Trans-Pacific Flight 1000

Space demons. The words sound silly, even to me, even after what happened. It was a normal flight, just like any other. I was flying on Trans-Pacific flight 1000 to Tokyo. It started off as an ordinary flight. We had just flown over Hawaii when we started to experience turbulence, or so I thought. The first indication that something was wrong was when I looked out the window and realized that the wing was on fire. Through the fire I saw the glint of cold, red eyes. They gave off a hateful, metallic awareness. I couldn’t move, the red eyes held me transfixed. Then I felt a jolt.

I turned around to see what the trouble was but too many people were standing up and screaming. All I heard was something about the wing. I turned my attention back to my window right as a glinting golden claw slammed through it. But then, everything stopped. Everything became muffled, almost like we were in a bubble. That’s when I realized that there was darkness surrounding us. It wasn’t some malignant being; it was the cold void of space. Whenever I think about this I can never accept it. Somehow, this plane went from the Pacific to outer space and we didn’t die, even though there were holes in the ships. Then I noticed that none of the passengers were truly normal. Everyone was wearing armor, like those worn by the knights of medieval Europe. The claw to my left disappeared. Suddenly, one of the beasts that attacked us earlier, slammed into the side of the plane, creating a sizeable hole that allowed it to enter.

Its body was golden. It seemed to be a creature of flesh, but its wings were like those of an eagle with metal feathers. Its claws too were metal, and its face, though mostly made of flesh, had two metallic eyes and a lower jaw full of saw blades. These knights seemed unfazed and one rushed the demon. The demon jumped over him, delivering a wicked slash to the knight’s back as he it landed. The knight collapsed in a groan of agony. Two more knights rushed the demon, and again the demon tried to leap over them. However, one of the knights jumped up too and brought the demon crashing down with him with his sword through the demon’s chest. Its wings flapped in a chaotic death spasm but it remained pinned to the ground. The knight removed his sword and everyone cheered. As if on cue, the plane stopped and the knights began walking towards the exit. When we got off, we were on a world populated by the demons. Everything was either on fire, made of metal, or both. The knights charged forward and met a horde of demons rising to defend themselves. At this point I knew someone had to have spiked my coffee or something. This was ridiculous, like a bad SyFy movie.

I went back on the plane and made my way to the cockpit. Inside was a small man, shrunken by age. He was no more than three feet tall and his snow-white beard fell onto the floor.

“What can I do for you?” he asked.

“Where am I?” I replied.

“Why, this is Hernum, the land of the demons. I was just dropping off this crew of crusaders.”

“Why am I here? Isn’t this flight supposed to be to Tokyo? I have an important business conference that starts tomorrow and I need to be there.”

“Tokyo? I’ve never heard of that planet in all my 3,729,510 years of being a pilot. Where is it?”

“It’s on Earth, surely you’ve heard of Earth.”

“Why would you want to go there? It’s a nasty place full of simple-minded beings.”

“It’s my home and I want to go back.”

“May I see your ticket?”

“Sure I guess,” I handed the little man my ticket. He stared hard at it as if trying to read something that wasn’t there.

“This isn’t the right flight.”

“What do you mean this isn’t the right flight, this is Trans-Pacific flight 1000, right?”

“No my boy, this is Trans-Planet flight 1000. I have no clue where you’re getting the ‘Pacific’ part.”

I was incredulous. How on Earth did I get off Earth? I made sure I went to door 7 so I wouldn’t miss my flight.

“You must have gotten on at door 6.5. Those things happen when you’re intently staring at your phone.” The man said.

“How did you…?”

“Omniscience, to a degree. You need it if you want to be a Trans-Planet pilot. I can see your thoughts, and the thoughts of my other passengers for that matter. I can’t see their futures though, my how depressing it would be to see all of that, though it would answer my question about God.”

“What question?”

“Whether or not he exists of course! I personally believe in some kind of creator but full omniscience would let me know for sure. Though it is more fun having faith and only faith. Of course if it turned out he didn’t exist then I would have to turn to atheism and that would get boring quite quickly. I’ve had many atheistic passengers and I never enjoy their company. But passengers like these crusaders, for example, are always a blast because their pious, zealous fervor seems to permeate the whole plane.”

“Well that’s…nice. Would you be able to take me back to Earth?”

