**WATTYS 2022 WINNER** Seventeen-year-old Evelyn Werth is on an endless flight from hell. She's the only person onboard Aloha Airways Flight 1333 who's caught in a 28-minute time loop.
During each cycle, four things happen:
1. The Internet goes out...
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Loop 265
"Sorry folks," the pilot's muffled voice fills the cabin. "We've lost Internet connection. It will hopefully be back up soon. And please remain in your seats, we're approaching a patch of turbulence."
On cue, the wavy seatbelt image above my head flashes on.
That's how it always starts. The pilot has said the exact same thing for what's now the 265th time.
My lips are cracked and my eyes itch from the recycled air blowing from the overhead vent. I grab Chapstick from my pocket, coat my lips and blink a few times, willing my eyes to moisten. It never works.
It's possible my numbers are slightly off. I think it's happened 265 times but I'm not exactly sure. And if I write it down, it'll disappear in 28 minutes when the next time loop starts.
To be honest, I'm not sure why I even attempt to keep track of the loops anymore. In the beginning, it felt like a good thing to record. Important, even. Like shipwreck survivors scratch their days stranded on a deserted island into a palm tree trunk. But after a couple hundred, it just became routine. Something to do.
The baby in the seat behind me wails. A blood-curdling, ear-splitting shriek that would haunt my nightmares, if I had nightmares anymore. But instead, I'm just living one.
I reach under my seat, grabbing the pacifier where I know it will be. It took me a half-dozen times to find it in the first place. I swing my arm over the headrest, handing it to the mother behind me who smiles gratefully. A moment later, there's silence.
I close my eyes and exhale. Sometimes I'm anxious as hell, overcome with the pressing need to stop the events from happening – to somehow break this damn loop – but other times a strange calm settles over me. I suppose off-the-charts anxiety is impossible to sustain, even when time is broken.
Two seats down, Margaret Evans drapes her jacket over her lap, covering her exposed knees. Then my eyes fall to the red backpack at my feet. Although it's closed, I know what's hidden under the zipper.
And I can't bear it.
I launch myself from my seat to find one of the three flight attendants, Heather, standing in the single aisle. She's nearly six feet tall, but even taller in her platform heels. "Miss, the seatbelt sign is on," she says, her soft features rearranging into a stellar bitch face.
But I can't wait. I don't need a watch to tell me that three minutes have passed, and there's only 25 left. I know every minute, each ticking second, like the freckles on my arms. Memorized, mapped out in great detail, like they are a part of who I am. Because they are now.
Despite the bitch face, Heather's a sweetheart. If I didn't hop up at that exact moment, she would've handed me a bag of pretzels, winked, and slipped me another. I once followed her to the back of the plane where we chatted for a few minutes. She told me about her fling in Kauai with some hot surfer, her mountain of credit card debt, how she's using this job to see the world. She's only five years older than me – she just turned 23 – and talking with her was how I imagined it would be like to have a big sister.
