As the skies over the distant ocean opened up in a brilliant display of purples and oranges, with a slight mixture of blues and dark grey, the sweet smell of the ocean was evident on the winds. The beach was small, unlike many that Jacob had visited in the past, whether on vacation or near his former home while he attended college; however, this was not the circumstances in which he wanted to see such a beautiful sight.
His thoughts drifted back to the day this whole event began, traveling through each situation as if it was important. He had thought of the past as guidance to future events and closed his eyes attempting to return to the time in which everything seemed to take a downward spiral...
Jacob was a businessman of sorts, an entrepreneur and exasperated account executive that had been working for the past few months developing a business application model for a new software company in Central California. Just south of Sacramento to be exact. Successful in his attempts to maneuver and outsmart his competitor, he was soon promoted to the head of innovative development.
He was assigned a new client, one in Japan with a new and vastly growing success in military software and was almost instantly on a plane with his briefcase, laptop, and ever-ringing cell phone. He had packed light this trip, as the whole purpose of the meeting was simply to meet and greet.
The plane was not the newer types with first class seating and large and luxurious cabins for the passengers, but rather the old beater kinds developed in the 1970s for quick passage with little comfort. The jostling take off only added to the alarm Jacob always felt when he was in the air in one of the tin cans with wings.
“May I assist you with anything sir?” came the voice from the one and only stewardess.
She had a pleasant face, warming smile and a very welcoming sound to her voice which in most cases would have left Jacob with the sense of sexual attractiveness, had he not been overly terrified at the idea of being 5000 feet in the air.
He knew it was evident to her that he was terrified, which made him feel shameful and more than embarrassed. He was rarely embarrassed and never liked to show any sort of weakness or signs of being anything less than a man.
“I’m fine. Thank you for asking though,” his voice pouring out in slight bursts of weakened attempts at faking his emotions.
“Please feel free to let me know if there is anything I can do for you,” came her reply, in a more sensual way than Jacob would have thought a stewardess would usually speak.
She placed her hand on his shoulder as she passed by, which almost instantly allowed a comfort to shoot through his mind, covering the distilled terror hidden within. Jacob looked about the plane, taking note of the 20-some passengers that lined both sides of the 2-seater positions. One family obviously headed on vacation, with two younger children—a boy and girl sat near the front cabin. Two seats behind them sat an elderly couple and directly across from them a young couple, which Jacob assumed was both their daughter and her husband noting the resemblance between the older and younger woman.
His interest peaked at analyzing; he looked behind him and noticed a rather robust man sitting two seats behind him, wearing overly large headphones that covered his pudgy ears and cheap aviator sunglasses. He wore a typical Hawaiian-style button up shirt, and short cargo shorts. He gave a nod, noticing Jacob’s stare and Jacob tried his best to smile back in a friendly way.
Beside him sat another young couple, probably in their late twenties he assumed, with no children evident. Behind them, 4 seats back sat a man by himself and across from him 4 women who were dressed in the latest fashion and style and exhibited the typical giggler manor of Southern Californian’s finest.
Jacob turned about in his seat and began to finally calm down, with everything on his mind, including work. He decided closing his eyes and imagining the trip ahead and how it would help to shape his ever-growing career in the nearing future was much more comforting than allowing himself to dwindle on the finite details of the flight ahead. He was finally nearing the top of his career path and he knew that it was only a matter of time before senior management had an opening and he would become vice-president. This client and maybe a couple more would land him the position, he was certain.
He slipped slowly into a soft slumber, not fully asleep, but not awake either. His thoughts rolled through his mind, never once slipping to any particular topic. He thought of ex-girlfriends, his daughter who was now 4 years old and living with her mother, his life at the age of 28 and where it was headed, and his mind continued to play on the sensual touch of the stewardess and how he would probably ask for her number for this trip was through.
The turbulence jarred his thoughts from his mind as a sudden shake began to erupt through the plane like an earthquake. He opened his eyes and through the milky glass window he could see the brilliant dancing of lightning from the nearby clouds. Their dark color was brilliant and full of anger only Mother Nature could develop. He knew the full fury of her wrath, growing up in an area where tornadoes were all too common.
