Llamea

The Story of a Girl Who Became a Queen

Chapter One

A Turn of Events

Wretched, ephemeral race, children of chance and tribulation, why do you force me to tell you the very thing which it would be most profitable for you not to hear? The very best thing is utterly beyond your reach: not to have been born, not to be, to be nothing. However, the second best thing for you is: to die soon.

Aristotle, Eudemos

I gritted my teeth and kept my hands at my sides. I forced an appearance of calm, but what I really wanted to do was launch myself over the counter at the flight attendant. My last plane was thirty minutes late getting into Ft. Lauderdale and I ended up missing my international flight to Madrid, Spain. Now, this lady with the pinched face and beady eyes was telling me that I was stuck in this airport until the next flight, which happened to be five hours from now.

“Ma’m, the best I can do is a red eye flight at 10.” She stared right at me, unfazed by my angry glare. She knew how to deal with unruly customers; her face held the polite but indifferent smile that told me that there was no way I would get an earlier flight. Not even if I made a scene and embarrassed us both.

I sighed and rubbed my eyes tiredly. “Alright, book me for that flight.”

I snatched my ticket from her, ignored her forced polite “have a good flight,” and stalked away.

I usually wasn’t so rude or outspoken, but five hours jammed between a mother and her wailing infant and an old man who kept falling asleep on my shoulder had put me in a terrible mood. I didn’t deal well with being around a ton of people in the first place, put me a couple thousand feet in the air where the only escape is a cramped bathroom that smells like cheetos and by the end of the flight I’m ready to spit nails.

To say I was irritated was putting it mildly.

I plopped myself down on a seat that gave me a front row view of the planes landing and taking off. It was going to be a long five hours; the airport was full of fast food restaurants and gifts shops, there wasn’t a decent shop in sight. With a resigned sigh, I took out my book and settled in for a long wait.

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I was exhausted by the time 10 o’clock came around. I dragged myself to the loading ramp and waited patiently while people rushed to get on the plane. I had no interest in getting caught up in the mass of pushing people. With dawning horror I noticed that most of the passengers were young, and most wore shirts with Nebraska State University spread out across it. My mood became thunderous; there was no way I was going to be able to sleep with all these noisy college students on the same plane as me. I scowled and looked at the ground, my head pounding from all the noise.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not anti-social; I’m usually pretty agreeable, even a little shy. I had just counted on a quiet, relaxing trip. Red eyes weren’t very popular, and the fact that this plane was going to not only be full, but very loud, made me want to beat my head against the wall.

A loud whistle interrupted my thoughts and I looked up to find a tall, dark haired woman with two fingers to her lips.

“Listen up people because I’m not going to say it again.” She sent a glare towards a group of guys still talking.

“Before you get into the plane I need all students to sign this.” She waved a clipboard above her head. “Once inside, sit down and shut up. It’s a long enough flight without having to listen to you all jabbering.” She moved to the side and so started the long process of students entering the ramp.

I shifted my bag to a more comfortable position on my shoulder before taking my place at the back of the line. I stood on my tiptoes to see how far it was until I reached the ramp and felt something slam into me from behind. I careened forward, my arms reaching out at the last moment to stop my face from hitting the floor. My bag landed with a thud beside me and I stared at it in shock for a second.

“Jesus, I’m sorry.” I felt hands grab my shoulders and pull me up. “Are you alright?” A guy stepped into my line of vision and stooped down to grab my bag.

I was annoyed. Not only was I tired and cranky, but now my hands and knees hurt. I rubbed my palm against my jeans in an attempt to take away the sting.

“I’m fine.” I muttered. The guy stood up and I met cringing dark blue eyes. He handed me my bag and smiled sheepishly as he ran a hand through shaggy, light brown hair. Standing this close to him, it was safe to say that he was a cutie. He managed to have a wide eyed playfulness about him that didn’t detract from his masculinity.

