Flight 713: The Last Passengers

SCENE 1 — 47 MINUTES IN THE AIR

The airplane had been in the air for exactly forty-seven minutes when the first passenger disappeared.

Flight 713 was traveling from Mumbai to London, carrying 186 passengers and 12 crew members.

Everything was completely normal.

People slept under thin airline blankets. Children watched cartoons on glowing headrest screens. Businessmen stared at their laptops. The cabin lights were dimmed in a soft blue-violet glow, and outside the oval windows there was nothing but endless, suffocating black sky.

Then a little girl in Seat 18A suddenly pointed toward the empty seat beside her.

"**LITTLE GIRL**"

"*(whispering)*"

""Mommy...""

Her mother looked over from her magazine.

The seat was empty.

But a moment earlier, a man had been sitting there.

"**MOTHER**"

""Where did he go?""

The mother pressed the overhead call button. A soft chime echoed down the quiet cabin aisle.

A flight attendant arrived, smiling gently.

"**FLIGHT ATTENDANT**"

""Is everything okay, ma'am?""

"**MOTHER**"

""My husband was sitting right here. He didn't get up to use the restroom. He was just... sitting here.""

The attendant looked at the seat.

There was no husband. No luggage in the overhead bin. No coat. No boarding pass. Nothing.

Only a dark, wet handprint on the frosted cabin window.

The attendant reached out and touched it.

It was freezing cold.

SCENE 2 — 1:13 A.M. IN THE COCKPIT

At 1:13 A.M., Captain Arjun Mehra heard a knock.

Three slow, heavy knocks.

*Knock.*

*Knock.*

*Knock.*

He turned his head toward the armored cockpit security door. His co-pilot stared at him with wide, tense eyes.

"**CO-PILOT**"

""Did you hear that?""

Another knock rattled against the reinforced metal.

The captain switched on the cockpit intercom.

"**CAPTAIN ARJUN**"

""Cabin crew, is there someone outside the cockpit door?""

The response came after several seconds of static.

"**CABIN CREW**"

""No, Captain. The aisle is completely clear.""

Then another voice whispered through the cockpit speaker system.

"**VOICE**"

"*(rasping whisper)*"

""Captain...""

Arjun froze. The hair on his neck stood up.

It was his own voice.

"**ARJUN'S ECHO**"

"*"Don't open the door."*"

The intercom went dead. The cockpit instruments flickered red, and a sudden, unnatural silence descended over the aircraft. Even the roar of the twin jet engines seemed to vanish into thin air.

Then the cabin lights flickered.

Once. Twice. Three times.

And every single passenger in the cabin heard a cold whisper in their ear:

"**VOICES**"

"*"We are still here."*"

SCENE 3 — THE WOMAN IN ROW 32

A passenger named Daniel got up from his aisle seat to use the rear lavatory.

As he walked down the dimly lit aisle, he noticed a woman sitting completely alone in Row 32.

She was wearing an antique, tattered white dress. Her long, matted black hair covered her face, hanging down like wet seaweed.

Daniel smiled politely as he squeezed past.

"**DANIEL**"

""Excuse me, ma'am.""

The woman didn't move. She didn't breathe.

Daniel took one more step, and then he stopped dead in his tracks.

Her feet weren't touching the carpeted floor.

They were floating several inches above it.

Daniel stopped breathing. The air around Row 32 dropped to sub-zero temperatures.

The woman slowly raised her head. Her face was gray, bloated, and waterlogged—as if she had been lying at the bottom of a deep ocean for decades.

She opened her mouth wide.

Black, brackish water poured from her lips onto the floor, splashing heavily against the seats.

Then she whispered:

"**SPECTER**"

"*"Why did you leave us?"*"

Daniel screamed. The cabin lights instantly short-circuited into total pitch darkness.

When the auxiliary emergency lights buzzed back on, Row 32 was completely empty.

But black water was spreading down the center aisle. Hundreds of soaking wet, bare human footprints were forming on the carpet before his eyes—originating from the back of the airplane, and walking slowly toward the cockpit.

SCENE 5 — THE CABIN COUNTDOWN & BLACK SMOKE

Inside the passenger cabin, sheer pandemonium erupted.

Passengers frantically reached for their smartphones. There was no cell service, no satellite WiFi.

Then, simultaneously, every phone in the airplane illuminated with an identical push notification:

`WELCOME BACK.`

A second message pinged across all screens:

`186 PASSENGERS REMAIN.`

Everyone looked around in terror. A businessman in Seat 7C simply vanished before their eyes—his laptop clattering to the floor.

`185 PASSENGERS REMAIN.`

A woman in Row 14 blinked and ceased to exist.