The lightning flashed and illuminated a face in the darkened window. Behind him was the stewardess, her somber smile illuminated in a way that made her almost appear to be enjoying the display of terror just inches on the other side of the glass exterior. He turned and no one appeared to be around him, no stewardess, no passengers, not even the chubby man in the cheap button up shirt. He was suddenly alone, terrified, and without reason for what was happening.
His mind raced with thoughts of carelessness and the possibility that he was simply having a nightmare, but he had never had a nightmare so real and so vivid. He tried his best to buckle the straps around his chest tighter and almost at once had begun to recite the few prayers he remembered from church as a child. They came out in short whispers, never making much sense and probably missing more than a couple verses.
When he opened his eyes, the cabin was once again full of passengers, all looking towards him in a display of both fear and also concern. He was dreaming, although it didn’t feel like it. It was the only viable excuse for what had transpired.
The stewardess came up beside him, once again with the hand on his shoulder and whispered in her soft and alluring voice, “Sir, you were making some noise in your sleep. I am not meaning to pry, but I just wanted to check that you are ok?”
She sounded sincere, but he could not misplace that grin he had seen just moments before in his state of confusion.
“It was a nightmare I think. I am not very fond of flying. I did not mean to cause alarm.” His words came out much more truthful than he thought possible, with little to no trembling to his voice.
“If you need anything sir,” her hand traveling down his arm and resting gently on his left thigh, “please let me know. I am here to ensure you have a pleasant flight.”
Her smile was both intimidating and sexual. Her eyes were a shutter of blue fury that erupted in a passionate guidance to her almost perfect complexion. She appeared to be becoming more beautiful the more he stared at her.
“I will be sure to do that,” Jacob said, returning a smile.
She walked off, back towards the front of the plane and closed the curtain, but not before meeting Jacob’s stare and giving a slight wink.
Suddenly the lights went out once again, but this time the passengers also became aware of what was happening. As before he noticed that outside the window a storm brewed readily in the distance and the wind was whipping the ocean below in a torrent of fury and rage. The water appeared to boil and rage, with waves reaching up for the plane in an attempt to bring it down into his depths.
The front of the plane began its violent shake, that Jacob almost knew for sure was coming. The passengers began to tighten their seatbelts in a silent and alarming unison and the children in the front began to sit with a perfect posture.
“Please remain seated and buckle your seat belts. We are now experiencing some rough turbulence due to weather conditions. Please remain calm and do not be alarmed. We will be through the storm in a matter of minutes. Please consult your safety manual located on the back of the seat in front of you in case of emergency. Thank you.” The voice that spoke was strange and unfamiliar. It was coming from behind the curtain where the stewardess had only moments ago went, but yet this woman who spoke had a much different tone to her voice. It was older, slightly crisp and all in all lethargic. Jacob began to feel slightly confused and sweat beaded down his forehead and his back was now a wet and sticky mass with his thick fabric dress-shirt which allowed little to no air to pass through when buttoned.
The battering rain outside was as sudden as the violent shaking, and the rear of the plane seemed to dive back and forth, twisting the plane in an oblong spiral. The lightning crashed and stirred outside, seeming to miss the plane by inches. The uptake of the winds lifted the plane and dropped it, as if the plane itself were made of nothing more than paper.
The air in the cabin of the plane became thin almost immediately. The oxygen masks deployed and were hanging by thin cords just above the seats. The passengers began strapping the masks on in an attempt to breathe in the still and thin atmosphere and a violent burst of grinding steel could be heard outside the plane.
Jacob tried frantically to put on his mask, but even with following the instructions and hitting the button to allow the oxygen to fill his lungs, he noticed that there was none coming out. His body was starving for air and he could only watch and with each gasp, struggle to remain sane and not out-right panic.
Feeling the urge to black out from the lack of oxygen, Jacob noticed the left wing of the plane; opposite his seat disappear in a blazing instant, most of the side of the plane disappearing with it. The air pulled at his lungs and stung his eyes with the salty mist. He could feel his seat giving in to the pull of the outside air like a vacuum cleaner. He felt powerless and avoided the urge to look towards the gaping hole of doom just feet from his position.
Death was sure to follow, he knew it. He closed his eyes and said the remnants of prayers he thought would do something to comfort him, but they came in short breaths before his eyes rolled back in his head and his mind released a chemical he only knew to be some sort of defense mechanism and Jacob went blank. His mind unwilling to accept the fate, or continue to hear the screams of the other passengers meeting the same dreary fate, as it continued to slowly shut out pieces of reality. His life was no longer headed in the direction it was before, but was now on a different path altogether. This path was much shorter and lead to only one destination.
