ATLAS 776

20

Thud. The cover dropped back in place as Aiden covered the pair's attempt at sneaking through a plane. Victoria felt the stuffy and uncomfortable, being in an enclosed tiny tunnel with little air-conditioning or light.

Victoria knelt down and placed her right arm against the metal wall for support. "Wait..." she whispered. Aiden turned back and smiled again. "Come on, pretty girl. No turning back now!" he excitedly proclaimed. Victoria gulped. There was an unexplained sense of dread and danger. It was as if her instincts were advising against her to continue. Victoria closed her eyes for a brief moment and swallowed hard. Recalling on her knowledge of aircraft, ventilation shafts should not exist. Commercial airliners often used overhead distribution nozzles to distribute air around the various compartments of the aircraft fuselage. The only other source of air is the Gaspers overhead from the seats which passengers can control.

"Wait. This isn't right." Victoria whispered in a panicked tone. She felt a sudden intense fear as her body tensed up and froze for a brief moment. "Where the fuck is this?" she started to speak, tone fluctuating as her grasp on the situation loosened. "Ventilation shafts... Ventilation shafts don't... What the fuck." she shouted. No response.

Aiden was nowhere to be seen. There were no visible traces of her friend. The entire area was just a claustrophobic confine of darkness and dread. Victoria's voice echoed down the chamber, resonating itself downwards in what was a seemingly long shaft. An impossible shaft.

Victoria felt tears forming in her eyes. "Fuck this." she whispered to herself. She quickly turned back, ready to pull the cover back out and drop back into the Economy toilet. Except there was no cover to be found. The entire back part was just an equally long stretch of darkness that led into black. Victoria was sure she had not moved much since she first climbed up.

Victoria burst into tears, the reality of her situation had taken over. She was in an unknown place alone, scared, confused. Victoria looked back at both directions. She contemplated whether to move ahead. She had to. There was no other way. Her frantic attempts at groping the metal flooring to find a cover or grating were going nowhere. She was sure nothing would change if she did not move.

Victoria clenched her fists and tried to wipe her tears away. "You can do this." she steeled herself and pushed on, crawling forward into the unknown.

"Aiden? Aiden? Come on, this isn't funny you dick!" Victoria shouted into the darkness as she crawled. There was still no response. There were no covers or openings in the long shaft. Not even markings or any sort of deviation from the same repeating metal tile used to construct this tunnel. Victoria stopped crawling. It had been way too long. Is there even an end? Victoria thought to herself.

A distant scream came from behind her, an inhumane scream unlike anything she had ever heard before. it was screeching, yet soft. "What the actual fuck?" she said to herself. Victoria quickly continued to crawl forward, anywhere away from the source of the sound would be better. Victoria stopped once more, out of breath and tired. She looked at her wristwatch, and fumbled to find the illumination button. She pressed hard on it, and the watch lit up. 11:59PM. 

"No way." Victoria said to herself. "Yes." Aiden said as his dead corpse crawled from behind her, body mangled and blood dripping. His eyes were gone, a hollow socket left behind. Victoria screamed, but she could not hear herself. She felt the mess of a body grab her. It was over.