane, Washington, and had gone to Mt. Spokane High School together. They first met through cross country, mostly because suffering through several miles of running every afternoon had a strange ability to force teenagers into friendships.
Edward had been the guy who talked during runs.
Ryan had somehow been the guy who still had enough oxygen left to answer him.
They hadn't become really close until theater class.
That was when they discovered they both loved acting, both had absolutely no shame about embarrassing themselves onstage, and both thought improvisation was considerably more entertaining than memorizing whatever their teacher had actually asked them to perform. One project turned into another, rehearsals became hanging out after school, and before Edward really noticed it happening, Ryan had become the person he called first whenever anything interesting happened.
After that they were practically inseparable.
Ryan was also a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Mormon, basically.
Although apparently they preferred people to use the full name of the church now.
Edward wasn't entirely sure when that had changed. Ryan had explained it to him once and Edward had genuinely tried to listen, but apparently his brain had decided that information was less important than remembering things like Pokémon type advantages and the plot of anime he hadn't watched in five years.
He remembered nodding.
That counted for something.
A few years after high school, Ryan left to serve a mission for his church in Alaska.
Then somehow the idiot fell in love with the entire state.
When his mission ended, he eventually moved back, became a forest ranger, and somehow met a woman almost immediately.
That part offended Edward personally.
Ryan moved into one of the least populated states in the country, spent half his professional life wandering through forests, and still managed to find the love of his life.
Edward had dating apps and hundreds of thousands of people living within driving distance and couldn't get someone to answer a message for more than three consecutive days.
Now Ryan was married.
At twenty-four.
Edward was twenty-four too.
That fact had become considerably more depressing during the reception.
Of course Edward had gone. Ryan was his best friend. If Ryan had gotten married halfway across the world, Edward probably would've found a way to be there.
It just would've been nice to have someone sitting beside him when all the slow songs started.
Instead he'd spent part of the reception standing near the edge of the dance floor with a glass of soda, watching couples dance beneath strings of warm lights while wondering exactly when everyone his age had started getting married.
Ryan had eventually found him there.
"You look miserable."
Edward had glanced at him. "I'm having the time of my life."
"You're staring at the cake."
"The cake understands me."
Ryan laughed and put one arm around Edward's shoulders. "Come on."
"Where?"
"There are people over here."
"I've already met people."
"You've been standing beside the cake for twenty minutes."
"It's good cake."
"It's my wedding."
"Exactly. You should've provided chairs near the cake."
Ryan had dragged him away anyway.
Edward smiled slightly at the memory before shifting in his seat and looking out the airplane window. Beyond the glass there wasn't much to see except darkness and the faint glow of the wing lights.
Ryan was married now.
It was weird.
Good weird.
Mostly.
Edward pushed the thought away before his brain found another reason to make him feel sorry for himself and pulled out his phone.
Thankfully, anime existed.
He opened Crunchyroll and returned to the series he'd started earlier that week.
The Villainess Will Rewrite Her Ruin.
Absolutely terrible title.
Which meant there had been about a ninety percent chance Edward would watch it.
At this point he'd probably watched nearly every isekai Crunchyroll had thrown at him since 2018, including several he was pretty sure existed solely because somebody realized they could put the words reincarnated, villainess, or level 999 into a title and guarantee at least one season.
He knew most of them weren't particularly good.
That wasn't really the point anymore.
There was something comfortable about them. They were easy to watch, easy to understand, and if Edward got distracted and missed five minutes, one of the characters would normally explain everything again anyway.
The main character in this one was Lady Melody Rosethorne, the sixteen-year-old daughter of a powerful duke and supposedly the primary antagonist of an otome game called Garden of Sacred Hearts.
Melody had long crimson hair that fell almost to her waist, bright emerald eyes, pale skin, and the kind of elaborate black and red wardrobe Edward assumed only existed because anime artists had never personally tried to put on six layers of clothing. Everything she owned had lace, ribbons, embroidered roses, fitted sleeves, decorative buttons, or some combination of all four.
