It's December 23, 2023. I'm currently anchored to a hard plastic chair at Gate 8, surrounded by the frantic energy of people desperate to get home for the holidays. It's 8:30 AM, and I've been sitting here since seven.
Why? Because parents have this biological instinct to arrive at the airport three business days before a flight and it seems like I have adapted that instinct as well. I've been staring at the same Cinnabon across the terminal for two and a half hours. It's a special kind of holiday torture, watching the frosting harden while you wait for a plane that's probably still in a different time zone.
Let's talk about me for a second, while I wait for my row to be called. I'm six feet tall, 160 pounds—a build you'd call "standard." I have straight black hair, I'm 19, and a life that is, quite frankly, aggressively mediocre.
I was born in the Big Apple, a place where people go to be "extraordinary." I chose to be "fine." I spent my childhood in the shadow of my older sister. She's only a year older, but in terms of achievement, she's a century ahead. Perfect grades? Check. Never been in trouble? Check. She hasn't even had a single cavity in twenty years. Her teeth are literally more successful than my entire GPA.
My daily routine back then was a masterpiece of simplicity: Wake up, go to school, come home, play video games. Repeat until graduation.
When I finished high school, I had this grand, cinematic idea. I thought if I moved across the country—left my comfort zone and headed to California—my life would pull a 180. I expected a montage of surfing, crazy parties, and a sudden personality transplant.
Spoiler alert: It didn't happen. If anything, I just became more irrelevant, only with more expensive rent.
While my sister stayed in New York to study Astronomy at NYU—literally looking at the stars—I'm out here at San Ramos State. It's a "Silicon Valley adjacent" school, which is a fancy way of saying we're close enough to see the Google campus from the roof, but far enough that nobody there knows we exist. I'm majoring in Cyber Security. Why? Because I like computers. It seemed like a solid choice for a guy who's spent half his life in front of a monitor anyway.
So, here I am. Flying back to New York to see my mom, my dad, my "perfect" sister, and a bunch of distant relatives whose names I'll definitely forget by the time the mashed potatoes are served.
That's the holidays for you, right? You fly three thousand miles just to be reminded that you're the "normal" one in a family of overachievers.
The 30-minute mark hit, and the plane finally pulled up to the gate like a slow-moving promise. I stood up, joints popping, and joined the frantic shuffle of people wrestling to get into line .
Walking down that narrow jet bridge is always a humbling experience. You start by passing through First Class—the land of legroom, warm nuts, and people who look like they've never had a cavity in their lives. I shuffled past them, clutching my backpack like a shield, and migrated back to the "normal" section. Row 17.
I found my spot, hoisted my suitcase into the overhead bin with a grunt that definitely wasn't "cool," and slid all the way into the window seat. Five hours and thirty minutes. That's a long time to spend with a stranger. It's the ultimate seat-mate lottery. You're either getting a screaming toddler, a person who tries to sell you essential oils, or—if the universe is feeling apologetic—someone actually interesting.
I watched the aisle, my heart doing a weird little rhythmic skip as people filtered in. Then, I saw her.
She stopped right at Row 17. For a second, the dry, recycled airplane air felt like it had been pumped with pure oxygen. She was incredible. Her hair was a dyed blonde, though I could see the soft brown of her roots—a detail that made her look more real, more grounded. She had a dusting of freckles across her nose and eyes the color of strong coffee. She was wearing black jeans and an oversized brown hoodie, and somehow, in the dim, yellowish cabin lights, she looked like she was glowing.
Is this it? I thought, my brain immediately spiraling into a rom-com montage. Is this the Christmas miracle? In my head, we were already halfway through the flight. We'd be sharing headphones, laughing at the same mediocre rom-com, and exchanging life stories over tiny bags of pretzels. By the time we hit JFK, we'd be exchanging numbers. Maybe we'd meet up after the family chaos died down. Maybe we'd be standing in Times Square on New Year's Eve, the ball dropping while we shared a cinematic kiss under a flurry of confetti. This wasn't just a flight; it was the prologue to the rest of my life.
She looked at me. Just a glance. I felt my face heat up. I started to shift my legs, ready to be the polite, "helpful" seat-mate.
And then, she kept walking.
She moved to Row 18. My heart didn't just drop; it did a belly flop into my stomach.
A shadow fell over my lap. I looked up, and the "gift from Father Christmas" was replaced by a very different reality. A man stepped into the row. He was Asian, probably in his late thirties, and built like a literal brick wall. He was round in that solid, immovable way, sporting a light goatee and an expression that said he hadn't slept since 2019.
He didn't say a word. He just hoisted a massive suitcase into the bin with one hand, gave me a single, tired nod, and dropped his weight into the middle seat.