His thoughts drifted back to the day this whole event began, traveling through each situation as if it was important. He had thought of the past as guidance to future events and closed his eyes attempting to return to the time in which everything seemed to take a downward spiral...
Jacob was a businessman of sorts, an entrepreneur and exasperated account executive that had been working for the past few months developing a business application model for a new software company in Central California. Just south of Sacramento to be exact. Successful in his attempts to maneuver and outsmart his competitor, he was soon promoted to the head of innovative development.
He was assigned a new client, one in Japan with a new and vastly growing success in military software and was almost instantly on a plane with his briefcase, laptop, and ever-ringing cell phone. He had packed light this trip, as the whole purpose of the meeting was simply to meet and greet.
The plane was not the newer types with first class seating and large and luxurious cabins for the passengers, but rather the old beater kinds developed in the 1970s for quick passage with little comfort. The jostling take off only added to the alarm Jacob always felt when he was in the air in one of the tin cans with wings.
“May I assist you with anything sir?” came the voice from the one and only stewardess.
She had a pleasant face, warming smile and a very welcoming sound to her voice which in most cases would have left Jacob with the sense of sexual attractiveness, had he not been overly terrified at the idea of being 5000 feet in the air.
He knew it was evident to her that he was terrified, which made him feel shameful and more than embarrassed. He was rarely embarrassed and never liked to show any sort of weakness or signs of being anything less than a man.
“I’m fine. Thank you for asking though,” his voice pouring out in slight bursts of weakened attempts at faking his emotions.
“Please feel free to let me know if there is anything I can do for you,” came her reply, in a more sensual way than Jacob would have thought a stewardess would usually speak.
She placed her hand on his shoulder as she passed by, which almost instantly allowed a comfort to shoot through his mind, covering the distilled terror hidden within. Jacob looked about the plane, taking note of the 20-some passengers that lined both sides of the 2-seater positions. One family obviously headed on vacation, with two younger children—a boy and girl sat near the front cabin. Two seats behind them sat an elderly couple and directly across from them a young couple, which Jacob assumed was both their daughter and her husband noting the resemblance between the older and younger woman.
His interest peaked at analyzing; he looked behind him and noticed a rather robust man sitting two seats behind him, wearing overly large headphones that covered his pudgy ears and cheap aviator sunglasses. He wore a typical Hawaiian-style button up shirt, and short cargo shorts. He gave a nod, noticing Jacob’s stare and Jacob tried his best to smile back in a friendly way.
Beside him sat another young couple, probably in their late twenties he assumed, with no children evident. Behind them, 4 seats back sat a man by himself and across from him 4 women who were dressed in the latest fashion and style and exhibited the typical giggler manor of Southern Californian’s finest.
Jacob turned about in his seat and began to finally calm down, with everything on his mind, including work. He decided closing his eyes and imagining the trip ahead and how it would help to shape his ever-growing career in the nearing future was much more comforting than allowing himself to dwindle on the finite details of the flight ahead. He was finally nearing the top of his career path and he knew that it was only a matter of time before senior management had an opening and he would become vice-president. This client and maybe a couple more would land him the position, he was certain.
He slipped slowly into a soft slumber, not fully asleep, but not awake either. His thoughts rolled through his mind, never once slipping to any particular topic. He thought of ex-girlfriends, his daughter who was now 4 years old and living with her mother, his life at the age of 28 and where it was headed, and his mind continued to play on the sensual touch of the stewardess and how he would probably ask for her number for this trip was through.
The turbulence jarred his thoughts from his mind as a sudden shake began to erupt through the plane like an earthquake. He opened his eyes and through the milky glass window he could see the brilliant dancing of lightning from the nearby clouds. Their dark color was brilliant and full of anger only Mother Nature could develop. He knew the full fury of her wrath, growing up in an area where tornadoes were all too common.
The lightning flashed and illuminated a face in the darkened window. Behind him was the stewardess, her somber smile illuminated in a way that made her almost appear to be enjoying the display of terror just inches on the other side of the glass exterior. He turned and no one appeared to be around him, no stewardess, no passengers, not even the chubby man in the cheap button up shirt. He was suddenly alone, terrified, and without reason for what was happening.