Even her casual dresses looked like something Edward would've expected someone to wear while being painted for a royal portrait.
Originally Melody was supposed to be horrible.
She bullied the heroine, humiliated servants, ruined social events, sabotaged several potential romances, falsely accused people of crimes, and eventually attempted to poison the kingdom's saintess.
That final mistake got her executed in front of the royal palace.
Unfortunately for the story, Melody wasn't really Melody anymore.
A twenty-two-year-old Japanese college student named Hana Miyazaki had died in the real world, awakened inside Melody's body at age sixteen, realized exactly which game she'd been reincarnated into, and immediately decided that following the storyline ending with her execution sounded like a terrible idea.
So she started avoiding every event she remembered leading toward her death.
Naturally, this somehow made everyone like her.
Edward actually liked Melody.
She was awkward in a way that felt more believable than most anime protagonists because she spent half her time desperately trying to act like some dignified noblewoman while her internal thoughts sounded like a woman having a panic attack in a grocery store.
He related to that considerably more than he related to the prince.
Prince Adrian had black hair, blue eyes, a perfect jawline, and the emotional range of an expensive dining table. Every woman in the original game apparently wanted him because he occasionally looked toward them without appearing actively disgusted.
Edward had never understood those characters.
He understood Melody.
Give him someone who talked too much, accidentally embarrassed herself, went home and replayed the conversation fifty times, and then somehow made everything worse when she tried to fix it.
That felt human.
Episode seven had focused heavily on Saintess Celestine Aurelia, the game's original heroine and one of those characters designed to look so deliberately innocent that Edward was pretty sure the animators would've been afraid to draw her standing anywhere remotely dirty.
Celestine had long silver-white hair that reached the middle of her back, pale blue eyes, delicate features, and white ceremonial dresses embroidered with gold along the sleeves and collar. She also wore a tiny golden sun ornament beside one ear because apparently being the magically chosen saintess of the kingdom wasn't enough to communicate that she was supposed to be holy.
She was soft-spoken, endlessly patient, kind to everybody, magically gifted, and apparently incapable of holding a cup of tea without looking like she belonged in a painting.
In the original game, Melody tormented her constantly.
Except reincarnated Melody refused to do any of that.
The problem was that the bullying hadn't stopped.
Someone destroyed Celestine's flowers.
Someone poured ink into her desk.
Someone tore pages out of her prayer book.
Someone even slipped something into her tea that made her sick.
Every time it happened, everyone immediately blamed Melody because those were the exact events the original villainess had been responsible for.
Except Melody hadn't done any of them.
Edward figured out by episode four that somebody else was replacing her role in the storyline.
It took the actual characters until episode seven.
Apparently medieval fantasy nobility wasn't renowned for investigative ability.
The culprit turned out to be another noble girl named Mirelle Vane, a pretty lavender-haired girl Edward had originally assumed would be one of those background characters who appeared in two episodes and then vanished forever.
Instead, Mirelle had been possessed by an ancient spirit responsible for several of the game's bad endings.
By the climax of episode seven she was cornered inside the ruins of an abandoned chapel with dark veins crawling across one side of her face while black magic twisted around her body like smoke.
Celestine was injured on the floor.
Several knights had surrounded Mirelle.
All of them were yelling at Melody to get out of the way so they could kill her before whatever controlled her became stronger.
Naturally, Melody walked toward her instead.
Edward leaned closer to his phone.
Okay.
This part was actually pretty good.
"Stay away from me!" Mirelle screamed, stumbling backward until her shoulders struck what remained of the chapel altar.
Melody stopped several feet away. Her crimson hair moved around her face in the magical wind filling the room, and for once she actually looked like the terrifying villainess everyone kept accusing her of being.
"You didn't choose this," Melody said.
