The Zing of Longtime Friends | Griffin, The Invisible Man [ONGOING]

21. The Flight In

"Welcome aboard... Gremlin Air!" proclaimed the gremlin air-stewardess in her gravelly voice.

The vacation-goers were aboard a rickety green plane that was made out of uneven plates of metal loosely bolted together. It chugged through the sky, its engines coughing and spluttering out smoke. Every time it did so, the plane faltered, and made a small dropping motion.

It would fail any minute now, everyone was sure of it.

Many gremlins - wily green creatures alike - rummaged through luggage, gnawed on bits and bobs, hissed and growled at their peers in effort to grab something before they did. In short, they were horrid monsters.

Not monsters, really, but more like... untamed rodents.

Critters.

Yes, critters. They scurried around as such, too; spoke in jargon to one another and were untrusting of their own. 'Feral kleptomaniacs' would be accurate.

"Ladies, and gentlemen," said the air-stewardess. She was much more collected than the rest of her kind, but she was not differing in voice and appearance, albeit she had cladded in a curly strawberry-blonde wig, a purple loafishly-shaped hat with a matching scarf tucked under her blue dress. On her thin, pointed lips was bright electric-pink lipstick and on her half-lidded crimson eyes' eyelids was lavender eyeshadow with pale periwinkle mascara. Behind her, two gremlins were fighting over a rubber duck. "Please direct your attention to the front of the cabin. For your safety, please unbuckle your seatbelt." She demonstrated with a detached seatbelt in hand.

A pink monster with one yellow eye and a vest-shaped suntan did so with a "oh" before being shot out of the plane's roof, leaving a fairly large hole, and screaming as she was being pulled back through the air, landing face-first against the tail.

The air-stewardess continued, unfazed. "It is likely we will experience a drop in cabin-pressure, oxygen will be provided."

A gremlin dropped down from the overhead luggage compartment and grabbed the face of a green monster in a tuxedo and top hat (Mr Jekyll, he sat near the window because of his agoraphobia) and started blowing into his mouth.

"Can I steal that for you, sir?" inquired the air-stewardess to a teal sea monster (the Missing Link).

"Alright, thanks," he smiled. She grabbed it, and threw it out a window on the right-side of the plane, next to Frank. He and Eunice's eyes were wide.

"Can't I just... fly us to Scotland, at this point?" Irene asked. "We're close... right? Right?"

Griffin turned to her, and furrowed his brows. "Close? To Scotland?" On that note, the back of Irene's chair broke and dropped backwards. "Reney, you know I never trust you with directions."

"What?" She exclaimed, transforming into a bat and perching on his right shoulder. The air-stewardess started babbling and rode the snack cart down the aisle, tossing unwanted packets to the passengers. She even broke a gargoyle's arm in the process. "It's just the, uh, whole North Atlantic, right? Plus England."

Mr. Fly flew out of his seat to go the restroom and got ran over by the cart. Irene and Griffin winces.

"Look," Griffin sighed, "Bermuda's gonna be great. The flight, so far, is terrifying, but it'll be worth it."

"Not if one of us dies," Irene frowned, after watching Mr. Yeti's foot crunch under the snack cart's speeding wheels. He screamed.

He rubbed one of her fuzzy cheeks with his finger. "Reney, I love you, but we both know you're - we're - not as young as we used to be. You might really hurt yourself."

She leaned into his lifted hand further, and embraced the physical affection. The two stopped, and watched in wide eyes as the stewardess poured hot coffee onto Murray's junk. He screamed in pure agony.

"Yeah, maybe we should say our 'I love you's before anything else happens," Griffin said.

"I love you," Irene smiled, her pupils dilating and her lavender eyes glowing. She noticed the cart back on the move in the corner of her eye. "Put your feet up! Put your feet up!"

"Where?"

"On my seat! My seat!" She pointed with her wing, and he rotated to do so. She nestled on his stomach.

"Okay! Okay. Sheesh." He said, before smiling again. "I love you."

"I love you."

"I was thinking..." Griffin trailed off bashfully.

"Yeah?"

"Do you... want to go to the next level?"

"Like adopt a cat?"

"No, stupidhead," Crystal said from the row across, "he means, like, having a baby."

"What!?" Griffin's voice went higher than anticipated.

Irene scrunched up her face. "A baby?"

"No!" the Invisible man put his hands up in defence. "No babies!"

Irene looked at him worriedly. "Are you just saying that, now, 'cause I..."

"Adopting a cat's seems great." Griffin responded, earnest.

"Tch," Crystal rolled her eyes, returning to her magazine, "I'd have your babies..." she muttered to herself.

"Wait, what is that supposed to mean?" Irene asked, her brows knitting together.

"Nothing, just that you're too old."

"Griffin's my husband!"

"Yeah, so?"

Irene grumbled, crossing her wings and tapping her left talons on her right 'elbow'. "You'll find a boyfriend eventually. Just not someone who's old enough to be your dad. Who's also a family member's husband."

"Whatever." Crystal didn't even look up.

"Okay, folks," said the captain on the intercom, "you are free to move around the cabin, as we have started our descent."

That stated, the plane stopped abruptly, before dropping out of the sky nose-first. While the gremlins were calm (the air-stewardess was much more reasonably asking the passengers if they wanted snacks of beverages), the plates of green metal started breaking away from the plane, until just the fame and floor was left for them to float in the sea below after diving underwater for a brief, terrifying moment.

"Ladies and gentlemen," said the pilot, "we have reached our final destination, the Bermuda Triangle."