Just like that, the "Times Square Kiss" vanished, replaced by the reality of being squashed against the fuselage by a man who looked like he could bench press me and then some. My Christmas fantasy didn't just end—it was crushed under the weight of a guy who definitely wasn't going to share his headphones with me.
Merry Christmas to me. I guess I'm back to staring at the wing for five hours.
The flight attendants finished their choreographed safety dance, the engines hummed into a high-pitched whine, and the ground began to slip away. I watched California shrink beneath the wing, the swimming pools looking like blue sequins dropped on a beige carpet. See you next year, I thought.
"Close the window for me, please?"
The request came from the "Wall" next to me. I looked over; he wasn't being rude, just tired. I shrugged. "Alright." I didn't mind. Once you're above the clouds, everything just looks like white lint anyway.
I pulled my laptop from my bag, the screen glowing with the mocking cursor of my winter break assignment. Professor James, a man who clearly hates joy, had gifted the class a "simple" penetration testing project—basically a legal hacking exercise. I stared at the code for three minutes before the hum of the plane turned my brain to mush. I snapped the lid shut. I'd rather sleep.
My seatmate was already ahead of me, his snores rhythmic and heavy, vibrating through the armrest. I sighed, fished my headphones out, and let some smooth, vintage jazz drown out the sound of a middle-aged man's nasal passages. I drifted off into that weird, shallow airplane sleep where your neck feels like it's made of wet cardboard.
I was startled awake by a jolt that rattled my teeth.
It wasn't just a bump. It was a violent, structural shudder. Then came another. The cabin lights flickered, and the overhead bins groaned under the strain.
"Ladies and gentlemen, this is the captain," a voice crackled, sounding suspiciously strained. "We're experiencing some… unexpected weather patterns. Please ensure your seatbelts are fastened."
The "calming" announcement had the opposite effect. Panic rippled through the aisles like an electric current. People were gripping their armrests, their knuckles turning the color of bone. I reached over and slid the window shade up.
Outside, the world had turned into a nightmare. We were in the clouds; we were in a swirling, violet-black vortex. Lightning didn't just flash; it seemed to crawl across the clouds like glowing veins.
So this is it, I thought, a strange, numb calm washing over me. I'm really going to die in a plane crash. Statistically, I should have died in a Honda Civic on the 405, but no—Alexander Thomas Gratteos was going out in a high-altitude fireball. There was something almost poetic about it. My life had been so aggressively normal that the universe had to overcompensate with a spectacular finale.
I looked at the man next to me. The "Wall" had crumbled. He was wide awake, his eyes darting frantically as he clutched a jade pendant, whispering prayers in rapid-fire Mandarin. He looked like a terrified child.
I leaned my head back and closed my eyes. Maybe the next life will be one of those Isekai stories, I mused, my mind drifting to the anime I'd binged in my dorm. Maybe I'll wake up with god-level powers, a quest system, and a harem of twenty girls. That would certainly beat Cyber Security at San Ramos State.
The plane gave one final, bone-snapping lurch. The scream of the engines reached a deafening crescendo—and then, total, absolute silence.
I waited for the fire. I waited for the cold.
Instead, I felt warmth. I opened my eyes as the cabin was flooded with a light so gold and pure it felt heavy. A collective gasp, a symphony of "wows" and "oh my gods," erupted from the passengers.
I pressed my face to the glass, and my breath hitched.
We weren't in New York. We weren't in California. We weren't even on Earth.
Below us lay a sprawling, impossible emerald wilderness. There were no highways, no grid-patterned suburbs, no smog. Instead, there were ancient, forests with trees that spread out farther than the eye can see. To the west, a mountain range jagged into the sky, the peaks capped with snow that glittered like crushed diamonds. Large, crystal-blue lakes dotted the landscape, their surfaces so still they looked like fallen pieces of the sky.
In the far distance, perched atop a sheer cliff, sat a castle. It was a massive, sprawling fortress of white stone and soaring spires, defying every law of structural engineering I'd ever learned.
The man next to me pressed his forehead against the window, his voice trembling. "这到底是什么... (What on earth is this...)"
The plane wasn't falling anymore. It was gliding, silent and impossible, over a world that belonged in a fairy tale. I looked down at my hands, then back at the castle.
"Well," I whispered to the empty air. "Where the hell am I ?"
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Yep, here's the end. I hope you like the start of this new thing. Keep in mind this is free write. Ideas come and go. I thought I had the chapter finished in my head, but I ended up adding new parts. I hadn't even decided his name, and he didn't have a sister at first. Things happen. I hope you enjoy it. I'll post another chapter soon and start posting at a steady pace tomorrow. If it doesn't turn out well, I might end it. See you in the next chapter