“Yes, yes, of course. Though you may want to duck right now.” Right as he said this, red talons tore through the roof above me. Curled up in a ball, I looked up into the malicious hate of one of the demons. It jumped down into the plane and looked down at me. I could see his slavering jaw dribbling saliva onto the ground around me. Suddenly, the demon turned his attention to the pilot and, with a flick of its arm, sent a metal feather through the pilot’s torso.

“Oh bother,” he muttered as he fell. Then the demon turned to me. It began advancing, slowly at first as I crawled helplessly backwards. Once I reached the cockpit’s door, I got up, slammed the door and ran. I made it maybe ten feet before I heard the terrible sound of metal rending. I didn’t turn around but in a few seconds I felt the sharp biting of metal slicing into my flesh. I fell. The demon stood triumphantly over me, that is, until a crusader shot an arrow at him. The wooden bolt broke a window and lodged itself deeply into the demon’s chest. It shrieked in pain or anger or both. I took this opportunity to kick its leg, causing it to fall down. I turned and looked for something, anything. I saw a bag sticking out of one of the luggage compartments so I quickly ran to it to try and find something. To my great surprise, its contents included a can of hair spray, a pocket mirror, and lipstick.

I knew making the demon prettier with the lipstick was the dumbest thing I could’ve done, so I dropped it. Remembering I was smoker and always had my lighter on me, I quickly grabbed it from my pocket and opened it. By this point, the demon was on his feet again and advancing towards me. I didn’t hold back. Fire streamed forth from the combined effort of my lighter and the hair spray. I let the demon have it until the can was empty. But as per usual today, the demon was still standing. Sure his left wing was charred pretty badly and his right arm was completely gone, but other than a few scorch marks, the demon was fine, and ticked. Not knowing what to do next, I threw the mirror. He batted it away easily and it shattered. This gave me an idea, so I dove towards the mirror, grabbing as many shards as I could. The demon decided that he was done playing so he began ripping out seats and throwing them at me. I dodged most of them but I did take a few glancing blows. Once I had enough broken glass, I rushed the demon with my crystalline shivs at the ready. I cut and stabbed and swore and cut some more until my glass was either broken beyond use or stuck in his chest or face. The demon laughed. Again. This time I was ticked. I said screw it and kicked the demon where all men dread being kicked. Sure enough, the demon tensed up and fell over, clutching his burned and bruised body. I took this opportunity to grab the lipstick. I walked back over to the demon and began mercilessly stabbing him in the eyes with the beauty product. Once I was sure he was blind, I gave him a nice, rosy smile, then shoved it down his throat until he choked.

“Thou hast slain yonder demon.” A voice behind me said, “thou hast done a good thing, for that beast was a baron of that horde but thou sleweth the wretched aberration. I giveth thee the thanks of myself and my men.”

“Thanks I guess,” I said as I turned to face the voice. It was a crusader. He was tall, easily over six feet tall. His armor was covered in some greenish-yellow stains. He looked like the stereotypical knight commonly seen in fantasy movies.

“Hast thine friend the wizard survived the battle?”

“Who?”

“Thine friend, the wizard. The one that knoweth all in the land.”

“Oh you mean the pilot. Yeah, no he’s dead.”

“I’m not dead!” A voice suddenly exclaimed. The crusader and I both turned and, of course, the pilot was standing there, not dead. My jaw dropped.

“Good sir,” the knight said, “thou must be mistaken for yonder wizard has not partaken in death.”

“You got stabbed!” I yelled.

“Oh that bother,” the pilot replied, waving his hand as if dismissing the should-be fatal wound, “it was only a small wound. Besides, when I lost consciousness, I was met by a powerful, unknown force. It told me to go back because it wasn’t yet my time. I met God!”

Honestly, that was the most plausible thing I’d heard and seen all day. “So, can you take me back?” I asked.

“That depends on whether or not the knights need transport,” the pilot responded, “how is your crusade going?”

“Thine wisdom is paramount,” the knight said as he kneeled and bowed his head before the pilot, “my army will beginneth the besieging of the hell-spawn city. It shalt fall by nightfall.”

“Nightfall, nightfall, when’s nightfall?” I asked.

“Three or four ventics I reckon,” the pilot told me.

“And what on Earth is a ‘ventic’?”

