"Ray, please be safe. Mommy loves you."

The middle aged woman hugged her son tightly, bidding him farewell.

"I know, I know. I'll miss my flight, can I go now?"

The woman snorted. "what, do you not love your mother anymore? Let me take my time!"

After another minute and a half of awkward hugging, she let go. The boy walked off to a cab and left.

Staring at the beautiful scenery through the window, he could not help but sigh. "I studied quite hard to get this scholarship abroad, but I'll really miss this place."

14 minutes later, the boy reached the only airport in his island country. He went through the normal procedures and boarded the plane.

Ray specifically chose the window seat, because he never boarded a plane before and wanted to watch the scenery through the window. 

DING! "The plane will be taking off shortly. Please wear your seat belts and turn on airplane mode on your mobile phones."

Ray quickly took out a cheap looking wired headphone, and listened to music he downloaded on his phone. He could not afford sponkify premium. Soon, the plane took off and plane attendants started handing out drinks and snacks. 

"Sir, would you like anything?"

Ray was caught off guard and quickly took off his headphones. "can I have a large cok-" DRRM! The plane started rattling violently. 

"what was that sir?" the beautiful flight attendant almost fell but she held onto the heavy cart infront of her, pretending nothing just happened while smiling at Ray.

"...A large coke please."

Once he was given his soda, the attendant quickly left and went on to the next person. 

Next to Ray sat a fat middle-aged man who definitely could not weigh less than 180kgs. There was actually no one in the middle seat between the two, but the fat man took up his seat and half of the middle seat because of his obesity. Seeing Ray startled by the rumbling, he giggled as his 3 chins danced. "Is this your first time on a plane or something, kid? You look startled!" 

Ray was about to put on his second earphone when he heard the man. He felt even more startled. Not only is this man extremely overweight, he's also almost 2 meters tall. He didnt notice him at first because he arrived first and was staring at the window the entire time. Just as he was about to respond, the plane started rumbling again. 

Ding! "this is your co-pilot speaking. please wear your seat belts because we are heading into a storm." 

The fat man looked at Ray as if expecting him to be frightened. "don't worry, this happens often. The plane won't crash anyway. Did you know? The chances of you dying on a plane crash are lower than getting struck by lighting." before his sentence was even registered to Ray, a sharp sound was heard and a loud bang along with thunder and a bright flash of light. The plane immediately tilted to the right. 

Ray subconsciously turned his head and looked outside the window, and his hairs stood still. Two of the plane's engines were struck by lightning and were on fire! 

The fat man was already facing the window while talking to Ray. When he saw the two engines on fire, he immediately started screaming, his fat flapping and his chins dancing. He almost fell off the seat and broke it! "We're going to die! We're going to fucking die!" he squealed like a pig.

Now, everyone was screaming and many people on the right side of the plane had seen the flaming engines. The people on the left side of the plane didn't know what was going on but were frightened nontheless. Babies started screaming and people started hyperventilating. Seconds later, some orange masks fell from above everyone's seats as another announcement was heard through the speaker. "Attention! The plane is losing altitude rapidly. Please wear the oxygen masks above your head and do not panic. If you are next to someone who is unable to wear their mask, please help them wear it. May God be with us." 

Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

Just as the announcement was finished, another 4 lightning bolts struck the plane and nearly split it in half directly. Now, everyone was panicking and screaming, some were squirming for their masks while others had even passed out on the spot from shock. 

The plane was now 400 meters above sea. 

300 meters.

250 meters. 

180 meters. 

100 meters. 

40 meters. 

"...." 

"I can't believe I'm dying like this. I didn't get to see a single place other than this little country I grew up in. What kind of life is that? Ah, mom. I didn't keep my promise of staying safe. Sorry. "

BOOOM!

The plane landed on the ocean thunderously. Debris flew and flames grew. The plane split in half and even killed 2 fish to add on to the casualties! Ray saw a metal piece splitting the fat man in half, and not even half a second later, a shard flew at him and slit his neck. The plane was still tumbling while sinking and screams could not be heard anymore. 

Ray's blood spilled silently on his seat. He sighed internally as if not feeling the pain. "Guess this is it! Bye, world." he thought before losing consciousness. 

Just as he thought he died, he "opened" his eyes again. This time it wasn't just adrenaline, he really couldn't feel any pain! Infact, Ray couldn't feel anything at all. He could only think as he was a wisp of soul heading to a higher realm along with the few hundred other passengers. He could not see, hear, or touch them, but he could somehow feel their presence as they ascended. 

After a few minutes, he could feel other wisps in the darkness afar. Moving uniformly in the same direction he was heading. "Are these other people that died from all over the earth? There are so many!" 

Soon, the wisps met at some point and started moving together. There were thousands behind and infront of Ray. 

After another hour or so, Ray was surprised again. So surprised that if he had eyes right now they would have popped out of his socket. In the distance, he could see another 5 clusters of wisps of the same size in the distance, again, moving in the same direction. There were 2 other clusters that were both almost 3 times larger than normal. They were all moving up. Ray estimated that there was almost 100 thousand wisps altogether. 

Suddenly, he felt his consciousness being pulled by something invisible. He could not feel it so he didn't know what it was. Actually, he could only tell something was pulling him away from the other wisps because he kept getting further and further away from them.

 After some time, the wisps all became white dots in the distance and Ray was perplexed. Among 10s of thousands of wisps, why was he the one straying so far away? He could not see a single fellow wisp that also strayed away from it's predetermined path. 

After a few hours of floating around in emptiness, he stopped. He had hit some kind of wall perhaps? It's strange because he could feel it. He could not feel anything before! Ray didn't know it yet because it was dark everywhere, but he could see now. He could also hear and feel, but there was nothing to sense except this "wall".

Only moments after hitting this wall, he could hear faint cracks. "huh? Is that my imagination? I hear cracking sounds! Is it this thing I hit?" before he could try to guess where that came from, a giant hand appeared in his field of vision. It was so ginormous that it covered Rays entire vision and he could barely tell that it's a reddish hand from the faint outline of fingers in the distance.

 He was astounded at first. When the giant hand silently clenched at him, Ray really began to panic. "what the fuck! I'm already dead, what can you even do to me!?" 

CLENCH! 

After catching Ray, the hand slowly disapeared into the void, and there was silence again. 

In a far away land, a being that was sitting silently with his eyes closed suddenly frowned. "Did he try to escape? He should know that it's impossible. What changed? Why break such a small portion of the seal now? It would use up a alot of his energy." He suddenly opened his eyes, spread his 4 enormous feathered wings and flew somewhere. 

"..ugh." Ray suddenly regained his consciousness. 

When he opened his eyes lazily, all he could see was a cloudless black sky. "where in the hell am I? I feel so sluggish. I just want to go back to sleep." 

"HELLO!" A thunderous voice billowed. 

"WELCOME TO HELL, KID!"