Late Flight

Yesterday was the day I was supposed to see my grandparents for the first time. I was so happy if only I had known what would happen, if only we never went on that plane, if only…

~~~

As I walked around the airport, my mother pulled me and her suitcase. While my Father was a step behind us holding his luggage and mine.

"Mother please, I can't walk as fast as you!"

She kept going not giving up a step for me, "We must hurry this is the last flight we can catch to-"

I turned to look at my Father running behind us, he looked scared.

"At that time, if I knew what I know now, I would have never asked."

I could see a little thing sitting on my suitcase that my Father was dragging behind. I didn't remember having such a toy. It had a white body with pink marble eyes, its tail swayed back and forth mesmerizing me.

"Hurry up, dear," my mother said, "please try to keep up. I don't want you to trip."

Facing forward, I continued running at the side of my Mother. Stopping at the desk between here and there... "Ahhh, where was I again?" Pulling a lance from under my skirt, I stabbed into the heart of the vampire, "as I was saying before you so rudely interrupted my story." Cracking my neck, I sat down in front of the other vampires wrapped tightly with red hot chains, the smell of their burning flesh was all around me and they would try to move and make noises. Noises that angered me, the audacity for them to have ruined my story like that. "Tch, ungrateful scum." Sighing and once again looking at my audience of struggling vampires, I smiled and continued, "as I was saying. My Mother, Father and I stopped at a desk somewhere in the airport..."

"Hello," the desk woman said, "what can-"

"Can you tell me where the flight to London is?"

"To your left, pass the fifth door on your right-"

"Let's go!" Mother bellowed at Father.

"Thank you," he said to the desk woman before running after my mother.

After passing the fifth door, mother found that we were too early, by a whole thirty minutes.

"We don't have time for this." Mother had said as she stood holding the thumbnail as though she would bite it. We all stood at the gate where our aeroplane will be. "Maybe there is another way, there must be..."

Then two people walked up to the gateway—a woman with short blonde hair and a man with a brown coat.

The woman checked her watch, "Philip, there is still a little over twenty minutes till the plane comes, would you like anything."

Mother looked at them and I, with her, turned to stare at them.

Father had moved to the wall behind these people where there were seats. "Maria, come sit next to me."

At this point, Mother had already let go of me when she was trying to not bite her thumbnail with worry. Walking over to my Father, I could see sweat was dripping down his face from running all the way across the airport. But it seemed like that wasn't the only reason...

"Father... father?"

He seemed to be in a daze, then snapped out of it when I called his name. "Oh, darling Maria, are you ok? I hope she didn't pull your arm too hard.... show me your arm."

Pulling up my sleeve, we could see a bruise starting to form on my arm where mother had gripped me so tightly. The impression of her hand on my porcelain-like skin, "it doesn't hurt."

"I'm so sorry," my Father started to sob. Pulling me into an embrace, "I should have carried you instead of Amelia having to pull you along."

"It's ok father, Mother was just scared she might be late, right?"

"Y-yes, darling." He looked like he aged these past few days rapidly when my mother said we would visit my grandparents. I had never heard her talk about them before, but I was just glad that I would be able to see them.

"Father, what do mothers' parents look like?"

"Do you want a snack?"

Nodding my head, I sat next to him, "and you will tell me about my grandparents, right?"

"Ahh, well you see I am not the person to ask, you should be asking your mother this question…"

When I was looking at my Father, I noticed it again, that white body and that hypnotic tail coming near me. I watched as it came closer and closer till it stopped next to me and sat down.

It asked me, "Do you want to become a magical girl?"

"What?"

"Maria? Are you ok?" Holding up a round candy for me to take, "here."

I took the candy from him and ate it, savoring the strawberry flavor. Looking down, I could see the cat-like thing staring up at me with its pink marbles. Looking back up to my mother, she was on the phone, she seemed as though she was getting mad at the person on the other side. Her long dark hair was becoming untucked from her coat as she was talking on the phone.

The woman with the short blonde hair was on her phone conveying information to the man next to her. She hung up the phone. Soon after another person had arrived from the opposite way of which my parents and I had. A woman was holding a bag with a disappointed face looking at the black-haired man.

The long-haired woman seemed off-put when she had seen my parents and me. Meanwhile, my mother had ended her conversation on the phone.

Walking over to us, dragging her luggage, she pulled three candies from her coat pocket, bent down to my eye level and gave them to me. "I'm sorry that took so long, sweetheart," standing up, she looked at Father, "Oliver, do you have that paper on you?"

"Give me a second." Fishing through the pocket of the suitcase my Father pulled out a paper the size of a sticky note and gave it to my mother.

After my mother briefly scanned it over she looked back at me, "I want you to keep this safe and give it to your grandparents when you see them. It is to make more of those delicious candies you always eat, ok?"

"Mm," I nodded while still sucking on the candy. I took the note along with the remaining sweets I had and stuck it in my dress pocket under my coat. After all, my mother said to keep it safe.

~

The plane had arrived just like the desk lady had said, but there were only the six of us getting onto the plane, or so I thought.

I watched as the three of them went to the front of the plane as Mother, Father, and I stopped in the middle of the aircraft. The plane had two rows of seats on either side, Father on the left side I had sat in front of my parents.

"Do you not want to sit next to your father?"

I shook my head, "No, I'll be fine by myself."

Sitting down in the seat closest to the aisle, I watched as the cat-like being sat in the window seat next to me.

"You are not a toy?"

"I am not," his voice sounded in my head, "My name is Kyubey, and I am here to make you into a magical girl."

A magical girl? Thinking, a girl that can use magic? There must be a price. Shaking my head, I mustn't believe it, Mother always says, 'there is a price to everything'.

