In Flight
((In Flight started out named nothing more than Witch Dream, became a numbered file, and finally found it's name In Flight due to an error when I was very tired one night when I allowed Microsoft Word to choose a file name for me. The name stuck. This one is not truly a flushed out section to a story at all but a conceptual I made from a note card scrap written in the dark to myself after a particularly vivid dream. The writing is sketchy but I can still see pieces of the dream today. It is as vivid to me now as it was how many years back when it first brought me awake in the middle of the night but I cannot find the words to describe the feeling of flight, the physics explained by the woman on the side of the road, the terror the young woman that was me and yet not me felt when she was inside the plant where she supposedly died and began getting flashbacks to what really happened. The fear in her alternate live that she might truly be going crazy. I can only tell you that I hope some day I can find those words to allow you, the reader, to feel what I did that night.))
A young woman going along with her boyfriend and his dad are going through forested area. She is unsure of her feelings anymore for him and has been thinking about this for some time. The father is driving rather erratically and at high speeds although the roads appear to be rural. It is because of her preoccupation that she does not notice in time that he has steered them right at a huge sign at the beginning of a small hamlet. She screams, the car crashes, she hears her voice called and everything goes black.
She wakes up on a rocky shoulder of a road. Sore and bleeding, finally realizes it’s not the right place, the side she’s on comes into a cliff face while the other drops off down to a distant water the stretches as far as the eye can see. After time she decides to start walking down road, nothing passes. Suddenly a older woman appears out of nowhere in front of her and proceeds to berate her about things and asks why she isn’t flying. Realizing the young woman does not know the name she is being called and does not know how to fly the woman interrogates her and then forces her to attempt flight. The young woman not believing it possible is stunned after four bouncing hops she finds herself in the air. Things happen, she leaves the woman and flies with no particular direction until becoming suddenly very tired and plummeting to earth actually right onto a young man. After much confusion and shouting for guards they get untangled only for the man to recognize her and sweep her into his arms calling her his dear dear friend. She does not remember him (Dmitri) but some how she feels strongly pulled to him. She finds out over time that she had supposedly died in an accident that had killed his brother. His brother had been the crown prince and she had been engaged to him though she had been Dmitri’s play mate for as long as either could remember. Things come back to her slightly and she realizes she was in love with Dmitri but doesn’t tell him, realizing he sees her only as a close close friend, she tells him about the older woman and flying and he laughs telling her that’s ridiculous. She tries, and it doesn’t work. Becoming frustrated she decides to take a running jump off the balcony to get enough velocity. Doing so he screams thinking she’s trying to kill herself but can’t catch her. Runs to balcony only to find she CAN fly. She floats up to him. Talk occurs as he lets her know that he wishes he could fly an old fashioned broom appears in his hand. Several attempts, he refuses to jump off balcony and he makes it. Something happens and they are forced to leave the palace. Take off over the ocean going along near enough to see winding cliff road if needed. Begin playing, she takes off trying to out run him, suddenly something catches the edge of her dress, he’s caught her. She stops in mid air dropping behind then coming up towards him. To escape he points the broomstick straight down towards water. She follows suit trailing just behind him, waiting for him to pull up but he doesn’t going straight into the water with little splash. She pulls up, can’t find him, becomes desperate when suddenly a hand comes straight out of the water and pulls her down into it. She screeches and laughs. She splashes him in the face trying to blind him enough for her to get away but he catches her around the waist. Awkward moment. They come out of it, she asks where his room is, he gets panicked realizing her let it sink. It appears again into his hand. Not sure how to get leverage in water he tries and fails. She, a faster swimmer gets enough velocity and takes off. She comes back and hauls him bodily up into the air nearly falling back in herself but the broom suddenly catches in and he sits down on it and they take off. She complains about being wet to distract him from their embarrassing earlier moment and camaraderie returns. Suddenly sees huge towers looming before them. It’s the ‘Treshnam’ plant where his brother and she had supposedly died. They go there through an unguarded skylight into dark interior. He shows her where he had been told they were vaporized. She goes up onto the equipment far up in light leaps. Standing there she’s suddenly stunned with a huge arching shock and blackness surrounds her.
Wakes up in car with boyfriend and father just coming in to hometown of college. Asks about crash and they tell her it never happened that she must have been sleeping. Make it to dorms, meet friends for dinner then go to separate dorms. Her’s is like a pod with little bubbles all over. (Not a pod specifically, there are sections to the room. When one walks into the room they can only see the main area which seems to be a sitting room and there is a book case directly against the wall next to the door. Her room is right aft that book shelf and it’s small with a bunk bed with the lower half missing. There is no direct lighting to the rooms, only from the main room. There appears to have been someone sleeping as she didn’t want to be too loud. There is a rounded couch and a tv in the corner. One whole side of the main room is a floor to ceiling window but the curtains are pulled against it. The side rooms may be rounded?) She goes into darkened interior. Find her door at end of hall and goes in. Room is round with a bathroom off at one end. Two bunk beds on far sides of the room with a large window shaded on far end from door. Roomate there, trade niceties and she decides to go to bed. Get’s changed, showers, brushes teeth and lays down to think about her ‘dream’ while she sinks into sleep.
Back in ether world Dmitri catches her but she is out cold. He thinks she’s dead at first but finds pulse. He loves her and tells her not to leave him again but she does not hear it. Find out that he has cared for her but knew she was his brother’s and did not want to hurt either of them with his unrequited feelings. Some workers, one he knows as an old friend in military training come for commotion. Told he must escape because the company guards will kill him. Needs space to take off. Some how friend believes him but says how will he take off with woman. He won’t leave her. There is a big glass circular window looking over bay he must go through. Can’t break glass early because guards will come. Put her on seat like conveyers towards molten melting chamber. No other choice. Must work. He backs up, she is set into place, he runs for it seems he won’t make it, gets her over shoulder and goes straight through glass seems about to hit ground when broom picks up and they take off. People firing at them, both cut and bleeding from glass. He has huge piece in his thigh but can’t stop. Keep going until in well over forest and then can’t make it any further from loss of blood. Passes out as they crash. She wakes up to find him sprawled beneath her. Pool of blood.
