Mark Swinton's life was, by every measurable standard, good.
The house was quiet in the mornings, the kind of quiet money bought—not silence, but insulation. The hum of the air system. The distant sound of traffic softened by distance and trees. His bedroom window looked out over a manicured lawn that someone else maintained, and beyond that, the city haze sat low and harmless on the horizon.
Mark woke up before his alarm.
He always did.
Six minutes before it went off, to be exact.
He lay still for a moment, staring at the ceiling, listening. Not because he expected something to be wrong—just because checking felt necessary. Once he was satisfied, he sat up, swung his legs over the bed, and stood.
No grogginess. No stretch. His body responded immediately, like it had never fully powered down.
Downstairs, his mother was already awake.
"You're up early," Lucy Swinton said, glancing at him over the rim of her mug.
"Couldn't sleep," Mark replied.
That wasn't a lie. It just wasn't the whole truth.
She studied him for a second longer than usual. She always did that—these small, quiet evaluations, as if she were checking vitals without touching him.
"You packed?" she asked.
"Yes."
"Passport?"
"Yes."
She nodded, satisfied, then hesitated. "You excited?"
Mark paused. He considered the question seriously.
"I think so."
Lucy smiled, but it didn't quite reach her eyes. "It's a good opportunity. Not many schools do programs like this."
"I know."
The school trip had been talked about for months. An international exchange combined with a survival and leadership program. Remote locations. Chartered flight. Limited seats. Expensive.
Mark qualified on every metric they cared about.
Grades. Fitness. Psychological profile.
That last one had surprised even him.
His father, Ethan, appeared in the doorway, already dressed for work. Tie perfect. Hair neat. Expression unreadable.
"Bus leaves in forty," Ethan said. "We'll drive you."
Mark nodded.
No hugs. No dramatic goodbyes.
That was just how the Swintons were.
The school's charter terminal was smaller than a commercial airport, quieter, cleaner. The kind of place where security was polite and efficient, and nobody raised their voice.
Mark recognized a few classmates.
Most were loud.
Too loud.
They joked, complained, took photos. One boy loudly bragged about how this trip would "look insane" on college applications. Another complained about the lack of Wi-Fi.
Mark watched them the way he watched weather—something external, unpredictable, best observed rather than engaged.
"Swinton!"
A hand clapped his shoulder.
Jason Bell. Same grade. Bigger mouth than brain.
"Nervous?" Jason asked, grinning.
"No."
Jason laughed. "Man, you're always like that. Nothing gets to you."
Mark didn't respond. He wasn't sure how to explain that things did get to him—they just didn't stay.
The aircraft waited on the tarmac.
Not huge. Not small. Sleek. Chartered. White hull, no visible logo beyond the school insignia near the door.
As Mark stepped closer, something twisted low in his stomach.
He stopped.
Just for a second.
The feeling wasn't fear.
It was resistance.
Like walking toward something that pushed back without touching him.
"Mark?" his mother called softly.
He forced himself forward. The sensation faded the moment his foot crossed the painted boundary line near the boarding stairs.
Lucy frowned, but Mark was already moving again.
The cabin smelled new. Recycled air and faint disinfectant. Mark took a window seat without being asked, fastening his seatbelt with mechanical precision.
As the other students boarded, noise filled the cabin—laughter, arguments over seats, teachers calling for calm.
Mark rested his head lightly against the window.
The glass was cold.
Outside, the sky was clear.
Too clear.
He watched the ground crew finish their checks. Watched the door seal. Watched the plane taxi.
As the engines powered up, Mark felt it again.
That pressure.
This time stronger.
He swallowed, jaw tightening, fingers curling unconsciously against the armrest.
The plane accelerated.
The ground blurred.
And for the briefest moment—so fast he almost convinced himself he imagined it—the horizon shifted, like something unseen had opened its eye.
Mark's reflection stared back at him from the window.
Calm. Focused. Unaware.
The wheels left the ground.
few hours later, plane mid way to its destination
The first jolt came thirty minutes into the flight.
Not hard.
Not enough to spill drinks or draw panic.
Just enough for Mark to notice.
The cabin lights flickered once, steadying almost immediately. A few students laughed. Someone made a joke about turbulence. One of the teachers smiled too widely and told everyone to stay seated.
Mark didn't laugh.
The pressure in his chest returned, heavier now, like air thickening around his lungs. He loosened his grip on the armrest only to realize he hadn't remembered clenching it.
Outside the window, clouds rolled past—slow, layered, wrong.
They weren't forming naturally.
They were circling.
Mark leaned closer to the glass. The plane banked slightly, adjusting course. The engines' pitch changed, subtle but sharp enough that his teeth vibrated.
That's when the animals reacted.
Far below—so far he shouldn't have been able to see them—birds scattered in a violent burst, a black smear against the white sky. Not migrating. Fleeing.
His pulse quickened.
This time, it stayed fast.
"Uh… is this normal?" Jason's voice carried from across the aisle, half-laughing, half-uneasy.
Another jolt hit.
Harder.
A scream slipped loose from somewhere behind Mark. Overhead compartments rattled. Oxygen masks didn't deploy, but the cabin shifted into something tense and brittle.
The intercom crackled.
Static.
Then the pilot's voice, controlled but tight. "Ladies and gentlemen, please remain seated. We're experiencing unexpected atmospheric interference. This is a precautionary adjustment."
Atmospheric interference.
Mark didn't know much about planes.
He knew that phrase didn't mean anything good.
The pressure in his chest spiked.
His vision blurred for half a second—not blacking out, just… sharpening. Sounds grew clearer. Too clear. He could hear the rapid breathing of the girl two rows ahead. The click of a pen tapping nervously against plastic. The faint, panicked whisper of prayer.
And beneath it all—
A sound that wasn't sound.
A low, vibrating presence that made his bones feel slightly out of alignment.
The clouds outside split.
Not parted.
Torn.
Beyond them was nothing Mark could recognize as sky.
It wasn't dark. It wasn't light.
It was empty in a way that felt deliberate.
The plane lurched violently.
Students screamed now. A teacher was shouting orders Mark couldn't process. The seatbelt dug into his waist as gravity seemed to forget which direction it belonged to.
Mark's heart slammed hard once.
Then steadied.
He didn't know why, but panic drained out of him, replaced by something colder.
Focus.
The aircraft dropped.
Not stalled.
Pulled.
The engines screamed.
The cabin tilted sharply, and Mark caught a glimpse of something below—land, suddenly, impossibly close. Dense forest. Twisted shapes moving beneath the canopy.
Too big to be shadows.
The intercom screamed with feedback.
The pilot shouted something incoherent.
Metal shrieked.
And then—
Impact.
The world exploded into sound and violence. The cabin tore. Luggage flew. People became weightless, then crushed. Mark's head snapped forward, pain blooming white-hot—
—and then everything went black.
When Mark came back to himself, the first thing he noticed was the silence.
Not peaceful.
Wrong.
No engines. No alarms. No screaming.
Just the wind.
He opened his eyes.
Trees loomed overhead, massive and gnarled, their branches twisted like broken fingers. Smoke curled through shattered fuselage. The air smelled of fuel, blood, and damp earth.
Mark unbuckled himself without thinking.
His hands were steady.
He stood.
His body hurt—but nothing felt broken.
That realization came with a chill he didn't understand.
Around him, the wreckage burned low. Debris littered the forest floor. A few shapes moved. Others didn't.
Five students and a teacher crawled out of the wreck
Teacher was injured, leg fractured
Behind him, deep in the trees, something howled.
The sound wasn't animal.
It wasn't human.
It was territorial.