The Ghost Flight

I'm immersed in the deepest of sleeps, having a weird dream, though. It's funny how we living things have the ability to ignore the outside world in such a way, to be so unaware of what is happening and of forgetting what happened minutes ago, or maybe even hours ago, who knows. I don't really know how long I'd slept.

A very sudden movement wakes me up, and my first thought is: it's an earthquake. Nothing scares me more than earthquakes. Without even opening my eyes well, I get up from my bed at the speed of light, or, at least, I try to, before something around my waist pulls me down, back to... A seat.

A seatbelt. I am definitely not  in bed. Finally opening my eyes and wiping the sleep off of them, I look around. Huh, I'm in a plane.

Wait. What? What am I doing in an airplane? Where am I going? I begin to panic, when I see my laptop, right in front of me with Microsoft Word opened up. It has "Diane Garza" written at the top, which I do believe is my name, and a bunch of text in it, which I assume I'd written before I fell asleep. I start to read it and immediately recognize the text as the reports I was assigned a while ago. When did actually start them? I can't remember.

Wait... I have to fill my reports... For my business trip... In Chicago. That was it! I'm on my way to my business trip. I'm happy now that I've made sense of where I am and why. I'm on my way to Chicago. Cool. I finish reading the report and try to pick up where'd I'd left off. I am too distracted to even care about the fact that I don't remember starting it. I don't even remember being on the plane before I fell asleep. It never even crosses my mind that I am the only one in my row of three seats. I just assume it must be a rather calm, emptier flight.

I finish typing the last words in my report and save it. I'm done. Unsure of what to do next, I glance at my watch. It's 3:01. Huh, no wonder the plane is so quiet and dark; I should probably go back to sleep. Wait, when is this plane landing? I have no idea at what time I'd gotten on it. It doesn't concern me though, the turbulence is gone, so I probably won't be woken up until we land, whenever that is.

Without thinking any further, I close my laptop and put it aside to get comfortable. I'm starting to drift off to sleep when the strong turbulence hits again. I open my eyes immediately and pick up my laptop from the floor under the seat next to me, where it had fallen. That is when something starts to bother me.

It's far too quiet. How is there no crying babies or whispering people? It cannot be possible that EVERYONE is asleep. Not a single light on the ceiling in the rows in front of me is turned on. I stretch up from my seat and try to look around as discretely as I can, but then I realize I can look around all I want. I am the only one in the airplane.

I'm the absolute only one. There aren't even any flight attendants anywhere, and not a single person between the many rows of seats around mine. I am all alone in a dark plane, which has me wondering, am I really going to Chicago? This can't be good.

I am trying to figure out what to do when I feel the turbulence again, stronger this time. Hell, this is worse than an earthquake. What kind of storm is going on out there? I lift up the cover of my window, expecting to see darkness since it's close to 3 am, but instead, all I see are clouds. Not just any clouds, though, the strangest, greyest, lightning striking, illuminated clouds I'd ever seen. The plane is probably darker than the lighting filled sky outside.

I'm really starting to get scared now. Who is driving this plane? Does he know we're flying in the middle of a storm? I just stare at the gray clouds, almost hypnotized, and they are occasionally struck by lighting, making them appear a lighter shade of grey, and making the wing of the plane completely visible. I keep staring, and become surprised when the lighting has a long pause, making the sky dark for a long time.