"And, wow, was she right about that!" I started laughing at my audience. "And you know what the price was? Just a small thing is known as my soul. And to think...I could have just died there and then. Maybe I should have, but here we are now."

Standing up, I walked up to another vampire and sliced it's head clean off with my spear. "No hard feelings, really. I just hate that you are living."

Turning to the remaining few left of my audience. "Now, shall we continue," I said with a cheerful smile. Sitting on rubble, I stared at them.

"You see, Kyubey would have never told me that except for the little fact that I kept pestering to find out the terms of our contract. After all, I was not raised by fools."

'Your mother is right,' Kyubey responded in my head.

Thinking, 'will you tell me then?'

'Sure, but you may not want to become one.'

Glaring at the idiotic animal, 'I don't care, I just want to know what I would be doing. Why would you come to me?'

'Maria Davies, I came here with a request for a contract for you to become a magical girl.'

My face contorted, 'a contract?'

'Yes, and all you need to do is make a wish.'

Blinking at that fact I heard my mother call me. "Sweetheart, why are you looking at the empty seat? Bucket your seat belt."

"I will, mother." Strapping myself into the seat, I looked out the window at the falling snow as the plane took off.

Hearing the chatter around me, I had finally realized that we were now on a crowded plane. I turned to look at the person next to me, a pudgy woman with a child next to her. The child was kicking the seat in front of him, and the person looked annoyed.

A monotone voice over the intercom said, "you may now unfasten your seatbelts."

Despite the voice telling me to unfasten my seat belt, I had left it on for the duration of the ride. After all, I was too focused on what the thing sitting on my lap called Kyubey would tell me.

'What is the cost.'

'The cost is your wish.'

'What do you take from me? You give me my wish, but what do you take?' Frown lines started forming on my face.

'The cost is you will fight witches, and in turn, I will keep your soul-'

My face contorting further into that of anger, 'y- you! Yo-'

'You keep your soul, But I move it to a soul gem.'

Almost opening my mouth, I nearly screamed at him. 'Why would I ever want to give up my soul?'

The plane started to shake, and a voice came over the intercom, "please fasten your seatbelts, we are having some problems with the plane and will need to take a crash landing."

Looking outside, I saw it was night time, but there were more fires all over the city. What is going on? What city is that?

I could see the plane's wing engine was on fire, and I could also see that there were more fires just below us.

"Please, brace for impact." The intercom said as the wing on my side hit a building.

I could see people walking through the fire and others running from those people.

I could see the plane wing nearing the building.

'Hurry, what is your wish?'

"My wish-"

"Maria!" my mother called me from behind, I tried turning my head only to be unable to see her face. "We love you! We love you very much. I'm so sor-"

---

I woke up hanging from my seat, my ears ringing, and my vision blurry.

I could hear him, his voice seeming to mock me now, 'What is your wish?' his body looked damaged, but he could still walk.

"My wish? My wish…" As my consciousness faded in and out, I could hear the screams of people dying all around me. As the dark sky loomed over seeming only to get ever darker, the fire was starting to consume the plane, and I could see people coming near me. Unbuckling myself, I fell to the ground only to blackout. However, the unyielding heat on my skin kept me awake, "I don't want to die here," tears formed only to be evaporated by the heat. I watched as the people around me were being killed off, the ones who got up no longer looked human. "No, no! I don't want to become them, please," it was becoming harder to breathe, once I started coughing, it felt as though I would never stop coughing. I could see some of the nonhuman looking people biting the living and dead passengers.

He stayed just close enough to where the fire would not affect him and asked me once again, "what is your wish?"

Taking in breaths that felt like they would never come to my lungs, I said, "I wish to not die here, I don't want to be devoured by them." Coughing once again I layed there in pain unable to run from the people nearing towards me and unable to move from the encroaching fire.

"As soon as I had said those words, I felt something come out of me, and I felt pain even worse than the heat boiling me alive. My soul was being ripped out of me and being transferred into the soul cage. I could no longer feel the fire burning me at this point. I could barely feel the heat! I took hold of my soul gem and held it close to my heart. I have no clue if it was the adrenaline of that moment, but I killed all the people around me in what seemed to be a fury. I only know this because when I snapped out of it, I saw all the 'people,' you know as vampires, laying in a pool of blood around me."

They looked at me with their jaws kept wide open due to my chains gagging them, continuing to tighten. After all, I didn't want them to talk or shout as the last one did. They really are just so rude, looking at them. I shook my head.

"Screaming in pain, I finally understood what I had done, a soul for a wish, I will never regret that wish. After all," looking up at the vampires with red hot chains closing in around their necks, "why wouldn't I want to see you all die~" Snapping my fingers the chains around all their necks snapped tight, decapitated them all. "Thank you all for having been such a lovely crowd this lovely night." letting the chains burn the rest of their remains I waited till there were just cinders.

Closing my eyes, a fire erupted around me, and my transformation released, turning around only to see Kyubey. My face contorted into one of annoyance, "What is it now?"

"There is a witch's labyrinth nearby that you need to take care of," he said his tail continued to sway.

"No thank you, I just released my transformation so spare me the idle chatter." Forming a flame, I tossed it at him as I walked past him. Another one of those things came and ate him, "disgusting."

"It is a waste for you to continuously do this."

"You have a problem? I put you out of your suffering at that time. How dare you say it was a waste."

Hearing an explosion go off in the distance, I could see a wave of what seemed to be blood.

"What the- Where is that labyrinth?"

'You can use your soul gem to find it the more it glows, the closer you are.'

Holding out my soul gem, I ran to where it was glowing the brightest and entered my first labyrinth.