“The Night the Plane Dropped”, Part 2 – A Short Story

Woke Dancer // Pulp Fiction Edition, Vol. 2

She thought to herself: maybe she should have done the harvest one last time before she left. But with Keyair around her, she had lost her nerve. Never had she missed a harvest for any reason before now. 

Before what the locals called a “voodoo child” arrived on the island, the area had slowly fallen into a drought. Legend had it that a lost child had come back to haunt her people. A child not yet a woman who was raped, killed, and then left in the sea to become what humans thought animals to be: nothing.

So when Dominga and her voodoo ways graced the island, she was accepted only because they needed her, not because they wanted to.  The light that fell from her hair could bring life to anything – except for humans. She had tried that already, and it almost killed her. 

Dominga shook the thoughts away and plopped into her window seat on Flight A1273. Breathe. 

It was an almost empty flight, but the passengers had been rowdy enough. Some even recognized her and tried to ask how her hair “did what it did,” but when she looked inside them, she heard how weird and disgusting they thought she was; a creature! A devil! She chuckled, and ignored them. 

An hour passed, and the flight was halfway to Panama City. Dominga would take the boat to the mountains away from all the voices, master her powers, and live in peace. That was her plan. She thought now he would fear her enough to leave her be. 

Breathe. Then there was silence; the usual voices went black. Breathe. 

She couldn’t understand why she couldn’t hear anything. Had she finally mastered her powers? Nonsense. She had only been alive for 253 years and had just developed new abilities she wasn’t even close to figuring out. Where are the voices? Come back! 

When she looked around, her eyes locked with Keyair, who had come from behind the curtain near the cockpit. She stiffened in her seat and stole her eyes away. 

He sat in the middle seat, his leg brushing up against hers. The sun had begun to set, and the oranges made her look ethereal and him handsome. 

Keyair couldn’t help but give her his welcome kiss: on her neck just below her ears. Just like she liked it.

She turned to him, and looked into those squinted eyes.  Their faces were close enough to become mirrors of the other. The same person. 

Keyair’s words cut into her skin, “We are bound, my love. Don’t you understand?” 

And she did understand: that he had tricked her; that she had liked it. She throbbed with him next to her as anger became excitement. He was her love bomb, and he knew it all too well. They would never leave each other alone. 

She looked around to see the passengers turning into different things; their eyes orbs of blue and their lips pale gray. 

“What are you doing to them?” Dominga said. “Why can’t I hear the voices?” 

Keyair laughed. 

“Tell me!” 

“What’s the difference between normal and special?” 

She moved closer so their lips almost touched. 

“Tell me.”  

“We are special. And these people who were once normal are special too,” Keyair bit his lip. “You might want to put on your seatbelt.”

Dominga unconsciously followed what he had said before she could question it. And then her heart stopped as the plane dived straight for the ocean. She scrambled to look out the window to see the crisp water shining back. 

She wanted to scream, but thought maybe this would be her relief. Finally, a piece of heaven. 

But then the water became an amalgamation of green foam torting the water into its strange hole, leaving nothing but the bottom of the sea exposed to air.

“What are you doing to me?” she asked. 

“I created it just for you.” 

She grabbed his hand just as they were about to touch the hole, her breath quickening. Breathe. 

The entire plane vibrated when it went through the vortex, but Dominga had expected an explosion. She had expected to feel every ounce of pain from a human death without her light-filled curls protecting her. 

She opened her eyes, and saw they were still in the air above an entire green sea that mimicked the small hole. The skies were purple and the rain was black, and she felt like there was no oxygen where they had gone. It was a place not like Earth but not like sleep either.

The plane shook uncontrollably.

“What’s happening?” Dominga said. 

Keyair took her hand and everyone followed them to the front in a straight line. 

“What’s happening!” Dominga said again. 

He wrapped a rope around their waists as everyone put on parachutes. 

“We’re going to have to jump.” 

“No no no, why?” Dominga was crying now, hearing the pieces of the plane slowly disintegrate into dust.

Keyair pushed them out and everyone followed, and the plane became a patch of dust. Like it was never there at all. 

But it wasn’t a fall like the fall of the plane; it was a controlled descent. 

“You can fly?” Dominga said. 

