CHAPTER ONE
- Sunny
I SLOWLY TAKE a deep breath, enjoying the warmth seeping into my limbs around me. I’m just so… relaxed. This is probably the most rested I’ve felt in a long time. And to think I was worried I wouldn’t be able to fall asleep on the plane.
Crash!
My seat rocks as my eyes fly open. I don’t even realize I’m screaming until the thump, thump, thump sound of banging to my left draws my attention, and I snap my mouth shut. The screaming doesn’t stop, though. I hear at least two other passengers freaking the fuck out too.
I don’t turn my head, too horrified by the view in front of me…. and around me. I can see everything! And when I say everything, I mean I feel like I’m outside the plane already. Even though this still feels like my plane seat, the walls are gone!
But wait… this isn’t a plane. I feel like I’m in an IMAX theater watching a movie of flying high over the curved planet, soaring toward the ground…
“Hey! Are you okay?” The female voice seems to come from all around me, but it doesn’t draw my attention away from the view straight ahead.
My eyes travel down, realizing that it’s not just in front of me I can see all the way down… to the ground. No! Even the floor beneath my feet is... clear. Clear?
Practically hyperventilating, my head swivels quickly to the left and then the right, realizing that there are seats next to me... on both sides. Reaching out, I try to grab for the dark-skinned woman to my left. Instead of only her voice, I’m now getting feedback and hearing the voices of others all around me.
My hand strikes a transparent barrier. Yes, exactly like the clear barrier in front of me. It’s like I’m in a glass cube, strapped to a seat. My heart’s racing a mile a minute as I try to remember back to how I got here.
Nothing. And I mean… I remember nothing.
Wait! I’m on my way to an event hosted by the Federation of Digital Seismic Networks. I’ve been a member of the organization for almost five years, but this will be the first live seminar I’ve attended. Or... I guess I was...
The surrounding people are making more sense as the same thoughts that are running through my mind echo in the female voices bombarding me.
“Where are we?”
“What is this?”
And my favorite, and the one that echos through my own head over and over, “What the fuck?”
I can’t agree more. I can hear crying from one woman as I reach forward tentatively to see how far the same barrier is in front of me. It’s so clear that I can’t even tell the distance away it is.
Stretching forward, my chest presses against the chair’s restraint, and I can barely graze the glass—or is it plastic?—in front of me with my fingertips. I don’t know what it is, but as I’m leaning forward, I catch a glimpse of the darkness beneath my feet, and I laugh hysterically.
My stomach rolls uncomfortably as I realize that what we’re sitting in must be in a circular formation back to back. Looking to my left, I glimpse the woman next to me motioning to the woman two seats away. It’s impossible for me to see the woman two seats over with the curve, but I can see dark black covering the clear barrier in front of her. She’s kind of fortunate she can’t see out...
My overwhelmed mind has trouble catching up as I hear one woman demand, “Stay calm!”
When other voices continue to whimper and moan, she orders again, “Stay calm! I mean it, you guys. We need to talk about this.”
“What happened? What was that explosion?”
Is that what the bang was? The woman to my left is already explaining, and I watch her mouth move as her voice echoes around me, “Yes! I don’t know what struck us or malfunctioned, but the woman next to me looks hurt. She’s unconscious.”
Everyone’s voice is being broadcast through speakers behind me. We must all be able to hear each other. She’s looking at me, though, so I answer.
“Maybe she hasn’t come around yet. I mean… I just came around.” The explosion or whatever must have been what brought me around and also coated the poor woman’s barrier with black. Maybe it’s soot or something? Thank God it didn’t break.
I recognize the woman’s voice to my left now as she answers. She’s looking back at the