Page 3 of A Shifter Disaster Thanksgiving

“What thehelljust happened?” she shrieked in spite of herself.

She wasn’t the only one was panicking. All through the cabin, passengers were screaming. Horror swept through the rows of people like a sharpened blade, and Diane found herself struggling to breathe as the chaos consumed her.

This was it, she thought. Her worst fears were coming to pass.

When the lights in the cabin flickered, she knew they were done for. There was a malfunction with the plane and she doubted they correct it. Out of the corner of her eye, she detected a burst of flame, and something whizzed past her window.

“We’ve lost our wings!” someone cried out.

The plane shuddered again, and Diane lost her grip on the armrest. A panicked scream erupted from her lips as she grabbed the first thing she could. A clammy hand gripped hers tightly, almost painfully. It was Tom’s. The man’s face was ashen, his eyes dilating with the same terror that had taken hold of her.

“We’re going to die,” he moaned. “We’re all going to die.”

They were. When Diane had boarded the flight, the possibility of death had occurred to her, nagging her from the depths of her memories. Walter hadn’t known he would die on a plane all those years ago, and now the same thing was happening to her. What had been a mere possibility before was now staring her right in the face.

It was the face of death that loomed over her, and though Diane longed to tear her gaze away, she remained transfixed, regarding her impending doom with a mixture of awe and abject horror. She was going to die, and it would not be thepeaceful, timely death that one might envision. Unless, by some miracle—

A sudden movement jerked her out of her story. Diane realized, to her dismay, that the plane had begun to dip, nosediving toward the ground. She glanced outside the window. They’d descended below the clouds, plummeting toward what must be Nebraska. Flight 18 would end up a fiery pile of metal on a highway, and her final memory would be the sight of billboards and traffic lights.

But when she managed to catch a glimpse outside, she saw no sign of civilization. She saw nothing but a looming mass of white and grey, which she soon realized was a mountain, a mountain covered in snow.

Her pulse pounded in her ears. They were going to crash into a mountain.

As if to confirm her fears, there was a deafening explosion behind her, and the plane gave a mighty shudder. The next thing Diane knew, there was a grating sound, and the hull of the plane was suddenly gone, leaving the back of the cabin completely exposed. A scream escaped her lips as she was suddenly sucked out of her seat.

For the next few seconds, she tumbled through the air, the mountain spiraling in and out of her vision, And then the most terrifying thing that could happen to a person terrified of heights happened: She fell.

Chapter One

It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane… It’s Got Scales…

That was precisely the problem with flying: If anything happened to go wrong while you were thousands of feet in the air, you’d end up plummeting to your doom.

This was the thought that permeated Diane’s mind as she fell like a rock, tumbling as she neared the mountain. Her hair whipped around her head, and the force of the wind nearly deafened her, but her eyes remained open, taking in the sight of what was left of the plane spinning above and the dark specks in the sky that she knew to be other passengers.

In minutes—no, inseconds—she would be gone, little more than a red blotch on the surface of the mountain. Her stomach lurched into her throat, and her lungs burned as she struggled, unsuccessfully, to breathe.

None of this would have happened if she hadn’t boarded that flight in the first place. She hadn’t really believed her agent when he’d told her that her chances of dying in a plane crash were minimal. Looking back on it now, she’d been right to doubt him.

Was this how Walter had felt in the moments leading to death? Had her late husband felt the same terror, the same breathlessness that she was feeling now?

What did it matter? They would be meeting again soon, much sooner than she’d imagined. In a matter of moments, she would crash into the side of the mountain below. She doubted the snow would break her fall, no matter how deep it was, especially given the height she’d fallen from. She’d read somewhere that falling into water from high up was basically like hitting concrete. Did the same apply to snow?

The mountain drew closer, and just before it spiraled out of view again, she caught sight of some greenery. The mountain wasn’t all just rocks and snow. There were trees, too. If shecrashed into one of them, things could get even messier than hitting the snow.

A swooping sound filled her ears just then, and as she tumbled again, she saw a large, winged-shaped object. It wasn’t the burning, spiraling plane. It was something else, something massive, something blue and scaly.

Somethingalive.

The burning sensation spread through her chest, and she felt her consciousness wane. Just before everything went dark, she felt something large close around her body, and she again heard the swoop of wings. A single thought crept into Diane’s mind. She must be imagining things, but she could have sworn she had just seen a dragon.

***

She awoke with a gasp, her hand immediately flying to her heart. She was pretty sure she’d heard screams and a beeping sound, but she was alone when she opened her eyes. At least, it felt that way. It was calm, surprisingly calm, around her. Her gaze was fixed on a wooden roof. The surface she lay on was warm and soft to the touch.

She heard a gentle crackle. With a frown, she pulled herself into a sitting position and glanced around, taking in her surroundings. She’d been lying on a fur rug in a large room. There wasn’t much to see besides a pile of clothes in the corner, some pieces of metal leaning against the wall, and the wooden floorboards that spread out underneath her. The windows were shut; the only source of light was the fire before her.

“Where the hell am I?” she muttered, regarding the stone mantle.

---