Side Story 2 : Flying to another place

January 2026

"You're so lucky to go!"

"Yes!" Sofia had texted joyfully to her friend as she recalled the last few minutes before she boarded the flight.

Now, however, it was clear she wasn't the lucky one. Holding her hands nervously together and tensing in despair as the plane continued to dive down towards the ocean, she could only pray for a miracle.

--

5 minutes before.

"Hi! Are you going to Sydney for vacation?"

Sofia turned to where the voice came from. Her seat neighbor had finally decided to initiate a conversation. She had noticed the man furtively looking at her a few times ever since they boarded the plane. She thought he'd not speak to her, considering it had already been 7 hours since the flight left Los Angeles.

She took a moment to consider how she should react. The man wore a neat ironed blue shirt and had worked on his laptop most of the flight. He looked older than her 20 years old self, probably 30 years old.

He didn't look like a weirdo, so she answered truthfully: "... hi! Yes... and you?"

The man seemed to relax now that he had made the first contact. He smiled, and this helped Sofia relax as well.

"Going there for work, but truth to say, I also plan to have fun in my free time." He laughed. "Been there before?" The man folded his laptop and put aside the tray table as he asked that.

Sofia suddenly felt the focus of his attention. She reflexively pulled her head back a little, so there was a little more distance between her and the man.

"No, she said. "It's my first time outside of America. I'm going with a friend to visit the country and see some kangaroos!"

The man laughed. "Then I can advise! I've been there a few times already. I'm Mike, by the way. Nice to meet you. You are?"

"Sofia."

A short silence ensued.

Then Sofia decided to continue the conversation. There were still 8 hours to go before landing in Sydney, and there was nothing to see since the plane was well above the clouds somewhere flying above the pacific ocean.

"Where would you advise me to go? My friend and I are only going there for eight days."

"Well, in Sydney, I'd advise you to first book a ticket for the famous opera. Tickets need to be booked in adva..."

The lights in the plane suddenly switched off and on.

Then the familiar announcement bell rang. The captain's voice resonated through the plane: "This is the captain. Unfortunately, we are running into momentary electronic problems. Please put your..."

The voice ceased suddenly before the announcement was even finished, and the light switched off. If not for the light filtering from the windows, the plane would be a dark place.

Panic screams immediately resonated.

Sofia stared with creeping terror at Mike. She asked with a trembling voice: "Is it normal?"

Mike took a look around. "No... No, it's not. It's like..."

Wooosh.

The plane suddenly started to lose altitude. Sofia felt pushed out of her seat: it was as if the plane had begun its landing approach.

But now? In the middle of the ocean?

More panic screams rang out; several passengers whose seatbelt was not secured were violently thrown against the next seat.

Sofia's breath quickened. The oxygen masks dropped from the ceiling as if they responded to her fear. Then, trying hard to remember the security instructions given as the plane took off - which she had consciously ignored -, Sofia grabbed the mask right above her head, pulled on the strings, and stripped it to her face.

From the corner of her eyes, she was Mike doing the same; but now that the plane was quickly losing altitude and seemed out of control, her attention had switched from her neighbor to what-the-hell-was-happening.

Sofia was now screaming, like most of the passengers. Whatever was happening, it was not normal.

Seated next to the window, it was even more evident that the plane was dropping from the skies. It had lost all powers; the pilot seemed to have no or few control over the directions.

She was tensely looking at the window and praying that the plane somehow regains control.

The uncontrolled drop in altitude and pressure change pained her ears greatly, but this little pain was barely noticeable in her full-blown panic.

She saw the plane had finally descended below the clouds, and she could now see the dark blue of the pacific ocean coming ever closer.

She noticed a pitch-black dark spot that seemed slightly above the ocean. The plane seemed to fly towards it, but she didn't think much of it.

She gave up all hope of survival.

Turning towards Mike for the last time, she said with a pained smile, crying: "Hey Mike, it was nice to meet you."

Mike didn't seem to understand, but he smiled nonetheless.

He reached for Sofia's hand.

And then everything went dark.

--

Sofia ignored if Hell or Heavens existed, but considering how her head hurt, she supposed she had gone to Hell.

Her first reaction was to touch her body and her surrounding.

Her hands, legs, and chest were still there. Also, she was still attached.

She heard no sound - if not a loud and constant whistle. Then, passing her hand over her ear, she found her hand slippery. Blood, probably.

She then touched her eyes - still there. Not bleeding. Then why was she seeing nothing - just black?

As her consciousness returned, she finally realized she was on the plane. Only, she was in a dark place, and she might have lost her hearing. She touched towards her right: she felt Mike's shoulder. The latter didn't react. He was seemingly unconscious.

Sofia woke further. She felt that her pain didn't come just from her ear but also her head, specifically towards the cerebellum. This fancy word was one she had learned during her second year in medicine.