Mirelle stared at her while the black magic flickered around her body. "You don't know anything about me."
"Maybe not, but I know what it's like when everyone decides what kind of person you are before you ever get the chance to become somebody else."
Edward paused with his thumb hovering over the side of his phone.
"Damn. Okay."
That was actually kind of good.
Mirelle finally collapsed, and Melody caught her before she hit the floor. The black magic slowly faded while Mirelle sobbed against Melody's shoulder, apologizing over and over for everything she'd done while Melody kept telling her that none of it had been her choice.
Then Celestine managed to stand.
She limped toward them, knelt beside Melody, and gently placed one hand against her cheek.
"You always save everyone," Celestine whispered.
Melody smiled softly. "Someone should."
Then they stared at each other.
Edward stared too.
Celestine's hand was still resting against Melody's face. Melody had another woman practically lying across her lap, the dramatic music was swelling in the background, and Celestine's pale blue eyes shimmered with tears while their faces remained close enough that either of them could probably feel the other breathing.
Edward waited.
And waited.
"Come on."
Nothing happened.
Celestine finally smiled.
Melody blushed.
The scene moved on.
Edward stared at the screen in betrayal.
"Why are they never lesbians?"
The sleeping man beside him shifted.
Edward immediately turned toward the window as if he had absolutely not just whispered that aloud in the middle of an airplane.
Still, seriously.
That would improve the entire genre.
Forget Prince Adrian standing around silently while every woman in the kingdom fell in love with him. Give Edward a show where the reincarnated villainess realized halfway through that the prince was boring, the saintess was gorgeous, and all those romantic flags had been pointing in the wrong direction from the beginning.
He would watch that.
For the story, obviously.
Mostly.
Edward was still a man.
His brain and the rest of his anatomy hadn't stopped functioning simply because the attractive women he was looking at happened to be animated.
The credits began rolling, and Edward pressed Next Episode without even considering whether he should save the rest for later.
The opening sequence began with Melody spinning through a ballroom in a flowing red dress while Celestine reached toward her through a shower of flower petals.
Edward pointed accusingly at the screen.
"See? They are basically courting in the opening song."
Something exploded outside the airplane.
The sound wasn't anything like Edward would've expected an engine failure to sound like.
There wasn't some gentle mechanical sputtering that gave everyone time to realize something had gone wrong. There was a violent BOOM from somewhere beyond the window, loud enough that Edward felt the impact through the wall beside him, and the entire aircraft lurched sharply to the right.
His phone flew out of his hand.
Edward's shoulder slammed against the side of the cabin while the sleeping man beside him snapped awake so violently that his elbow hit the armrest.
"What the hell?"
Edward didn't answer because he had absolutely no idea.
The seat belt sign chimed overhead while several passengers screamed, and a service cart farther up the aisle began rolling sideways before a flight attendant caught it with both hands and threw her weight against it.
"Everyone remain seated!"
Another attendant hurried toward the nearest jump seat, dropped into it, and pulled the harness across her body.
"Seat belts on! Stay in your seats!"
That frightened Edward more than the explosion.
Flight attendants were supposed to look calm.
They were the people who smiled while turbulence threw drinks around and acted like everything happening inside an airplane was perfectly normal.
These ones were moving quickly.
The aircraft was still banking.
Edward grabbed both armrests while his stomach tightened, waiting for the plane to keep rolling, but after several horrible seconds it gradually began leveling again.
The correction wasn't smooth.
Edward could feel little movements through the floor beneath his feet, almost as though somebody at the front of the aircraft was physically wrestling the airplane back into position.
Only then did Edward remember he had a window.
He twisted toward it.
At first all he could see was darkness and his own reflection, along with the faint reflected faces of several passengers behind him.
Then he leaned closer.
There was smoke.
Thick gray smoke streamed backward beneath the wing.
It was coming from the engine.
"Oh fuck."
The man beside him immediately leaned toward him.