He grinned and I could feel my face heat up. He had caught me staring. I dragged my eyes away and focused on the floor. How embarrassing, not only was I tongue tied, but I was pretty sure I looked like an idiot too. Getting all flustered just because he looked at me. I was hopeless.

“Sorry about that again.” My eyes flickered up, but only far enough to look at his throat.

“Don’t worry about it.” I mumbled, but kept my eyes locked to his Adams apple. I watched him walk ahead to greet a group of students and cursed my silence.

I didn’t have a lot of experience dealing with guys. I always got so tongue tied around them; it made having any kind of conversation with them awkward.

Needless to say it didn’t improve my mood. Feeling tired, cranky and, now added to the list, stupid, made me grit my teeth. The sooner I got onto that plane and to my cousin’s wedding, the happier I’d be.

When I finally shuffled my way into the entrance of the airplane I stopped and stared in horror. The plane was filled to the T; there were barely any vacant seats. I shuffled around in my purse before pulling out a small MP3 player. The soothing music of Beethoven cut out the noise around me and I relaxed slightly. I had learned my lesson on my last flight, no music equals shear hell.

I found my seat half way down the plane, a window seat beside a bubbly looking blonde woman. I dropped my bag at my feet and sat down, looking out the window. I felt a touch on my hand and turned to the blonde women beside me. She smiled and her lips moved.

“I’m sorry, what was that?” I tugged my headphones out of my ears and moved my head closer so I could hear her over the noise.

“I’m Gwen Calamander.” She held out her hand with a large smile.

“Faye Morgan.” I placed my hand in hers.

“Where you headed to?”

“My cousin’s getting married in Madrid; I’m meeting my family there.”

Gwen whistled, “Damn, wish I could get married in Spain.” She smiled. “I’m here with them.” She motioned around her. “The Spanish club, two full weeks of touring Spain.”

I lifted an eyebrow. “At the beginning of the summer?”

She shrugged. “Only time we could do it.”

I nodded and a long curl slipped from behind my ear and into my eyes.

“That’s such an unusual color.” She reached up and pulled lightly on my copper colored hair. “Is it real?”

“Unfortunately.” I pushed the offending hair back behind my ear.

She was about to say something else when the pilots voice blared. It served to distract her enough to where I was free to put my earphones back on without looking rude. I settled back in my seat and watched the run way go by faster and faster. My stomach turned uncomfortably as the plane took off and I shut my eyes.

The worst part of flying was taking off. There was something about knowing that I was stuck in a metal bird, with no chance of escape, that made my stomach go into knots. The panic only lasted until the plane got to its normal altitude but the fear never left. Not even my music took away the fear.

I leaned my head against the cool window and looked out at the darkness. I was starting to feel drowsy and I had to fight to keep my eyes open. Eventually my exhaustion won out and my eyes closed to Beethoven’s “Moonlight.”

I was jolted awake, my head thrown back against my seat. I blinked and looked around in confusion. The plane was trembling; well that’s what it felt like. I could feel vibrations up the length of my body and knew, without a doubt, that something was wrong. I glanced at the crying people around me and panic began to spread, they wouldn’t be crying for no reason and the plane wouldn’t be tipping if everything was alright. This couldn’t be happening, the chances of this plane crashing were small, and there was a better chance of me getting hit by a bus when I was walking on the sidewalk. But for all my denial, I couldn’t get away from what was going on around me.

The song in my MP3 player changed and even in my disoriented state of mind, I recognized it as Mozart’s Requiem.

They say that when a person is faced with something so horrible that they can’t deal with it, their mind creates something that allows it to deal. Through my hazy eyes, the people around me seemed in tuned to Mozart’s Requiem, their screams and words replaced with the music. The lights flickered as the music climbed to its climax and all around me everything seemed to slow down.

The oxygen masks dropped down and I stared blankly at mine, proof that this was indeed happening to me.