Everyone else took their parachutes out and they landed on the pinkish terrain. 

“This is my family,” Keyair waved to all of the blue-eyed devils. “That Earth plane couldn’t survive here, anyway. 

“We wanted to start our new world, my love. One where you don’t have to be the voodoo child everywhere you go anymore.” 

She shook her head, but then noticed one of his kin pointing a knife at his back. When she reached for it, another one of them grabbed her from behind. 

“What are you all doing?” Keyair said. 

“We are the cursed ones,” one of them holding Dominga said. 

Dominga and Keyair stared at the other. 

“Your family of the species T is gone, Keyair,” the one holding Keyair said. “We just needed you both here at the same time.” 

The cursed ones; the ones in which were mutilated and destroyed. Keyair and his family took their powers away, then killed them. Their spirits and physical memories somehow lived. 

Help me. 

Dominga’s eyes wandered to see what voice had infiltrated, but it was none of the blue-eyed men. She continued to stare at Keyair as the two were tied up. 

“Keyair?” Dominga uttered, and the man slapped her. 

“You helped him! I thought you were like us. Kind, not evil like his people,” Damon, one of the blue-eyes, said. 

“I didn’t know he was using my powers for that, please,” Dominga’s tears continued to flow. 

Help me. It was Keyair’s thoughts. He had given her access for the first time in their long acquaintance. 

Dominga shook her head, but Keyair pleaded again. 

“I don’t trust you,” Dominga said in a whisper so that the blue-eyes couldn’t understand. 

“Please,” Keyair mumbled. 

“I’m done following you. How could you do this to our own people? Our own colonies?”

“Shut up! Both of you!” Damon yelled as the rest of them began to circle the island, gathering supplies with familiarity. “You are the outsiders now. And you will die.” 

“I need you; I’ve always needed sweet you. Not like me,” Keyair said.  

Dominga didn’t know what he had said, but something in those words made the voices come back in a rush. 

The pain and agony in those voices made Dominga’s heartbeat thump twice as hard, so much that she had to suck in what felt like all of the air in the world to finally breathe. The voices had become a part of her being, and she couldn’t breathe right without them.

She would do what she had only done once, to Keyair. 

She grasped Damon’s mind and commanded him to untie them, his body like a puppet. 

“Damon!” one of the others shouted and ran toward them. 

Dominga could only control one. She kept herself fixated on Damon as the others ran for them.

Then she heard a buzz sound through her ears as it seemed all of the minds connected into a web. 

She couldn’t just hear the voices; she could change them now. What she thought she could do for only one person became all of them. She could feel her energy depleting, so she commanded them to grab the knives, and slice into their achilles. They groaned in agony, certain it was the devil at work. 

Keyair rose with a flex in his strong arms, and felt the shadows pulling from him. Little dark specks began to shoot out of him into each of the blue-eyes, who screamed at the touch of the shadow. 

The memories of their families dying began to happen in front of them, projected as if happening in real time. Then their fear of certain animals like lions and cheetahs came in the form of them right before their eyes. And finally, suicidal thoughts that were not their own but became tattooed in their minds acquainted the blue-eyes. Fear mixed with anger mixed with confusion created a cocktail of dissonance in their minds. Dominga couldn’t take Keyair’s shadows either, and felt those thoughts seep into her mind.  

With no more energy, Dominga fell to her knees, but Keyair’s shadows had caused so much pain that the blue-eyes were speechless. Their bodies jerked, still feeling the tingle from the cuts that had already begun to heal. It was too late; their minds had been tainted, too far gone to return. And they all walked over to the ocean, and drowned themselves one by one. Each voice cutting out like static. 

“We won’t be able to return, Dominga,” Keyair said. 

He picked up her clammy body and held her in his arms. 

Keyair was right; their disappearance would always be a mystery. The families, and lovers, and everyone didn’t even know their blood was connected to “special” people living normal lives with them. After a while, pretending got tired.

Those left back on Earth would never solve the mystery of Flight A1273.

And the last two lovers in this mysterious place would spend centuries trying to find their way back to Earth.

Together at last again, they would have to reckon with her lightness and his darkness. They would have to choose love and hate, because together was the only way they could survive.

fin. 

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Photo by Leio McLaren on Unsplash