"What’s wrong, did we hit something?"
Edward didn't answer.
He didn't have to.
The man followed his eyes, saw the smoke, and went completely still.
"Oh, God."
The aircraft began descending soon afterward, although Edward only noticed because the pressure changed inside his ears and the darkness outside seemed to shift slightly upward.
It wasn't falling.
At least he didn't think it was.
It felt controlled, almost strangely normal compared to the explosion, but that didn't stop conversations from spreading through the cabin.
"Was that the engine?"
"I think something hit us."
"Are we landing?"
"Mom, what's happening?"
A child somewhere behind Edward had started crying.
Someone farther forward was praying loudly enough that he could hear pieces of it whenever the other passengers quieted down.
The woman on the other side of the man finally pulled off her silver headphones and looked between him and Edward.
"What's happening?"
The man looked at her.
"I think we lost an engine."
She stared at him as if he'd personally chosen those words specifically to frighten her.
"You think?"
"I don't know, Rebecca."
"Then don't say something like that if you don't know."
"I'm looking at smoke pouring out of the engine."
"Oh dear, God. Maybe… Maybe it’s fine. Do planes even need two engines?"
The man stared at her.
Edward glanced between them.
Definitely married.
Strangely, that helped.
Not because the situation became any less terrifying, but listening to a married couple argue over whether the smoking airplane engine technically counted as a lost engine was so incredibly normal that Edward found himself relaxing by the smallest amount.
If they could still argue, maybe things weren't quite as catastrophic as his imagination wanted them to be.
Several minutes passed like that, and they were some of the longest minutes Edward could remember.
He'd always assumed that if something genuinely terrible happened on an airplane, it would happen quickly.
An explosion.
A fall.
Something dramatic.
Instead they just kept flying.
The aircraft descended gradually through the darkness while smoke continued trailing behind the wing, and everyone sat there waiting for somebody with more authority than them to explain whether this was the kind of emergency they'd complain about tomorrow or the kind that made national news.
Finally the intercom chimed.
Almost everyone stopped talking.
"Ladies and gentlemen, this is the captain speaking. We've experienced a problem with our right engine. The aircraft remains under control, and we are currently diverting to the nearest suitable airport. We do need everyone to remain seated with your seat belts securely fastened and follow all instructions from the cabin crew. At this time we expect to make a normal emergency landing."
Edward hadn't realized how tightly he'd been gripping the armrests until the captain said the aircraft remains under control.
Those were extremely good words.
The man beside him released a breath and nodded as though the captain had personally confirmed something he'd known all along.
"See? Planes can fly on one engine."
Edward looked at him.
"Yeah?"
"Yeah. They're designed for it."
Rebecca stared at her husband.
"You're sure?"
"Pretty sure."
Her expression immediately changed.
"Pretty sure?"
The man sighed.
"I don't build planes, Rebecca."
Edward couldn't help it.
He laughed.
It came out considerably more nervous than he'd intended, but the man laughed too, and even Rebecca gave her husband an annoyed little smile.
For several seconds they were just three people sitting beside each other on an inconvenient flight instead of strangers watching smoke pour from an aircraft engine.
Edward knew commercial airplanes could fly on one engine anyway.
He was almost certain he'd heard that somewhere.
Maybe a documentary.
Maybe YouTube shorts.
Maybe one of those random facts people repeated online so many times that nobody remembered where the information originally came from.
Either way, the captain said the aircraft was under control.
That was what mattered.
They would divert somewhere.
They'd land.
Everyone would probably clap when the wheels touched the runway, then spend the next eight hours sitting in some random airport while the airline tried to find them another aircraft.
Edward could deal with that.
He might even get a refund.
Maybe Ryan would see something about the emergency online and call him laughing because Edward nearly died immediately after spending half the reception complaining about being single.
That sounded exactly like something Ryan would do.
A flight attendant moved carefully through the aisle checking seat belts.
