It all started in June.
On a plane.
It was plausable to say that virtually nobody on the whole of that plane knew each other. That would make for much later on, but for just then, it seemed entirely unimportant. The plane was heading for the U.K., headed by an experinced pilot who had done it seemingly seventy thousand times before. A reletively smooth lift off from JFK, leaving the city that never slept in its dust, and starting off over the water, at promptly 7:11 P.M.
Torhild Willow, with her light skin and dyed-red hair was sitting with her younger sister; it was the child of only eight's first flight; Torhild had expected her to be terrified, but she had settled in just fine with a large coffee table book on dinosaurs.
By the time they had reached crusing altitude, it was fully dark leaving a strange sort of air to the place; the small, personal lights were on here and there. Several people had already turned their lights out, planning on sleeping through the lengthy flight.
Torhild dug around in her backpack until she located her thick sketchbook and pencil. She sketched for a few minutes, thinking of the unluckey turn of events that had led them here. At ninteen, she was technically old enough to take care of Crese, her little half-sister, but the family would have nothing of it, dispite the fact that they had shared mothers.
Three months before, an accident had led to the grizzly end of her mother and step-father, which had jerked her out of pre-law school to deal with aftermath.
She replced her sketch book in her bag after a few minutes, per the request of the woman in the seat behind her, who was getting ready to sleep. Crese put down her book, and curled up to the window woth the flimsy pillow at her head.
Lights slowly went out over the next few hours, and many drifted into sleep. A sort of unpunctuared silence overtook the plane, as many do at such an hour as that.
Halfway through the flight, the co-piolet recived a transmission.
"I can't understand any of this." He said, furrowing his thick eyebrows. The flight, as many do, ran on auto pilot, but there was control to a certain extent. He did understand it, of course- it would have been more accurate for him to say that he could not belive any of it, for many understand, but never belive. It is that way, with humans.
"What?" Asked the other, glancing over at the man. They had worked together once or twice before, but had never bothered to learn each other's names. There seemed to be nothing particularly extaordinary of either of them. One was exessively tall, so much so that he hardly fit into the cockpit. The co-pilot was younger, with a slick hairdo that the other figured took far too much hair gel.
"Well, I think- I think they're telling us not to land, but it's difficult to tell. There seems to be a lot of shouting." He replied.
The pilot licked his lips apprehinsively, listening intently. "Where are we supposed to land, then?"
The co-pilot repeated the question into the micraphone. "He's saying Iceland- what the hell is going on? It sounds like there's some sort of attack on the city, I can check Dublin Airport, but it sounds bad."
They sat in silence.
"I'm just getting static, now. Thought I heard something, but-" The co-pilot left his sentence hanging in silence.
"Should we announce it to the passengers?" He asked.
"Contact Keflavik, see if there's anything they can do."
A few mintues of diolouge went between the co-pilot and the airport, before he said, "They'll take us, but apparently we're not the only ones. Several flights have already called in, citeing the problems in England."