“Ventics aren’t on Earth, obviously,” the pilot responded, “a ventic is equivalent to about a month or two in Earth terms.”

“So you have enough time to take me and drop me off on Earth, right?”

“No; the journey itself is about a ventic and a half, going one way of course, so in total the journey would be about three ventics. The crusaders would be done by then, at which point they would need me to give them a ride back to their home.”

“Forgive my biting words, wizard,” the knight interrupted, “but after the fall of Istanstinople, we shalt taketh possession of this heathen land in the name of God. Thou may returneth from whenst thou came if thou needeth to.”

“Thank you Mr. Knight, now if we could get going that would be great,” I said.

“Alright, if you so desire,” the pilot responded, “give me 10 venticefedons…er minutes, give me 10 minutes.” As I should have expected, another demon came crashing through one of the windows. The knight immediately stood up and rushed it, but with a flick of its arm, razor-sharp metal feathers turned the knight into Swiss cheese dropped in a pool of ketchup.

“Great,” I muttered.

“Would you mind taking our guest outside and dealing with him there?” the pilot asked me, “I need to fix my plane and I can’t very well do that when a demon is trashing my ship.”

“You know what, sure,” I angrily hissed. I was done with today. Part of me didn’t even care if I got back home. I walked over to the knight and picked up his sword. I’m no weakling but that sword was heavy. I could barely lift it, but I was able to throw it at the demon, knocking him through the hole he had created. I jumped out after him. Big mistake. I landed right on top of him, literally. My face was no more than an inch away from his growling, slavering jaws. I freaked out so I punched him. In the face. And it did nothing. He threw me off of him and the sword landed right next to me. Then he flew up real high. I knew he was going to dive-bomb me so I got the sword ready. As I saw him hurtling towards me I raised the sword and braced for impact.

I’m kind of lucky because I only broke my left arm and my right leg. The force from his bombing run was devastating to both of us. He probably could have walked it off if it wasn’t for the fact that there was a sword going though his mouth and exiting at his upper back. After that little ordeal I limped back into the plane and took my seat.

“You don’t have to sit there,” the pilot told me, “it’s just the two of us, you can sit up front with me if you want to.”

“Thanks for the offer,” I weakly replied, “let me just grab my stuff.”

“You have some pretty minor injuries from that fight. Do you want me to fix them?”

“What do you mean by ‘pretty minor’? My arm and leg are broken!”

“Oh that’s no bother, just give me a moment and I’ll fix you right up.” After I grabbed my stuff and reached the cockpit, the pilot grabbed my arm and straightened it. I screamed. He did the same thing with my leg. I screamed again.

“Stop screaming, you’re all better now.” And I was. I was back to normal with no broken bones and no scars. Then the pilot took off and I decided to sleep. When I woke up, I was greeted by the sight of skyscrapers and I knew I was home, sort of.

“That didn’t take a month and a half.”

“Hmm. It did for me but you seemed to just sleep right through it. It must be the time displacement.”

I thanked the pilot and then I checked my phone. I had turned it off during the flight because I knew I wouldn’t need it so it took a minute to turn on.

“What kind of phone is that?” a stranger asked me.

“It’s the X-Berry 7,” I responded coolly.

“I know that,” the stranger replied angrily in response to me not understanding his sarcasm, “that thing is ancient. How do you still have it?”

“It’s not that old.” I respond nervously, “It was released in March of 2017.”

“I know genius,” the stranger said, growing more hostile, “it’s 2117, that thing is like a hundred years old.”

“The thing still runs fine,” I murmured, not really paying attention to what I was saying as his words hit me. The year was 2117. I had boarded the plane in 2017. I had just skipped a century. Everyone I knew was dead.

“Whatever,” the stranger muttered under his breath as he walked away. Only then did I realize what he was wearing. Whenever people portray the future in books and movies, it’s always either bright lights or stark white. It isn’t. The guy was wearing jeans, a black t-shirt, and a navy blue jean jacket. He looked pretty normal, but once I looked closer I realized that he wasn’t actually wearing anything. It was all some kind of holographic illusion. And on the back of his neck was a green light with wires connecting to both of his ears. As I looked around in a panic, I realized that everything looked like this. I ran to the bathroom, locked the door, and threw up. It was 2117. I was from 2017. Everyone I knew was dead. And I had missed my meeting.