Her head felt as if it was about to explode. The intense pressure constantly threatened to make her pass out.

In pain, blind and deaf, she was downright terrified, but she still took a moment to appreciate being alive given the circumstances.

She felt the seatbelt pushing against her chest. So the plane was still dropping altitude. However, it was not more difficult to breathe. So she deduced that the air pressure remained roughly constant.

Sofia didn't understand why she was blind. Deaf, she understood. The sudden drop of altitude had created too much pressure on her eardrum. But her eyes?

She instinctively assumed that the pilot had somehow corrected the trajectory and was now flying above the ocean... but what of the feeling of losing altitude, then?

For a moment, Sofia didn't know what to think.

Her common-sense seemed blown. Yet, there's one thing she was sure of: she was still alive.

There was hope.

She had the idea of crying for help, so she shouted: "Help!!! HELP!"

The shout felt weird: she heard her throat strain to say the words, but her ears still refused to hear anything. Instead, there was only this painful buzzing.

No one replied to her shouts, so she shouted again and again.

Still, no one replied to her.

She was desperate to have any human contact. She searched for Mike's hand and grabbed it. Then, she furiously shook it. Several seconds passed, during which he didn't react, so she slammed his hand against his head.

Brutal, but she was desperate and an inch away from slipping into a renewened panic.

Mike's hand broke free on his own accord. He had awakened.

Then a few seconds after, Sofia felt her hand grasped by Mike. The handshake was soft and reassuring. Although she could not hear anything, she imagined Mike was probably talking to her. So she talked back, even as she understood that he was most likely deaf too and as lost as she were.

Nonetheless, she wasn't alone anymore.

--

There was no change for a long, long time. At least for an hour, Sofia estimated. There was no change during that time, if not for the slightly diminishing ear pain. Her ears still returned a cacophony of pain and whistling, but in addition to that, she could now hear whispers when Mike talked. Her hearing seemed to return slowly.

Like her, Mike had decided to stay seated and wait for someone to rescue them. They had not succeeded in communicating, but they frequently felt each other by touching their arms and faces.

Somehow, it was the closest she had been to a man. And yet, it didn't seem wrong, here in this terrifying nightmare.

Yet, a change occurred.

Sofia almost didn't believe her eyes when her sight returned all of a sudden. All of a sudden, her sight seemed to return, and a blinding light filled everywhere her eyes could see. Turning her eyes towards Mike, she reckoned she wasn't the only surprised...

Perhaps she wasn't blind, after all?

Past Mike, however, what her eyes saw didn't make sense. Sofia didn't see the expected rows of seats ordered one after another. Instead, she saw an unbelievable scene... Some rows seemed to hang on the roof; some to the left, some seemed broken in the middle. Most passengers seemed unconscious, and the few awaken were as restless as she was.

It was as if she saw the world through a broken mirror—a mirror broken into numerous shards, each reflecting the reality from a different angle. Sofia's brain couldn't understand what she saw.

Looking away from this strange sight, she checked the window. It was even weirder. She could see parts of the ocean and the sky, fragmented on pièces that seemed all in the wrong place.

Had she transversed into a world drawn by Picasso? Three years ago, Sofia recalled, she had had a lecture on the famous painter. She remembered vividly how the painter always drew people in misaligned shapes and body parts. The reality is front of her eye was such.

She had barely the time to make sense of her sights that the reality around her seemed to further fragment. The pieces broke down further, and a sharp line was drawn at the level of her neck. She indistinctly felt she would die if she did not crouch to avoid being cut by that imaginary line.

As she dived down to become as compact as possible, effectively assuming the fetal position, she threw a quick look at Mike. Her companion seemed not to understand what was happening. He was staring at her, terrified. His body seemed oddly distorted. A part of his torso seemed to overlap with another reality sharp.

Then, everything changed.

A terrifying boom sounded, loud enough for even Sofia's wounded ears to hear.

Space was cut into dozens of pieces.

Blood spewed at Sofia's face. It had come to her right.

Her seat broke free from the rest of the airplane, and Sofia, along with it, tumbled into the open air.

All sorts of tunnels and vortexes appeared around her, and she saw herself falling towards one.

The violence of the descent shook her immensely, but Sofia yet struggled to stay conscious.

Then after a few more seconds, she seemed to exit her tunnel.

She saw herself falling towards what looked like the ocean at great speed.

However, as she focused on the sea level, she realized that it was actually filled with strange blue/grey structures.

Just a second after, she reached the seafloor.

She closed her eyes as she prepared to die from the impact for certain, again..

Yet, she suddenly and brutally stopped. The shock nearly broke her seat belt, and she reckoned it had probably broken her ribs.

Unlike her expectations, she hadn't been pulverized against the water.

Instead, she was levitating in the air in front of....

Mermaids?

She finally gave in to her body's urge to faint. A part of her knew she was safe.

She was the only survivor of the first accidental anomaly transversal.