When she reached Edward's row, she leaned down enough to look at each of them.
"Keep your seat belts tight, please."
Edward pulled his tighter.
"Is everything okay?"
She smiled.
It was an extremely practiced smile.
"The pilots have the aircraft under control."
Which wasn't exactly an answer.
Edward decided he'd accept it anyway.
Once she moved on, Edward leaned forward and reached beneath the seat until his fingers found his phone.
Miraculously, the screen wasn't cracked.
The anime was still playing.
Melody was sitting at a breakfast table arguing with her maid over whether strawberries counted as an acceptable breakfast.
Edward stared at Melody.
Then he looked outside at the smoking engine.
Then back at Melody.
"Yeah. I'm thinking this takes priority."
Edward turned off the screen.
For another few minutes, nothing happened, and strangely that was enough for people to begin convincing themselves they were safe.
Conversations slowly returned.
Someone behind Edward was calling a family member despite the flight attendants repeatedly asking everyone to remain calm and stay seated. Rebecca had both hands wrapped around her husband's arm, but she wasn't crying, and even Edward found himself staring outside at the smoke and thinking it looked thinner than before.
Maybe the damaged engine had stopped burning.
Maybe whatever exploded had been isolated.
Maybe they really were okay.
Then a warning bell sounded somewhere near the front of the cabin.
Edward didn't know what the bell meant.
He didn't need to.
Three flight attendants looked up at almost exactly the same time.
One immediately grabbed the interphone.
Another looked toward the back of the aircraft and exchanged a brief expression with one of her coworkers.
That scared Edward.
He slowly turned toward the window.
Something orange flickered against the glass.
At first he thought it was a reflection from inside the cabin.
Then it moved again.
Edward leaned closer until he could see beneath the wing.
There was fire under the engine.
Not some giant Hollywood fireball swallowing half the airplane.
It was smaller than that.
That almost made it worse because Edward could actually watch it spreading.
The wind pulled the flames backward beneath the wing while a line of orange slowly extended beyond the engine housing.
"No."
The man beside him turned immediately.
"What?"
Edward pointed toward the window.
The man leaned forward.
Whatever small amount of relief had returned to his face disappeared.
"Oh, that can’t be good."
Rebecca immediately started leaning across him.
"What? What are you looking at?"
"Nothing."
"Michael."
"Rebecca, don't look."
"Why wouldn't I look?"
"Because I'm telling you not to."
Naturally, Rebecca looked.
For several seconds she didn't say anything.
Then one hand covered her mouth.
"Oh my God."
Other passengers had noticed now too.
The whispers traveled through the cabin faster than the flight attendants could stop them.
"There's fire."
"Is the wing on fire?"
"Mom?"
"What's happening?"
One man across the aisle leaned so far toward Edward's side trying to see that his wife grabbed his shirt and pulled him back.
The intercom chimed again.
This time the captain still sounded professional, but Edward could hear something beneath the voice that hadn't been there before.
"Ladies and gentlemen, this is the captain. We are dealing with an additional emergency involving the right engine and will be making an emergency landing. I need everyone to remain seated and tighten your seat belts as much as possible. Cabin crew, prepare the cabin."
There wasn't an immediate explosion of panic.
For a second almost everyone just sat there.
Emergency landing.
The words seemed to need time to reach people.
Then the cabin erupted.
Someone started crying.
A man farther forward shouted toward one of the flight attendants asking if they were crashing.
Two rows ahead, a woman pressed both hands together and started praying so intensely her fingers had gone white.
Edward looked back through the window.
The fire had moved farther down the wing.
That was when the airplane started shaking.
At first it was just a vibration beneath his feet, subtle enough that Edward wondered if he was imagining it because he was terrified.
Then it stopped.
A few seconds later it returned.
This time the overhead compartments rattled with it.
Michael looked down toward the floor.
"What was that?"
Edward shook his head.
