**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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Still Loop 2
I shake my head, unable to grasp the words coming out of her mouth. It's impossible – literally the exact definition of not possible. Life doesn't just reset like a glitchy video game. But, yet, everything she's saying somehow rings true.
Is this what it feels like to go insane? Suddenly realizing the fabric of the world is coming undone? That two plus two doesn't equal four, and maybe the concept of four never even existed in the first place?
Nothing makes sense anymore.
"What about them?" I point at all the placid passengers, carrying on as if everything was normal. "What are they, Cyborgs or something? Why is this just affecting us?"
"Cyborgs?" she asks. "Is that Star Wars? Star Trek? I can't ever keep those straight, but that probably has something to do with the fact that I never watched either of them." Evelyn grins at her own joke and Margaret flashes us a look, annoyed that we're cramping her row when the plane is mostly empty. She snorts, adjusting a jacket over her legs.
But then Evelyn is facing me. Her lips straighten, as her eyes fill with concern again. "The honest truth is, I don't know why it's just us. And until two loops ago, why it was just me. I wish I did. But I don't."
My heart races and I'm lightheaded again, not able to focus on anything. All I know is I can't sit here anymore. I can't look into Evelyn's eyes, and hear these words that are turning my entire universe upside down. I have to be somewhere else.
I stand and I'm scanning the aisle, my head swinging back and forth across the cabin. Turbulence continues shaking the plane. Behind me I watch the same woman spill her drink against her white blouse – exactly like last time – and moments later the shaking causes an overhead compartment to pop open. The blonde flight attendant, Heather, rearranges a couple of bags and snaps it shut again.
I'm desperate to open a window and get some fresh air. Run outside and scream into the wind. Dunk my head in a pool or take a long bike ride to clear my mind.
But I can't do any of that. I can't do anything.
I'm stuck here, breathing recycled air, with absolutely nowhere to go. Nowhere to escape.
I stumble back to my seat and collapse into it. I lean my forehead against the plastic window, which is scuffed and foggy, and stare into the darkness. I can't see anything. Just an inky black sky against hidden clouds, with the invisible sea somewhere beneath them. As I stare out into the nothingness, the shaking stops, and the plane is calm. Everything is quiet.
Did I die and this loop is like some sort of transition? Some in-between exercise of grit, or a test of intelligence that I need to pass to proceed to the afterlife? A scenario to somehow prepare me for whatever comes next?