I could feel the pit of my stomach knot up as I felt the planes hasty descent, this plane was going down and there was nothing I could do about it. Strangely enough, the panic that had been invading my mind pulled back. A sort of indifference floated over me, it was like it wasn’t happening to me, but to someone else. This couldn’t be happening to me, I was on my way to meet my mom for my cousin’s wedding. I was going to college in the fall. I was only 18; I had my whole life ahead of me, I didn’t want to die.

But even as these thoughts went through my mind, I knew. I knew that it was happening to me. I glanced around, my eyes looking for something, anything that would tell me why it was happening to me. It was then that I did the worst possible thing, I glanced out my window. At first I saw only darkness, and then lightning light up the sky and what I saw took my breath away. An island was getting closer and closer and the plane wasn’t slowing down. An overwhelming sense of dread washed over me and for the first time in my life, I was faced with my own death. And for some reason, I couldn’t take my eyes from it, this foreboding island that stretched for miles. It held me enthralled even as it caused tears to slide down my cheeks.

I gasped for breath, a silent sob wracked my frame and still the music played. A barrier from what was happening; a comfort in what I thought was my last moments on earth.

A sharp tug on my hand pulled my eyes away from the window and I meet Gwen’s wide, tear filled eyes. She no longer looked like a teen super model; her mascara ran in heavy lines down her face. Her mouth moved and I could feel her reaching over me, tugging on something under my arm.

She shook me and kept digging into my side. I looked down and saw her grabbing at my seatbelt, her hands shaking as she tried to pull it over my lap. It wouldn’t slide far enough out for her to buckle me in. It was stuck.

Then my world exploded, that’s what it felt like as I was thrown against the seat in front of me. My body was wiped around like a rag doll, a sharp pain in my head and I heard screams as my headphones were ripped from my ears, and then the welcome oblivion of darkness.

I awoke to overwhelming pain. My head hurt but the pain in my throat over ran everything else. I pulled myself from the darkness and opened my eyes. The first think I noticed was the smoke; the second thing I noticed was that I was on the airplane floor.

I blinked, trying to clear my vision enough to see around me. I was disoriented and my head felt like it was going to split in half, but I managed to pull myself into a half crouching, half sitting position and felt the back of my head.

My hand came back bloody.

“My God.” I didn’t even recognize my own voice. It came out raspy and the burning sensation made me wish I had never spoken. I pulled my shirt over my mouth and looked around. I could barely see anything through the haze of smoke, but I crawled and felt around with my hands.

My hand made contact with something soft and I squinted through the burning, the tears and smoke made it hard to see a foot in front of my face.

I pulled on it and my hands ran over the smooth surface. My fingers skimmed down then froze when they came to the end of the object.

Because it wasn’t an object, it was a hand.

A human hand.

I pulled myself closer and felt my way up to an elbow, then a shoulder. I wiped tears away from my face and tried to see if the person was alright.

What I found made me stumble backwards in horror. It was Gwen, but not happy-go-lucky-I’m-a-model-Gwen. No, this was something I barely recognized. The seat in front of her had come loose and the end result was her sandwiched between the two seats. It had her pined all the way up to her chest, and from the look of her, it had almost chopped her in half. But as horrifying as this sight was, nothing prepared me for what I saw beside her.

My seat.

Only now it wasn’t alone. The seat that use to be in front of my seat was now laying almost completely over it. If my seatbelt hadn’t been stuck, I would have shared the same fate as Gwen.

A sob rouse in the back of my throat and I distantly noticed that the awful wailing sound was coming from me.

“Is anybody there?” It hurt to talk but I kept calling out, desperate for someone to hear me.

“Please, anybody!” I half crawled, half crouched my way towards where I thought the front of the plane was. The smoke made it hard to tell which way I was going, but I found myself thankful for it. At least, with all the smoke, I didn’t have to see any more dead bodies.

“Is there anybody there?”

Hands came out of the smoke and pulled me up; a cold, wet cloth was put over my face and I felt instant relief. I rubbed my face with the cloth as I was carried in strong arms, my weight barely hindering the smooth but hurried walk of my rescuer.

