It was all going wrong. And even worse, it was all going wrong at the same time.
One of the panels in the cockpit lit up, and a shrill tone began to drone on in warning.
"As if I don't know!" Thomas shouted, wrestling with the controls.
Thomas was a good pilot. He was good enough to know how to react to a mechanical failure during flight, good enough to stay calm and look for the solution. He was good enough to not even mind that the company he worked for was too cheap to hire him a copilot. They generally didn't do much, anyway.
What he
wasn't
good enough to do was to keep his modified Douglas DC-6 chemical transport plane from losing altitude at an alarming rate. It was a just a bitdifficult to control the plane when two of his engines had caught fire and
exploded
in a matter of seconds, for seemingly no reason at all.
"Why the hell is this happening?" Thomas complained aloud.
Things weren't looking good. He was still over the Carribean Sea, still hours away from reaching Florida. And there wasn't a speck of land in sight beneath him.
The plane continued to fall, the alarms continued to ring. But all Thomas could do was sit there, overtaken by a sudden realization.
"I'm gonna crash," he muttered. "Gonna die in the middle of the goddamn ocean." He was surprised by how calm he sounded.
The vast majority of plane crashes were due to communication failures. Actual, random mechanical failures were very rare.
I wonder if I'm going to be anything more than a statistic
, Thomas thought.
I wonder if anyone will remember me.
Thomas had no significant other, no remaining family. He had some friends, yes...but it had been years since they had last talked. The only person waiting for him was the indifferent air control officer at his destination.
Thomas took a deep breath and nodded to himself. He should at least
try
to survive this. His GPS system wasn't responding anymore, but if he was right, he was just a ways past the Dominican Republic. There were coral reefs here, and the odd chain of islands. It was a long shot, but there was still a chance he could crash next to some tiny, deserted islet, and somehow survive long enough to be rescued.
Another warning siren began to blare, this one even harsher than the last. He didn't have long until he splashed down.
"What a way to go," Thomas sighed, hastily putting on his life jacket. "Nothing more than a number."
As he busied himself sending off an automated distress signal - which he wasn't sure even worked - he wondered if the chemicals in his cargo bay would break and spill out during the crash. There were all sorts...bleaches, dyes, oils. None of it would be very good for the ocean, especially so for the coral reef area he was trying to crash near.
How tragic. By trying to save himself, was he putting an entire ecosystem at risk?
Thomas shook his head. It didn't matter. Even if he wanted to martyr himself for the sake of some coral, it was too late now. The plane was going down in mere seconds. He could see the massive surface of water getting closer and closer, ready and waiting for him to smash against it like solid concrete.
Thomas grit his teeth and tried his hardest to steady the plane's final moments. He wasn't going in nose first - that meant that he at least had a chance to survive this. It was midday, and the tropical waters were warm, so he wouldn't freeze. He definitely had a chance, right?
I just hope there aren't any sharks.
Finally, the impact came as his plane's belly met the waves. It was more violent than he expected. The entire plane jerked and rumbled. He felt a loud, metallic crunch from somewhere behind him - what was that? His wing? Did he just lose an entire wing? The DC-6 was a great model, and heavily upgraded, but there was no denying that it was an ancient design.
That's not very comforting! Come on, happy thoughts, happy thoughts!
The rumbling and shaking continued to rattle him, tossing him around in his chair like a toy. Finally, the plane began to slow to a stop.
But he wasn't even close to being safe. One quick glance through the cockpit door behind him confirmed it - there was a significant chunk of the plane missing, a gaping hole in the left side. And the water had been rushing in for a while now. Already, a puddle was forming beneath his feet as water sept in through the crack beneath the cockpit door. He reached for the door handle, gripped it with both hands, and pulled strongly.
And nothing happened. It was stuck, barely wiggling a little.
"No!" he cried desperately, immediately gripping it again and pulling even stronger.
After all that? After surviving a plane crash, a fucking door was going to kill him?
The water continued to rise. Thomas grunted and pleaded to the door for mercy, putting one of his legs against it and pulling with all his might.
The door did not relent. As the water reached his knees, the animal part of his brain took over. He screamed frantically, pounding and kicking at the door as hard as he could.
This isn't fair! This isn't right!
He was going to die. Worse, he was going to drown, one of the worst possible ways to go. All because of a string of random mechanical failures that he had no control over.
Thomas kept kicking at the door, even as the water reached his chest. He had no other options. There was no way that he was breaking through the windshield, and the little window at the top of the cockpit door was far too small to squeeze through.
If his foot was beginning to throb and ache with pain, he couldn't notice it. The adrenaline in his system blocked everything else out - in his world, there was nothing but him, and the door. The door sneered at him, mocking his efforts.
He kept kicking out of spite. It could be made of brick, for all he cared. He was still going to try.
Eventually, he felt that the door was beginning to buckle. He was making progress!
But so was the water. It was up to his neck, now. With one final, huge breath, he kicked again, converting his panic and desperation into physical force.
Even as the water finally enveloped him, he kept kicking with all the force he could muster. Even if he was to die here, he wouldn't go without a struggle! He slammed his foot against the door again, and again, and again!
And then, finally, it was forced backwards, swinging open to reveal the rest of the plane, entirely submerged. Thomas swam forward without a second thought, swimming right through the hole in the plane's side. As he began to kick upwards, he looked up and realized the true cruelty of his situation.
It's too far.
The plane had been sinking the entire time he had been struggling with the door. And now he was easily two dozen meters beneath the surface of the water. He had already expended the majority of his final breath on the door.
His lungs felt like they were burning with pressure, screaming for relief. He was going to drown before he could breach the surface!
Darkness began to envelop his vision as he kicked upwards even more frantically than before. He was so close! Mere seconds away from survival, but he knew that he was going to die on top of the finish line.
It was cruelty beyond comprehension. What had he done to deserve this? What had turned his plane into a sudden deathtrap? Why did he deserve to die in such a torturous manner?
His vision was engulfed entirely, and he knew it was over. The very last thing he felt was a rough, pulling force around his torso. It seemed that the sharks weren't even going to wait for him to die.
He felt something press against his lips, which was strange. Why would a shark do that?
Everything faded away.
**********
At first, there was nothing.
Thomas didn't know what he had expected death to be like. But this probably seemed right. Nothing to see, nothing to hear, nothing to do...just darkness. A complete and all-encompassing lack of anything at all.
He just sat there. There didn't seem to be any such thing as time here, but it felt like he was there for hours.
And then there was light.
In an instant, the darkness became light. Thomas looked up, looked down, looked at himself...but there was still nothing. He held out his hands to look at himself, but he had no hands. He was nothing, too. All around him, nothing but white light, stretching out...forever.
What was this? Was he a spirit? Was this purgatory?
Then he felt two things begin to happen at once. First, he heard something - barely even a whisper, but he heard it. And second...he felt something pulling him. Was it it the voice? If so, why, and how? He was nothing. How could he hear, how could he be pulled? Who did the voice belong to? What were they saying?
So many questions. And they were all silenced when he realized that the whisper was growing louder, the tugging sensation on his being growing more forceful.
"Back..." the voice said.
"Who's there?" Thomas asked, spinning around. "Where am I? Where are you?"
The sensations grew stronger. If he had a body, the sudden jerking sensation might have made him nauseous.
"Come back..." the voice pleaded, growing stronger and louder still. "Please, come back!"
Thomas looked around, already knowing that whoever the voice belonged to, they weren't here.
"Where are you?" he asked. "How do I get to you?"
"I won't give up!" The voice shouted. Thomas realized that it was the voice of a young woman, rife with desperation.
