ATLAS 776

9

Marx opened his eyes again. The sounds of lightning cackling and thunder came back. Marx felt the dread come back once more in full force. he looked to his right. His wife was missing. It was back to square one.

This time, the entire cabin was empty. Not a single passenger or flight stewardess was seen, just the empty seats and untouched cabin. The entire area looked like nobody else had been in the place. All the seat televisions were off. The magazines were all in their pouches neatly arranged. No pillows or personal items were observed. There was  a pool of blood on the ground where the stewardess monster thing had previously stood.

"Get up!" a feminine voice shouted. Marx looked at the direction it came from, and noticed a teenage girl with a pretty face and a ponytail hairstyle. She was wearing a white hoodie and dark blue jeans. Marx felt a sense of familiarity.

"Who are you?" Marx shouted back. He was in a state of total fear, but he was not as anxious as before. He was trying to make sense of the situation unfolding before him.

"Name's Victoria, we met back at the airport gates." The girl said, as she ran over to him and gestured him to get out of the seat. "What time is it?" She said, looking around and tilting her head seemingly to check the area.

Marx was still trying to assess the situation, when his mind finally registered the question. He looked down at his wristwatch. "Eleven fifty nine!" He shouted back.

"Great, It's not midnight yet." Victoria responded. She was breathing quite heavily. It looked like she just had a run.

"What happens at midnight?" Marx said, as he left his seat row. His face was perplexed and scared at the same time. His hands were a little shaky.

Victoria quickly grabbed Marx's arms with both of her hands, and looked him straight into the eyes. "Whatever you do, no matter what happens, don't look them in the eyes. You understand?" Victoria gave a firm tone.

Marx pulled his arms from her tight grip. "Why? Wh- What happens at midnight? Where is everyone? Why should I trust you?" He answered, leaning back more and more away from the girl.

Victoria released her grips, and quickly walked towards the front curtain. "Because I am one of the only people stuck here with you!" She answered.

Marx thought for a while, and felt that his gut instincts were telling him to just follow the girl's instructions for now. He was lost and scared, and he felt that he would do worse alone.

Victoria turned her head back, and raised her voice a little. "Oh shit! They're coming! Move. Now." She pulled Marx's arm hard. Marx followed the momentum, and the girl led him to the back end of the cabin.

Victoria pulled the blue curtain in her way apart, and peeked out into the next compartment.

"Shit." She said, clenching her right fist. Victoria looked around the connecting room between the next passenger cabin and the one they came from. "Okay, okay. We need to get past them." She said, blinking her eyes quickly.

"Who? How?" A confused Marx replied, still trying to understand.

"Look. We need to get to the restrooms and climb through the top hatch. This will get us access to the ventilation chamber above. We need to get off this level before twelve midnight." Victoria said to him.

"Its past twelve already." Marx said, while he looked down on his wristwatch once more. "It's twelve oh five..."

Victoria pushed his left hand downwards, and replied. "Your watch will only show the time in this space when you first entered. The actual time here does not follow your watch after that. The speed of time movement is erratic."

Victoria was still peeking outside, scanning and trying to figure out the patterns of the entities on the other end of the blue curtain. She turned back to Marx. "They move through each cabin every hour, their time. This is denoted when the front flight stewardess walks through this connector room."

"Why the hell are we still here then?" Marx said in a hurried voice, getting ready to run.

"They will walk through this room. They don't actually come in. They use the blue curtains that cover both exits of this connector as some sort of phase gate. The connecting rooms are invisible to them." Victoria replied, grasping his arm firmly to prevent him from running. "They still have about a few more minutes by our time before they move on to your cabin."

"Where the fuck are we?" Marx said. He was stiff and and still trembling.

"I think we have shifted realities... Changed into another dimension, Heck... I don't know." Victoria said, while she rummaged the cupboards and bins in the room. The sounds of doors being swung open were heard.

Marx joined the search. "How do I know if they can see me?"

Victoria pulled a flash light out of a shelf. She shook it, and uncapped the screw on the base of the torch. "The storm. If you hear the storm, it means you are in their playing field... Shit... No batteries." Victoria slipped the torchlight into her jean's rear pocket. She then proceeded to peek out once more through the blue curtains. "okay... They are coming over. once they pass into the next room, we head for the next connector. Don't stare or look at any of the passengers on the way, okay... Follow my lead exactly. Don't speak. If you have to, speak exactly what I speak."

Marx gulped and swallowed hard. "Alright." Marx took a deep breath and exhaled. "How do you know all this?" He asked.

"I've been through this exact same sequence countless times. I am trying to get out of here. You are the first person I've seen to enter this dimension apart from my friends."