"I have absolutely no idea."
The plane dropped.
It probably wasn't very far.
Maybe a few feet.
Edward's body strongly disagreed.
His stomach seemed to remain suspended above him while the rest of him fell beneath it, and his hands locked around the armrests so tightly that his fingers hurt.
Rebecca screamed.
The aircraft leveled again, although it took longer than before, and Edward stared outside just in time to see another flash erupt beneath the damaged engine.
A piece of metal tore away.
It spun once through the orange glow of the fire before disappearing into the darkness behind them.
"That seems bad."
Michael didn't answer.
The wing dipped.
Slowly at first.
Then farther.
Edward felt his weight shifting toward the window before the aircraft corrected itself again.
Somewhere beneath them came a long metallic groan.
It reminded Edward horribly of bending a sheet of metal back and forth until it weakened enough to break.
The sound stopped.
For several seconds everything seemed almost normal again.
Then the oxygen masks dropped from the ceiling.
Hundreds of yellow masks fell at almost exactly the same time.
That was the moment Edward's brain finally stopped pretending this was going to end with an inconvenient airport layover.
People screamed around him while the flight attendants shouted instructions, but Edward just stared at the mask swinging directly in front of his face.
He knew what he was supposed to do.
He'd watched the safety demonstration.
He'd flown plenty of times.
Pull it toward you.
Place it over your nose and mouth.
Breathe normally.
Instead he stared at the thing like somebody had handed him an unfamiliar piece of machinery.
"MASKS ON! PULL THE MASK TOWARD YOU AND PLACE IT OVER YOUR NOSE AND MOUTH!"
The flight attendant's voice finally snapped him out of it.
Edward grabbed the mask.
His hands were shaking badly enough that the elastic strap slipped through his fingers.
"Come on."
He grabbed it again and managed to pull it over his face.
Rebecca was struggling with hers.
Michael helped secure it around her head before putting on his own.
The plane banked harder.
Edward's shoulder pressed against the wall while the horizon outside tilted farther than he'd ever seen it tilt from inside an airplane.
The fire was still burning along the wing.
Except now the wing itself seemed to be moving strangely.
Edward knew airplane wings flexed.
Everybody knew that.
He'd seen videos of them moving during turbulence.
This didn't look like that.
The burning section of the wing bent upward sharply before dropping again, and Edward could see the metal skin around it ripple in a way metal probably wasn't supposed to ripple.
"Michael."
Michael leaned closer to the window.
His face changed immediately.
"Oh, Jesus."
Another crack tore through the aircraft.
Edward felt that one through his seat.
Part of the wing twisted downward.
For one horrible second flames appeared through an opening Edward was absolutely certain hadn't existed a few seconds earlier.
Then the entire aircraft rolled violently to the right.
Edward slammed against the wall.
Rebecca screamed.
An overhead compartment burst open and several bags fell into the aisle. One struck the edge of a seat while another flew sideways and hit the ceiling.
The lights flickered.
They went completely dark for half a second before coming back.
The aircraft fought its way partially level again.
The intercom came alive through a burst of static.
When the captain spoke this time, Edward could hear alarms behind him.
"Everyone remain seated and stay in your restraints. We've suffered severe damage to the aircraft and are having difficulty maintaining flight control. Cabin crew, begin brace preparation immediately."
Edward stared upward at the speaker.
The captain continued. His voice was louder now, strained enough that Edward could tell he was probably physically fighting the controls while he spoke, but somehow he still sounded remarkably composed.
"We are attempting to put the aircraft down. When the cabin crew instructs you to brace, get into the brace position immediately and remain there until the aircraft has completely stopped moving."
There was a pause.
Then the captain added something quieter.
Something that didn't sound like part of an announcement he'd ever practiced.
"We're doing everything we can."
The intercom clicked off.
That sentence frightened Edward more than anything else the captain had said.
He hadn't told them everything was okay.
