A flight attendant stepped in front of me like a gate. “Ma’am, you need to sit down. Now.”
Her hands were shaking as much as the cart she’d abandoned in the aisle.
I reached into my jacket, pulled out a worn leather ID, and held it up.
Her eyes dropped to it, then snapped back to my face.
Her mouth opened, but no sound came out.
She moved aside like her body understood before her brain caught up.
The cockpit was a cage of blinking lights and angry beeping.
The captain was slumped in his seat, head tilted wrong, mouth open, like he’d been cut off mid-breath.
The co-pilot was sweating through his shirt, one hand gripping the yoke like it might jump away, the other slapping buttons that weren’t helping.
“I can’t reach control,” he said, voice sharp with panic. “The systems are glitching. Something’s wrong with the hydraulics. I—”
