Aiden Cross slouched in his seat, hood drawn low, earbuds in, eyes half-closed. The soft hum of engines and the steady rhythm of turbulence provided an odd sort of comfort. People always said flying was stressful, but for Aiden, it was easier than staying in one place. Up here, no one asked questions. No one expected anything from him.
Row 34A. Window seat. Just how he liked it — away from the aisle, away from interaction.
He glanced at his phone for the sixth time in five minutes. No signal, of course. They were somewhere over the Pacific Ocean, halfway between Singapore and Los Angeles. Aiden wasn't going anywhere in particular — just away. Away from the long silences in his father's apartment, away from the cold glances of a mother who hadn't spoken to him in three years, and away from a world where everything felt like it was closing in.
The seat beside him was empty. It had been since takeoff, which felt like some small miracle. The woman across the aisle was dozing, her neck at an awkward angle. A toddler a few rows back screamed now and then, but Aiden had long since tuned it out.
He exhaled and turned toward the window.
Dark clouds were rolling in — black and heavy, not like the soft tufts that drifted along earlier. These had weight. Presence. There was no sunset, no light bleeding through the edges. Just layers of charcoal folding into one another, like ink poured into oil. It looked wrong.
The plane jolted hard. Aiden's head bumped the window, and he yanked out one earbud.
The captain's voice crackled over the intercom. "Ladies and gentlemen, we're hitting a patch of unexpected weather. Please return to your seats and fasten your seatbelts. This is just a minor detour — nothing to worry about."
Nothing to worry about.
That phrase echoed in Aiden's head even as the cabin lights flickered once, then twice, before dimming. The overhead lights glowed red for a moment before stabilizing. A murmur passed through the passengers like a ripple.
A second jolt hit, harder than the first. This time, a few overhead bins popped open, and someone screamed in the back.
"Probably lightning," someone muttered. But it wasn't.
Out the window, something flashed — not white like lightning, but bluish-green, like underwater light. Then another flash. The sky lit up in shapes — patterns — like circuitry or veins glowing for a split second across the clouds.
The clouds weren't just dark. They were moving. Not drifting — shifting, warping, like something was inside them, twisting the entire sky.
Aiden felt it in his bones before the plane dipped — a gut-wrenching drop that sent trays flying and passengers gasping.
The intercom came alive again, this time shouting, "Brace! Brace! Heads down! Stay down!"
Aiden grabbed the seat in front of him, heart pounding. The cabin tilted violently as the engines roared and the lights cut out completely. Everything went black.
Outside the window, lightning slammed into the wing — but it wasn't lightning. It was like the storm reached for the plane, wrapping fingers of light around it. The metal groaned.
Aiden screamed with everyone else as the plane dropped.
Then—
Silence.
No crash. No explosion.
Just… stillness.
Aiden opened his eyes. At some point, he'd blacked out. His ears rang. He was upside down.
Everything was tinted green.
Sunlight poured through shattered windows, filtered by thick leaves. Vines dangled from the ceiling. His seatbelt held him like a cocoon. All around him, the cabin was in ruins — torn seats, ripped floor panels, shattered plastic. A bird the size of a small dog flapped out of an open window, shrieking.
Aiden hung there, blinking.
The first breath burned. Not smoke — air. Wet, dense, too clean. Every inhale felt like more than his lungs could hold. The air smelled like rain and bark and rot. The scent was overwhelming.
He fumbled with the seatbelt and fell, crashing hard onto the broken ceiling — now the floor. Pain shot up his shoulder. He bit back a yell.
Someone groaned nearby. Another voice whimpered, "Where… where are we?"
Aiden pushed himself to his knees, clutching a seat to stay upright.
The plane had split in half.
The rear section was missing — jagged metal marked where the fuselage had torn apart. Outside, sunlight poured into the jungle. Towering trees unlike anything Aiden had ever seen blocked most of the sky — wide, flat leaves like umbrellas, stretching twenty feet across. Thick ferns brushed against the open hull. Insects buzzed — loud, rhythmic, not like anything familiar.
And the heat. It was like being inside a wet furnace.
He stumbled toward the torn edge, stepping over twisted metal and motionless bodies.
The moment he stepped outside, it hit him.
The forest… was alien. And ancient.
The ground squelched with every step, thick with moss and decomposing plant matter. Strange fungi glowed faintly on tree trunks. Huge dragonflies darted between branches, their wings crackling like cellophane.
He reached a small clearing and turned back.
The plane — or what remained of it — had crashed through the canopy and skidded across the ground. Smoke drifted from the rear engine. Parts were everywhere — chairs, oxygen masks, scraps of fuselage half-buried in ferns.
Survivors staggered from the wreck, dazed and bleeding.
A woman cried over a motionless child. A man shouted names. Someone was already trying to start a fire using the emergency gear.
But Aiden didn't move.
He just stared at the forest. His heart thudded in his chest, too fast.
Because it wasn't just a tropical jungle. He wasn't dumb. He'd seen enough documentaries to know these plants weren't modern. The scale of everything was wrong. Trees too tall, bugs too big, no mammals in sight. Even the air felt… ancient.
This isn't Earth. Not our Earth. Not now.
Behind him, a scream rang out — someone had found a body outside the plane, half-eaten by something.
Aiden didn't go look. He didn't want to know.
Instead, he stared at the towering ferns ahead of him, the buzzing canopy, the alien sky.
He didn't know where he was. But one thing was certain:
This wasn't the world they'd left.