Rules

"Can I check your ticket please?"

I handed the ticket that I'd been twirling around in my hands for the past hour to the flight attendant. She nodded at it approvingly before producing a sheet of paper from the file that she was holding and placing it inside my folded ticket. 

"Have a nice flight", She commented enthusiastically before handing my ticket back to me. 

I grabbed my ticket and stared at the folded sheet of paper inside my ticket curiously before finding my seat. 

Once I settled down in my seat, I removed the folded sheet of paper from my ticket and placed the ticket in my bag. Upon unfolding the sheet of paper, I realised it was a handwritten note. The handwriting seemed rushed. I've transcribed the note from memory here:

*Rules for surviving this flight*

1. *Do not speak of this sheet to any passenger. You are the only human on this flight.* 

2. *Check the time on your phone after reading this sheet. All rules will apply based on the time of your phone.* 

3. *During the first hour of the flight, do not talk to anyone. People may try to talk to you but ignore them completely*

4. *During the second hour of the flight, you may start talking again but if anyone mention the window, do not look outside the window in any circumstances*

5. *If you hear a child crying in the cabin, immediately run to the bathroom*

6. *If the screen of your entertainment console suddenly goes black, immediately look away and do not stare at it.* 

7. *During the third hour of the flight, the captain will make an announcement. Follow the instructions*

8. *During the fourth hour of the flight, do not sit in your seat*

9. *If you make it past the fourth hour, you will need to spend the rest of the flight evading the chaser, you will know who the chaser is when you see them.*

10. *The captain will make an announcement of the plane landing, as soon as you hear this announcement, push your way to the exit door and open it*

11. *You will find that the outside is simply a black void, jump into it without hesitation*

I re-read the rules again while chuckling. Did they give one of these to every passenger or was I somehow randomly chosen for this prank? I checked the time on my phone just to humour the list:

*7:13am*

So this would be the first hour of the flight. Suddenly a young man walked over to my seat and sat right beside me. I gave him a casual side glance and saw that he was carrying what looked to be a laptop bag.

"Great", I thought, "he'll work on whatever he's doing and leave me alone for the flight"

The man didn't even bother to exchange a single word with me as he settled down in his seat and put on his seatbelt. He stared straight ahead and completely avoided me. I let him be and started to fiddle with my flight console. Some people just like to be left alone, I guess. 

Soon enough the captain made an announcement of the plane starting and the steady hum of the plane engines started to vibrate the entire cabin. The plane started to accelerate until the g-force pushed me into my seat. Moments later I felt the plane rising into the air. I am typically not scared of flights but getting on a flight always makes me a bit nervous. This time though, my stomach was in knots and beads of sweat were running down my forehead. My instincts told me I was stepping into danger, grave danger. I dismissed my thoughts and that awful gut feeling, chalking it down to feeling a little creeped out by the note. 

The young man on my left suddenly tapped on my shoulder. I jolted up like I'd just been electrocuted. Even through my jacket, his hand felt cold. Cold and heavy, like a dead person's hand. 

I turned around and faced the young man. His face seemed… wrong. You know how those realistic human robots can creep people out because of how close to human they are, yet subconsciously we can tell that they aren't human. This man was giving me that same unsettling feeling and his facial features were just artificial in a way I couldn't place.

Maybe it was his eyes. A little too big, the pupils abnormally dilated. Or maybe it was his nose, not exactly in the center of his face. Or perhaps it was his mouth, lips way too thin and long. Don't get me wrong he didn't look obnoxiously fake, in fact it was those very subtle blemishes in his facial features that made him look like something trying to look like a human. 

And then he spoke

His voice was normal. Upon hearing his voice, the man seemed to look normal too and I thought I was just freaking out for no reason. 

"Hey, do you wear headphones?", He asked

That was a weird question to ask. Did he want headphones? I was about to open my mouth to speak when he spoke again. 

"How would you feel if I cut your hand off right now?"

What was disturbing wasn't the nature of the question itself but the fact that he spoke in such a calm manner. It was as if he was asking me how my day was. Suddenly my mind went to the list of rules that I had subconsciously been squeezing in my hand. The first rule said to not talk to anyone on the flight no matter how much they try to talk to you. 

I decided to ignore the man. He seemed really weird anyways and if I was being honest, the list of rules wasn't the reason I chose to ignore him. 

He stopped pestering me and returned to work on his laptop. 

I looked over at his laptop slowly and gasped at what I saw on his screen. 

He had a photo of me on his screen. That's it. Nothing else, just a full screen photo of me. Before I could process that properly, I looked over at his keyboard and noticed that it wasn't a standard keyboard. In fact it really wouldn't even count as a keyboard. It was made up of oddly shaped keys, all marked with strange letters that I doubt existed. 

The man continued to stare intently at the photo of me on his screen. It was then that I realised that the list of rules wasn't a joke. Suddenly a flight attendant popped out of nowhere and asked me. 

"Sir, is this man bothering you?"

"Yes he is-" I replied before my voice caught up in my throat. 

In under a second, everyone in the cabin snapped their heads around until they were staring directly at me. 

Their faces, they all looked wrong. Inhuman. 

Slowly their long thin lips curled into wide smiles and red tears started to roll down their faces. 

This one really creeped my out and happy Fourth of July even tho I don't support it but for the people who do here you go😌