What’s happening to me?

Sunday’s short story.

January 1st, 2017:

The smell of cookies was still filling the house, the Christmas tree stood perfectly in the corner of the living room, the sink was filled with the dishes that no one wanted to do while everyone was still sleeping, except her.

Hazel had been laying in bed, awake for the past hour. She was staring at the blank ceiling, not blinking, completely lost in her thoughts.

After what felt like an eternity of useless overthinking, she looked at the clock on the wall. It was 7 am.

She got out of bed and headed to the kitchen. Her hunger was the only reason she left her bed. She grabbed the cereal box that laid on the counter, along with the milk carton from the fridge, an empty bowl, and a spoon, and made her way back to bed.

‘Wake up Hazel, we need to leave now or we would miss the flight again.’ Said her mom, waking her up.

Her family decided to go to France for new year’s, they were supposed to go two days ago but after her brother missed with the clock, they arrived at the terminal one hour late. Her younger brother; Steven; Likes to prank his family constantly. Hazel hoped that his last prank would be the last one ever.

‘Ugh, here we go again’ she thought, hating the New Year already.

‘Yeah, sure’ she told her mom who was hovering around her.

She threw a glance at the clock as she got out of bed. It was 9 am already.

‘Steven, can you take my suitcase downstairs please?’ she asked her brother as he walked by her room.

‘Can I say no?’ he said.

‘No!’ she said annoyed.

‘When are you going to move out and let me live in peace?’ he asked her.

She left the room looking for her dad, ‘Dad!’ she screamed.

‘Steven, I swear if you don’t get your act together, I will leave you here alone’ shout her dad from downstairs.

Steven came back to her room and dragged the heavy suitcase down the stairs. ‘Did you pack rocks?’ he asked.

‘Yes, so I can kill you on the plane’ she replied annoyed.

At this point, she had gotten used to her little quarrels with her brother, he knows how much she hates to bothered so he makes sure that he does everything in his power to bother her.

She dressed as fast as she could. She grabbed her phone and earphones and went straight to the car.

The airport was 30 minutes away and to avoid fighting with her brother, she took a nap.

After boarding the airplane, Hazel found herself sitting next to an old woman, while her brother sat next to his parents. They were excited about their trip, they couldn’t asleep.

After 45 minutes of a peaceful flight, the plane’s alarms went off.

When the oxygen masks fell down, everyone panicked and started screaming. When the pilot’s voice filled the plane, they all stopped to listen.

‘To all the passengers, please remain calm. We are facing a strong storm and one of our engines blew up; I can assure you that there is no need to panic; Please stay in your seats and do not freak out.’ Said the pilot.

How can they not panic when one of the engines blew up? how can they not panic when the pilot himself sounded panicky?

Hearing the shaking voice of the man who is supposed to keep them safe made me panic even more.

After a moment of screaming and crying, Hazel looked over at her family who were hugging each other while she was going to die alone.

She tried extremely hard not to scream, she looked over at the lady next to her, who was calm, weirdly calm;

‘Do you have water?’ asked the lady in a calm tone.

How can she be this calm? Thought Hazel.

She handed her a water bottle as she tried to study her face.

15 minutes passed and everything was still the same, screams and cries filled the plane, even the attendants were crying, she knew this was the end.

She closed her eyes and made peace with her fate.

The last thing she felt was her head hitting the seat in front of her before she lost consciousness.

Seconds later, she was able to open her eyes. She turned around her checking her surroundings; The cereal box, the milk, the bowl, and the spoon were by her side. She was in her bed.

Before she could take in what happened, she heard her mom calling.

‘Wake up Hazel, we need to leave now or we would miss the flight again.’

Thank you guys for reading this short story that I wrote 4 years ago, I have now an idea of how it can go, I can work on it and make it a weekly series if you are interested. If not, I can write a different story for next weekend, let me know.