He hadn't promised they'd land safely.
He hadn't even said they were going to reach an airport.
He'd said they were doing everything they could.
The flight attendants moved through whatever part of the cabin they safely could, shouting brace instructions and checking passengers as the aircraft continued shaking.
Edward tried to listen.
He really did.
But his brain kept jumping between things.
Ryan.
His parents.
The burning wing outside.
Some stupid memory from high school.
The fact that his phone still had an anime paused on it beneath his leg.
Everything seemed equally important and completely meaningless at the same time.
The aircraft rolled again.
This time it didn't fully recover.
Edward's body was pushed toward the window while loose objects slid across the floor and oxygen masks swung wildly from the ceiling.
Outside, the lights on the ground were becoming larger.
Edward stared at them.
At first he didn't understand why they looked different.
Then he realized they were getting closer.
Much closer.
They weren't just descending anymore.
They were falling.
The cabin crew started shouting.
"BRACE! BRACE! HEADS DOWN! STAY DOWN!"
Edward bent forward and crossed his arms against the seat in front of him, pressing his forehead against them.
Around him, hundreds of voices blended into something almost impossible to separate.
Crying.
Praying.
Screaming.
The repeated commands of the flight attendants.
Rebecca was sobbing.
Michael was telling her something Edward couldn't hear.
The airplane groaned around them.
Edward tried to breathe through the oxygen mask.
His thoughts became completely useless.
Ryan's wedding appeared in his head.
Ryan standing at the altar crying.
His mother.
His father.
His apartment.
The stupid anime.
Ten minutes earlier Edward had been depressed because Ryan got married before him.
That suddenly seemed like the stupidest problem anybody had ever had.
Another enormous tearing sound came from outside.
Edward knew he shouldn't look.
He looked anyway.
The burning section of the wing bent backward.
For one horrible second it seemed to hang there, trailing fire through the darkness.
Then part of it tore completely away.
It vanished behind them.
The airplane snapped sideways.
Edward was slammed against the window as the aircraft began rolling.
People screamed while the horizon rotated outside.
Ground.
Sky.
Ground again.
Emergency lights came on inside the cabin as bags, phones, cups, and anything else that hadn't been secured flew wherever gravity decided down was during that particular second.
Edward shoved himself forward again.
He couldn't tell how far above the ground they were anymore.
He couldn't tell which way was level.
All he could hear was rushing air, screaming, and the horrible sounds of the aircraft around him.
The intercom came alive one final time.
The captain wasn't explaining anything anymore.
"BRACE FOR IMPACT! BRACE FOR IMPACT!"
The flight attendants immediately screamed the same command from both ends of the cabin.
"BRACE! BRACE! HEADS DOWN! STAY DOWN!"
Edward pressed his forehead into his arms.
Beside him Michael had both arms wrapped around Rebecca as much as their restraints allowed.
Somewhere behind them a child was screaming for their mother.
Edward squeezed his eyes shut.
He tried to think of something important.
Something profound.
Some final thought a person was supposed to have when they realized they might only have seconds left.
He couldn't think of anything.
Not some beautiful realization about life.
Not some confession he'd never gotten to make.
Not even some clear memory of his family.
Instead, absurdly, his brain returned to the anime.
Melody standing inside the ruined chapel.
Celestine touching her face.
The next episode still paused on Edward's phone.
I didn't even do anything in this life.
A broken laugh escaped through his oxygen mask.
Of course that was what his brain gave him.
Twenty-four years of life and his possible final thought was that he hadn't amounted to anything.
The aircraft rolled again.
The roar outside became deafening.
Edward pressed himself harder against the seat.
There wasn't really any pretending left now.
They weren't diverting.
They weren't making an emergency landing at some random airport and spending the night complaining about delays.
They weren't going to walk off the plane shaken and tell everyone how terrifying it had been.
The aircraft was coming apart around them.
The ground was getting closer.
And they were going to die.