Chapter Two
Sucked through a Wormhole
On a beautiful planet far far away from the planet Calamity, two young friends had somehow won a trip around their hometown in a light aircraft, and they were both very excited when they arrived at the long grass meadow that was to be used for just this one time as a runway. Their mothers had brought them, and were now standing by their cars watching as the aircraft, that their sons were sitting in, took off on the thirty-minute trip. Reuben and Jasper were just twelve years old, and they were sitting in the two rear seats. They watched with excitement as the craft moved away from the ground and flew over the English Channel, before turning back towards the town of Hastings.
All seemed to be going well for them until angry looking storm clouds appeared from out of nowhere, it was just above and directly in front of them. The two boys watched in awe as a fiery mouth opened in the middle of the storm clouds, it was whirling around at a great speed and gyrating around the storm clouds in a mad dance, sucking in everything close enough to its greedy maw. Their pilot tried to avoid the monstrous thing, but the fiery mouth seemed to anticipate his every move, and then it gulped down the aircraft, along with Reuben and Jasper. From out of nowhere a hurricane force wind appeared that pulled them forward at an increasing rate of knots, it flipped the plane upside down, it hammered against the fuselage doors and finally ripped open the one by the pilot. Mr Craddock, their pilot, had never worn a seatbelt, seeing himself as far too macho, when the wind caught the small aircraft and threw it upright again, he found himself thrown violently out of the plane. The last that the two friends saw of him was as he pulled the ripcord that opened his parachute, although whether it would save him depended on the gods, and impossible as it might seem the storm now grew in intensity.
“Reuben where are our parachutes?” Jasper asked anxiously.
Reuben looked around, he looked under his seat, he looked behind his seat, and then he gulped. “I do not think that we have a parachute Jasper!” Rueben exclaimed with another gulp. “In any case Jasper, I really do not fancy jumping out of the plane, not into this storm.”
Reuben decided that they really needed a pilot, so when the aircraft stopped gyrating for a moment he climbed into the pilot`s seat. As he strapped himself in the wind veered sharply and threw the aircraft violently to the side, and knocked the two boys against anything near enough to hit, loud howls came from both the boys who were now rubbing their sore heads. Reuben quickly closed the door next to him, and it was now that the engine of the aircraft began to stutter, as if it too was panic stricken, and finally it began to fade as if it did not dare to fly within this new and very scary environment. Somehow the engine kept turning over, just. Reuben was now piloting the aircraft, with Jasper sitting next to him, for he had also climbed into the front seat. Even though Reuben had tried to keep the aircraft on an even keel, it kept bucking as the strange wind hit it from every direction. The fear on the face of Jasper had returned twofold, and Reuben could feel the same fear and panic rising in him as well, how he was able to hang onto his own ragged nerves for so long, he would never know. His knuckles had turned white from gripping the joystick so hard, and he was certain that they were doomed to die in this storm of storms. All about them, Reuben saw a nightmare vision that wanted nothing more than to attack their flimsy aircraft, and it`s two young passengers.
The inside of the aircraft was ice cold, far colder than Reuben had ever been before, his breath now froze as he exhaled, he shivered uncontrollably as the windows of the aircraft began to mist up. Reuben looked across at his friend who looked back, his fear mirroring the one that Reuben felt. Nothing aboard the aircraft was working except for the stuttering engine that still refused to die completely, and Reuben was sure that it would also give in to the storm soon. They should have crashed into something but still they flew on intact inside the clouds, they should have been torn apart, but something seemed to want more from them, more than just fear.
The colour of the clouds had become almost psychedelic, as a continuous flow of bright orange lights sped towards them at impossible speeds, only to shoot by them and disappear back into this terrifying cloud, making Reuben and Jasper believe for a second that they were in an x-file movie. For a long moment, the glare of a lightning flash temporarily blinded the two boys; then another lightning bolt exploded, it was uncomfortably close to the light aircraft and it terrified the two boys who now began to pray very loudly. Finally, their sight returned, but it brought more terror as they saw their skin changing colour to match that of the cloud, but Reuben did not think that it was just a reflection of the cloud`s colour, his and Jasper`s skin appeared to be really changing colour. Then he noticed that the aircraft, Jasper, everything, every atom of everything was changing, was in motion, disassembling from its neighbour. Reuben wanted to scream to relieve his stress, but by now, nothing remained still long enough to allow him even this small amount of comfort. His body, that of Jasper, even the aircraft, every single atom was in constant motion. He was sure that he would soon pass out, but as his mind verged on hysteria everything stilled, Reuben stilled, the aircraft stilled, Jasper stilled, time stilled. The two boys could not believe this was happening to them, they were sure that they had now left their universe behind them, and that they had entered into a secret netherworld beyond their own. One piece of information not known by Reuben and Jasper, and maybe they were lucky here, was that the aircraft was now nowhere near to the planet Earth, it had just passed Alpha Centauri and was still moving even further away through space. To Reuben it seemed to be a contest between the strange storm and gravity as to which would kill them. Another huge blaze of lightning lit up the sky directly ahead, and they plunged straight into its fiery embrace, lightning rippling along the aircraft much as water does across a rock. Reuben and Jasper were both feeling very light headed now, as the oxygen within the craft was used up. Normality had indeed left the room Reuben thought as he began to lose consciousness, leaving only a supernatural storm that battled against the small aircraft, tossing it and its occupants about like so much flotsam.
Three Journeys of the Scary Kind Page 9
