Hour 5: 40,000 ft

"What—what do you mean...dead." Aphmau barely managed out, even though she knew perfectly well what her best friend meant.

Katelyn, her face now drowning in tears, collapsed on Aphmau with arms wide open, her wails clearly beginning to concern some of the passengers nearby.

Aphmau led her into one of the vacant bathrooms and locked the door, as she tried to coax a mourning Katelyn to tell her what the hell was going on.

"In...one of the cabinets...in a pool of his own blood...stabbed." Katelyn's cries unrelentlessly.

Aphmau wasn't any better. "No—no, he was just here. He can't be dead." A sob chokes her. "He was too young."

Aphmau tries to swallow the lump gathering in the back of her throat. "If there is a killer, we need to tell Aaron—"

"NO!...no, we can't. If he knew, he would be distracted and...we need him to land this plane."

Aphmau was about to mention there was a co-pilot for a reason but just couldn't find the will to even argue, before she collapsed back into her weeping coma with Katelyn, both leaning against each other for support.

Tearing away at the paper towels, the girls wept inside the tiny bathroom, presumably for hours holding each other as they mourned a partner and a dear friend.

That is, before they heard the gunshot.

*

Hour 6: 40,000ft

SHHHHHHHHPUFT

"What in irene's name was that?" Aaron, headset half on, exclaimed, hands firmly grasping the steering wheel in the dimly lighted cockpit, his eyes not leaving the windshield before him.

"It was probably just your clumsy-ass girlfriend knocking over a food cart again." Garroth, his co-pilot, joked, getting a chuckle from Aaron.

Aaron remembered that day. Aphmau was trying to pull the food cart from its place within the food cabinet when she slipped and fell, and the cart fell with her, luckily not on her.

But he did remember her terrified scream, a scream inspired by the potential of a falling heavy object.

It was as if he could hear it right at that moment...

But wait, Aaron thought, this one was a bit different...

It seemed...hoarse.

Curious, Aaron took off his headset and unbuckled himself and let go of the wheel. "Take over for me, Garroth. I'm gonna go check what this is all about."

"Of course you are, Superman."

Exiting his cockpit, Aaron expected a similar situation to the food cart one, but never in a million years, expected Aphmau to be bleeding on the floor.

Have a nice day my crystals!