24
HARRIET
It had to be a bird. It looked like it had wings that were flapping, barely discernible in the distance as I squinted. In the seat in front of me Arnold did the same, a perplexed look on his face.
"Whatever it is," he said, "it's flying straight at us."
Chidi began to moan in the cockpit, and then turned the dials on his radio and spoke into his headset. Demanding that whoever was in this region identify themselves and make note of our position. He repeated himself again and again, voice growing more fearful every time.
Wing-flapping be damned, it couldn't be a plane. It was too big. Or maybe my perspective was warped by the strange twilight created by the cloud cover. Our eyes playing tricks on us.
All of that made more sense than the truth.
It moved gracefully through the sky, bobbing up and down in time with its massive wings. It was the color of blood, a deep crimson so dark it was almost as black as the clouds above. It had a long neck like a snake, and a wide head adorned with spiky horns on top and on the sides in a crest. Instead of feathers its body was covered with scaly skin, and the wings were so thin they were almost translucent.
My mind conjured up the name for it: dragon. A thing from childhood stories, and Disney movies with princesses and castles. An impossible creature here, or anywhere.
The gryphon figurine in my hand shook so violently I thought it might explode.
"Oh my God!" Chidi shouted from the cockpit as the dragon bore down on us. It grew rapidly, coming in from the side, but instead of crashing into us it soared across and above, coming so close I could see the individual claws at the tips of its hanging legs. The near miss made the entire plane jerk in the air, caught in the dragon's wake, and for several terrifying moments Chidi struggled to keep his grip on the controls.
Arnold dove across the aisle to the other window, gazing out with huge eyes. "Marvelous! Simply marvelous!"
I followed because seeing it was less terrifying than not seeing it. The dragon curved to the left, changing its course to follow us in the air, keeping up with effort. Its long neck craned toward us, inspecting the plane with ruby eyes.
And maybe it was my imagination, but the dragon's jaw hung open in what looked like a cruel smile.
It turned toward us, opened its jaw wider, and the world outside my window became fire.
It exploded toward our plane in a great fireball of orange and black smoke. The windows exploded from the heat, sending me flying backwards into the aisle. Bits of glass rained down on me and the carpet of the floor, and then alarms were going off, a wailing sound above the roar of the air from the open windows, and oxygen masks fell from the ceiling like jellyfish tentacles. The floor tilted, sending glass shards sliding along the carpet as I tried to get up, but there was a ringing in my ears to go with the rest of the noise and it hurt to simply think.
"...Reckmeyer!" I heard someone shout. "...seatbelt! Hurry!"
More heat exploded to my left but I somehow got up, swaying on the now tilted floor while the alarms wailed louder along with Chidi's screams, and I fell into the nearest seat. Glass cut my thighs through my pants but I didn't care, all I could do was reach between the seats and fumble with the seatbelt, as if that would miraculously save me from a plane crash, or a dragon, or anything else in this twisted nightmare, but somehow my fingers found the metal clasp and clicked it into place.
Smoke bubbled from the left side of the plane, blocking most of my view. My stomach flew up into my throat then back down into my gut as if we were on a boat in a storm instead of an airplane in the calm sky.
I looked out my window and saw the ground rushing toward us.
I don't remember the crash. One minute I was staring out the window, and the next I was in the back of the plane facing the lavatory door.
I coughed; smoke was everywhere, in my throat and nose and eyes. I blinked and looked around, but there wasn't much to see back here, so I unclasped the seatbelt and tried to get up.
Immediately I fell to the ground, my right knee unable to support my weight. There was a pain there, low and distant, like my brain had decided to stow it away for later. I coughed and gasped for air, and tried to look around through my tears.
My seat had broken free from the ground and had been thrown to the back of the plane. There was a fire up near the cockpit, and the fuselage to my right was marred by a massive tear a foot wide, but otherwise the plane was intact.
Ignoring the screaming YOU WERE JUST IN A PLANE CRASH voice inside my head, I tried to get up again, and once again my knee refused to cooperate.
The dragon's roar was alien and terrifying, a combination of an elephant trumpet and a cat snarl, and a thousand other animal sounds mixed together, but it sent a shiver through my bones and reminded me of what was going on. I wasn't safe here. I needed to get away.
I felt the dragon land rather than see it; the sensation was like an entire house crashing to the ground, picking me off the floor and bouncing me half a foot in the air. The unseen beast stomped on massive legs, growing nearer.
Rows of sword-like teeth punched through the ceiling of the plane, yellow and dripping saliva. It tore at the metal, one jerk, two jerks, and then abruptly the entire roof came tearing off to reveal the darkened sky.
The dragon roared again, this time angry and searching.
I crawled between my row of seats toward the opening in the fuselage. I had to get out of here, or this smoldering wreckage would become my coffin. Like all the others scattered across the plain around the volcano.
WHOOSH.
Another jet of fire shot across the air above us, obfuscating everything and making it impossible to see as the smoke spread. I focused on the foot of carpet in front of me as I crawled, desperate to escape.
The gryphon figurine.
I'd forgotten it! Now I felt it pulsing insistently, one row behind me on the ground. There, I could see it underneath the seat. I pushed forward, squeezing under the seat cushion, still inches away from grasping it. I felt the dragon stomping around the wreckage while I stretched as far as I could go, a single finger brushing against the cool stone, then two, then there, I jerked it forward and it rotated enough for me to grab it, to hold it close--
I gasped at what I saw: the stone was intact, but the flawless ruby on its back was marred by a jagged crack across the face. I don't know why, but I felt a lifetime of sadness at the sight, an immeasurable loss that couldn't be quantified.
Roland had given this to me, entrusted me with it, and I'd failed him.