Airborne

Chapter 17 - Discrimination

The screams pierced through Jack's music, screams of pure agony and suffering.

 Jack awoke with a startle, sitting up and glancing around quickly realizing the infected had not broken through, he sighed in relief knowing that the worst had not just happened.

"Maybe it was just a dream." Jack thought to himself, before hearing another one.

A high pitched scream echoed across the cabin, the user's voice cracking in the process, as if their throat was torn from overuse. Jack began to hear commotion, the lights turned back on.

Jack rolled over and saw Aiden, still lying down, but eyes wide open; terrified, he seemed unable to move.

"What was that?" He whimpered. Jack sighed and tried to reassure he was safe, the fort was still intact.

"It was nothing." He whispered back. However, Jack was wrong and he knew it. 

It was something.

"I'm going to go use the bathroom." He lied to his brother, sliding out from the row of chairs he had turned into a bed before standing up. The others were also curious, David and Samantha were clutching each other as they stood out their chairs. Warit still sat down, face buried in his hands, traumatized by the death of Stephen still.

Jack stared down the aisle, he could see the crowd of passengers in the first cabin, all staring towards the flight deck, where the screams had come from. All their attention had been drawn away from the "carriers" towards the screams. They didn't even notice Jack as he approached behind them.

"What do you think it is?" Erika abruptly asks into Jack's ear. Making Jack jump and cry out from Shock, alerting the entire first cabin of their presence. The people nearest to Jack quickly backing out of his way, weaving in between the seats and pushing each other out of the way.

Erika was kind of, off. She had witnessed the death of most of her friends, including Stephen. Jack could tell she was suffering, mentally as she began grimacing towards him, her once well kept, curly blonde hair was now all over the place, chunks of it in her fingers as she had been pulling on it for the past few hours.

"I think it's one of those people they left behind, behind the fort, remember that?" She told Jack, chuckling quietly to herself. "They left people for dead back in Bangkok, when they rescued your brother. Remember? They left behind five people, I saw them, they were so scared, so scared. No, they didn't care Jack, they only care about themselves. They were left for dead." She mumbled to herself, almost incoherently, the other passengers staring at her. He knew about the people they left behind, he felt guilty about leaving them too, he was too busy embracing Aiden to do anything about it, including saving his classmate Mike. He was surely dead by now, but then again, so were many others.

"Don't trust them, Jack." Erika said, glaring at the other passengers. "They'll turn on us in a heartbeat. They already have before." She added, tossing her messed bangs out of her eyes as Jack began to creep through the first cabin, the other passengers quickly jumping out of his way. Were they really that scared of him? A sixteen year old? It was rather funny, actually, watching these people fear him just because he had zombie blood stained on his shirt. Even the man in the white suit, Randall, backed away from him slowly once he realized nobody was willing to back him up. Jack glanced behind him and noticed Erika wasn't following him. Maybe it was for the best.

Abruptly, the intercom crackled to life as the Pilot's voice filled the plane, this time, much more shaken than before.

"This is your captain speaking, we will soon embark our landing at Copenhagen Airport, it is safe there and they have promised Asylum upon our arrival. We are very, very, very lucky." He said, seeming to grow more emotional with each 'very' breaking down into sobs shortly after before cutting the intercom.