`184.`

A child vanished from his mother's arms.

`183.`

Passengers began screaming, rushing toward the emergency exit doors. Two men threw their weight against the door handle, but outside the windows there was no clouds or moonlight—only an endless, ink-black underwater abyss filled with thousands of floating human bodies staring back at them.

The plane was flying underwater at 500 knots. Yet nobody was drowning.

Until the yellow overhead oxygen masks dropped from the ceiling with a violent snap.

Instead of oxygen, thick, choking black smoke poured from every mask.

Passengers coughed violently, clawing at their throats, collapsing into the aisles as the cabin temperature plunged below freezing.

A chorus of thousands of disembodied voices echoed through the walls and air conditioning vents:

"**CHORUS**"

"*"You should not have come."*"

"*"You should not have come."*"

"*"You should not have come."*"

SCENE 6 — THE LAST FLIGHT ATTENDANT

Only one flight attendant remained conscious amidst the suffocating smoke.

Her name was Priya.

Clutching the seatbacks, she stumbled through the thick darkness toward the front of the aircraft. The passenger cabin was totally silent now. Every single seat was empty. Luggage, coats, and shoes lay scattered across the wet floor.

Yet she could hear them.

Their muffled voices were coming from inside the plastic walls and beneath the floorboards:

"**VOICES IN WALLS**"

"*"Priya..."*"

"*"Help us..."*"

"*"Please, it's so cold..."*"

Priya reached the forward galley and pushed on the cockpit door. The door swung open smoothly by itself.

Inside, Captain Arjun was sitting motionless in the captain's chair, hands resting lightly on the controls.

His eyes were completely black—the pupils enlarged until no white remained.

"**PRIYA**"

"*(sobbing)*"

""Captain...? What's happening? Where is everyone?""

Arjun slowly turned his head 180 degrees toward her with a sickening crack of bone.

"**CAPTAIN ARJUN**"

""We landed.""

Priya stepped forward and looked out through the cockpit windshield.

The airplane was no longer underwater. It was standing on an endless concrete runway surrounded by impenetrable fog and darkness. And standing on both sides of the runway were hundreds of motionless, gray-skinned figures, all staring silently at the aircraft.

Waiting.

Captain Arjun smiled a wide, hollow smile.

"**CAPTAIN ARJUN**"

""Everyone is already outside.""

Priya slowly looked behind her into the main cabin.

Every single seat was full again. All 186 passengers and 12 crew members were sitting upright in their seats, staring straight ahead with frozen, gray faces.

The little girl in Seat 18A turned her head toward Priya, her eyes pitch black.

"**LITTLE GIRL**"

""Mommy is waiting for you.""

Priya screamed as the cabin door slammed shut behind her.

SCENE 7 — THE FINAL MESSAGE AT 3:17 A.M.

At exactly 3:17 A.M., Flight 713 disappeared completely from international radar tracking systems.

No mid-air explosion was recorded by military satellites. No distress call was transmitted. No emergency transponder ping was ever detected.

It simply vanished from the sky between waypoints.

Extensive multinational search-and-rescue teams combed the Arabian Sea and Indian Ocean for months, but found nothing: no wreckage, no oil slick, no life vests, and no black box data recorders.

Three days after the disappearance, however, an air traffic controller at an abandoned military airfield in the United Kingdom received a faint transmission on an obsolete radio frequency.

A quiet, static-choked voice spoke:

"**TRANSMISSION**"

"*"Flight 713 to London..."*"

The controller pressed his headset to his ear, his heart pounding.

"**CONTROLLER**"

""Flight 713, state your position!""

Another voice whispered through the static:

"**VOICE**"

"*"Estimated arrival..."*"

There was a suffocating six-second silence.

"**VOICE**"

"*"...Never."*"

The transmission terminated with a loud burst of static.

That exact same night, the airfield's thermal security cameras captured something that defied all logic.

A Boeing airliner bearing the tail number Flight 713 slowly materialized on the fog-shrouded runway. Its engines were completely silent. The cabin door swung open, and the automated stair truck deployed.

One by one, all 198 passengers and crew members walked down the stairs.

Every single one had gray skin, waterlogged clothing, and void-black eyes. They walked in total, synchronized silence across the wet tarmac, entering the dark forest surrounding the airport before vanishing into the mist.

By sunrise, the airplane had disappeared from the runway without leaving a single tire mark.

But the airport's automated ground control server recorded one final, unprompted status log from Flight 713's onboard transponder:

`PASSENGERS: 198`

`SURVIVORS: 0`

`FLIGHT STATUS: STILL IN PROGRESS.`