I can’t even begin to describe how much the cold cloth helped, when I opened my eyes I could actually see, my eyes still burned, but I could see.

I could see my rescuer too.

Even though he had a cloth covering the bottom of his face, I saw enough of his face to recognize him. It was the guy who ran into me at the airport.

At that moment, he was anything but pretty, but I could honestly say he was the best thing I had ever seen. He was taking me out of the plane, he was saving me. He could have been a ten foot monster and I would have thought he was beautiful.

Then it all came crumbling down. All because of two distressed voices.

“Can anyone hear me?”

“Is anyone there?”

The voices were coming from behind us. They were loud but distant, they were screaming.

My rescuer stopped and my feet touched the ground.

“Please, we can’t get through, the wall caved in and there’s fire everywhere.” I wanted to go back but my fear was overwhelming, I couldn’t fathom turning around and heading back.

We stood frozen as the voices continued to yell for help and then he was moving, dragging me along.

“There’s nothing we can do, I don’t even know if we will be able to get out as it is.” It was like he was trying to justify it. Justify walking away from their pleas.

“This plane could blow, there’s fire everywhere.” I couldn’t force a response; there was nothing I could say to justify leaving them but I allowed him to pull me with him, my legs felt like lead, but I followed.

Their yells and pleas followed us and if anything, he sped up. His movements almost desperate, like he thought he could out run their voices.

He was pulling me along too fast, my head hurt and running just made it worse. He was getting careless and all the jerking was making me uncoordinated. My foot hit something hard and I tripped.

“Come on, get up.” He tugged on my arm.

“Give me a second, I tripped on something.” I hissed through clenched teeth.

I looked around and froze when I found the offending object. It couldn’t be, but as I touched the red surface, I had to admit that it was indeed.

I had tripped over a fire extinguisher.

Fire, please, there’s fire.

A wall….caved in.

Those people were trapped behind a wall of fire and I had tripped over a fire extinguisher.

I could help them, I could save them.

“We need to go; I don’t know how long the exit will be clear.” When I still didn’t get up he grabbed me by the shoulders and hoisted me up. “Come on!”

I yanked back and lifted the fire extinguisher so he could see.

“We can help them.” I didn’t want to go back. Every fiber of my body was telling me to get out of the plane, to get away from the smoke and flames. I wanted to breathe air that wouldn’t burn when I breathed it in, I wanted to wash my face and rinse my eyes. Most of all I wanted not to hurt anymore.

Going farther into the plane was not on the top of my to do list.

“Listen, I know it’s hard but our chances of living gets smaller and smaller the longer we stay in here. We need to get out now.” He grabbed me again and began to drag me.

I dug my heels in and locked my knees. “They have no chances at all without us.” I looked straight at him. “They will die if we don’t help.”

“There’s no guarantee that we can save them and our chances of surviving will go down significantly.” He wrapped an arm around my waist and lifted me off my feet. I wanted to just let it go and allow him to take me out of the plane, but my hand refused to let go of the fire extinguisher.

I couldn’t let them die without trying.

I arched my body and lashed out. My foot connected with his shin and with a surprised yelp he dropped me. I scuttled away before he could grab me again, my chin set stubbornly.

“I’m going back.”

“Like hell.” He growled. “I didn’t risk my life just so you could throw it away.” He lunged at me; an ugly snarl graced his lips.

He grabbed my elbow and instinct kicked in. I drew back my fist and rammed it into his face.

He fell back, surprised.

“I can’t live knowing that I did nothing to save them.”

I didn’t wait around to find out what he’d do. I just tightened my hold on the fire extinguisher, turned on my heel, and ran back toward the voices.

While everything in me screamed not to.

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Hey guys, thank you so much for reading this. I'm really interested in what you think about this story, please send me an email or review on what you liked or disliked about this story. So far I've enjoyed writing it, but I'd like to know what you, as a reader, think. Please check my profile if you're interested in beta testing this story.

Juniper Nights

Word Count: 3,516

Page Number: 16