His mind raced with thoughts of carelessness and the possibility that he was simply having a nightmare, but he had never had a nightmare so real and so vivid. He tried his best to buckle the straps around his chest tighter and almost at once had begun to recite the few prayers he remembered from church as a child. They came out in short whispers, never making much sense and probably missing more than a couple verses.
When he opened his eyes, the cabin was once again full of passengers, all looking towards him in a display of both fear and also concern. He was dreaming, although it didn’t feel like it. It was the only viable excuse for what had transpired.
The stewardess came up beside him, once again with the hand on his shoulder and whispered in her soft and alluring voice, “Sir, you were making some noise in your sleep. I am not meaning to pry, but I just wanted to check that you are ok?”
She sounded sincere, but he could not misplace that grin he had seen just moments before in his state of confusion.
“It was a nightmare I think. I am not very fond of flying. I did not mean to cause alarm.” His words came out much more truthful than he thought possible, with little to no trembling to his voice.
“If you need anything sir,” her hand traveling down his arm and resting gently on his left thigh, “please let me know. I am here to ensure you have a pleasant flight.”
Her smile was both intimidating and sexual. Her eyes were a shutter of blue fury that erupted in a passionate guidance to her almost perfect complexion. She appeared to be becoming more beautiful the more he stared at her.
“I will be sure to do that,” Jacob said, returning a smile.
She walked off, back towards the front of the plane and closed the curtain, but not before meeting Jacob’s stare and giving a slight wink.
Suddenly the lights went out once again, but this time the passengers also became aware of what was happening. As before he noticed that outside the window a storm brewed readily in the distance and the wind was whipping the ocean below in a torrent of fury and rage. The water appeared to boil and rage, with waves reaching up for the plane in an attempt to bring it down into his depths.
The front of the plane began its violent shake, that Jacob almost knew for sure was coming. The passengers began to tighten their seatbelts in a silent and alarming unison and the children in the front began to sit with a perfect posture.
“Please remain seated and buckle your seat belts. We are now experiencing some rough turbulence due to weather conditions. Please remain calm and do not be alarmed. We will be through the storm in a matter of minutes. Please consult your safety manual located on the back of the seat in front of you in case of emergency. Thank you.” The voice that spoke was strange and unfamiliar. It was coming from behind the curtain where the stewardess had only moments ago went, but yet this woman who spoke had a much different tone to her voice. It was older, slightly crisp and all in all lethargic. Jacob began to feel slightly confused and sweat beaded down his forehead and his back was now a wet and sticky mass with his thick fabric dress-shirt which allowed little to no air to pass through when buttoned.
The battering rain outside was as sudden as the violent shaking, and the rear of the plane seemed to dive back and forth, twisting the plane in an oblong spiral. The lightning crashed and stirred outside, seeming to miss the plane by inches. The uptake of the winds lifted the plane and dropped it, as if the plane itself were made of nothing more than paper.
The air in the cabin of the plane became thin almost immediately. The oxygen masks deployed and were hanging by thin cords just above the seats. The passengers began strapping the masks on in an attempt to breathe in the still and thin atmosphere and a violent burst of grinding steel could be heard outside the plane.
Jacob tried frantically to put on his mask, but even with following the instructions and hitting the button to allow the oxygen to fill his lungs, he noticed that there was none coming out. His body was starving for air and he could only watch and with each gasp, struggle to remain sane and not out-right panic.
Feeling the urge to black out from the lack of oxygen, Jacob noticed the left wing of the plane; opposite his seat disappear in a blazing instant, most of the side of the plane disappearing with it. The air pulled at his lungs and stung his eyes with the salty mist. He could feel his seat giving in to the pull of the outside air like a vacuum cleaner. He felt powerless and avoided the urge to look towards the gaping hole of doom just feet from his position.
Death was sure to follow, he knew it. He closed his eyes and said the remnants of prayers he thought would do something to comfort him, but they came in short breaths before his eyes rolled back in his head and his mind released a chemical he only knew to be some sort of defense mechanism and Jacob went blank. His mind unwilling to accept the fate, or continue to hear the screams of the other passengers meeting the same dreary fate, as it continued to slowly shut out pieces of reality. His life was no longer headed in the direction it was before, but was now on a different path altogether. This path was much shorter and lead to only one destination.
Awesome!! Can't wait to read more!!
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