Prologue

I took out one of my earphones from my ear as I saw the airhostess walking towards my seat down the aisle. She kept pausing at a few seats as some passengers were whispering their requests at the side of her face. She was friendly and kept smiling and nodding at the passengers.

When she got closer to me, I raised my hand slightly to get her attention and she caught it.

She smiled down at me. "Yes ma'am?"

"Uh, can I get a bottle of water, it's getting kind of hot up in here." I told her, feeling compelled to return her smile.

"That just means we are close." She said keeping that warm smile. "Sure, it's coming right up."

"Thank you." I said returning my earphone back in my ear.

She nodded and walked perfectly on. I looked at the passengers seated across the aisle from me. It was a young blonde woman sitting by the window and a brunette man next to her. He was holding her hand, and she was saying something about her bright fingernails.

I pressed the volume button on my iPhone 11 and turned the music right up. I looked down at the novel on my lap, in bold cursive letters, the title read Adapt Teacher. Although I had read this book twice already, I still felt unprepared. I was excited but I still felt a little anxious.

This heat was getting worse. I couldn't bare it anymore. I had paid for first-class; it wouldn't kill them to keep the air conditioner on. I looked around and everyone else were fanning themselves with whatever they had in their hands, if not nothing. Back in Duran it was mostly cold, on rare days the sun shone. Maybe I'm just being a little extra since I barely get any sunshine back home. But everyone on this plane was feeling it too, going crazy with the fanning. They are not all from Duran...

I took the novel on my lap and began fanning myself. The heat seemed to be getting worse every minute. I started to sweat. Coming from a country where the temperature was almost never higher than -32 degrees Celsius, sweating was like a miracle.

A baby started wailing, children started complaining to their mothers and everyone began looking around at the other passengers just to feel reassured that they were not the only ones feeling this heat so intensely.

Even the airhostesses kept pulling down at their bowties often and looking at each other trying not to make it obvious. Some of them even had trails of sweat running down their made-up faces.

The airhostesses were now up and down the aisles with water bottles. The practiced-walks they had before were dumped, and replaced by scurrying this way and that. There was a tremendous change in the atmosphere.

Just then, the intercom beeped on. An airhostess handed me a bottle of water and scurried away to attend to the other passengers.

"Attention all passengers, this is your pilot Gordon speaking." A sturdy voice broke out of the intercom.

I opened the 500ml bottle of water clumsily and gulped down the whole bottle in seconds. I was not satisfied. I wanted more. My mouth was dry. I was feeling suffocated. It was uncomfortable.

"We have a technical emergency. The engine is burning up resulting to all the heat and fume from the engine entering the plane. We won't be able to land safely. Please say your prayers. Some may die of suffocation, and some may survive the suffocation but die at landing. We are about to crash." The pilot said. His voice was sturdy, he did not sound like someone that knew he was possibly going to die at any moment.

I couldn't believe what I was hearing but nothing beat what I was feeling. I suddenly smelled burn. There was no more air. I couldn't breathe. My lungs were giving up on me. It was painful.

People were screaming and wailing and crying and sucking for air.

I started gasping for air. There wasn't any more. It felt like I was in a nightmare I couldn't get out of. The airplane started to shake and rattle. I gripped the armrests as tight as I could. A gas mask bounced down in front of me, I snatched it and put it to my face. It helped a bit. I felt a little bit of air tickle my lungs. But it wasn't enough.

The shaking of the airplane got worse. Someone got ripped from their seat and flew to the back of the plane. Things started tearing and ripping from the plane and flying around. The stranger woman in the seat next to me who could have been the same age as my mom held my hand, and I held back even tighter. We both knew what was coming. I knew what was coming very well. Even my day, I never imagined it would be like this. I was hoping my day would be painless and without me even knowing it, like in my sleep or something. But this, this was horrible. I wanted it to end. I was terrified. The gas mask I was gripping on to my face with my other hand flew out of my hand.

"No!" I screamed or thought I did. I didn't hear my own voice. It seemed muffled under the screams of everyone else.

I looked over at the couple on the opposite side of the aisle, the man’s forehead was covered in blood and the woman who was most probably his girlfriend was screaming for help, but no one came to their rescue.

This was a nightmare.

I shut my eyes as tight as I could and began to pray.

My seat started to shake. Before I could think of it, I went flying to the back of the plane. As I was in the air, I saw that there was no back of the plane, it was open, there was sky, I was going to fall to my death...