Nightwhispers: Prologue/Cilan
Cilan's nostrils flare as she blinks awake, the rumbling noise of the plane's engines straining in the turbulence around echo throughout the room. There is a faint hint of smoke, but it's enough to trigger panic. Something's wrong, sending that reptilian nerve to wake up and release endorphins into the blood stream.
Noticing the possible danger, Cilan rises to her feet, and looks around her, trying to find the source of the smoke, and to watch her possible companions, to see what they're doing and possibly join in. "The hell is happening?!" is called out to any in earshot.
The turbulence strikes, putting Cilan off balance just after rising, putting her down on the seat of her sleeping companion. A young girl, younger than her anyway, an American. Difficulty placing her name is overshadowed by her gasping awake. The blonde woman opening her eyes and giving a very puzzled look to her sudden lap occupant. The scent grows stronger. The civilian aircraft is still clearly used for military personnel transfers, less windows, less seats, more cargo on the plane in the back. The other occupants are all just starting to wake up, no faces recognizable beyond the one below.
Cilan tries to rise again, this time grasping out for a handhold, anything to steady her feet, while with her other hand she shakes the girls shoulder roughly, trying to wake the woman up, "Sienna, get the hell up, we're in danger!"
The girl looks quite dumbfounded and silent at her neighbour’s sudden panic, "What... huh? Cil, what are you talking about." The girl seems clueless, nearly useless. How could she not smell it at this point, let alone all the... out one of the few open windows, Cil spots one of the jet engines on the wing smoking, perhaps the source, although why that would feed back into the plane is uncertain.
Cilan blinks dumbfoundedly, "What the hell are you talking about damn it don’t you smell the smoke?.. The FUCKING engine is on fire! Quick, wake everyone else up.. I’m going to the cockpit, see what’s happening!" Finished berating the small girl, and giving her some rudimentary orders, Cilan makes good on her words and grasps outwards, trudging forward towards the front of the plane.
The cockpit door is bolted shut, something military aircraft rarely bother with. There's no sound from the cockpit, but there are groggy voices from waking passengers. Sienna is up and on her feet, although she has a slightly confused look on her face. "What, are you talking about? What smoke?" she says incredulously.
Cilan points to the window she had seen the engine through and says, "If you don’t believe me, look out the goddamned window, and tell me what you see!" turning back to the door she pounds a fist against the door, trying to alert any inside to open the door for her.
The girl shouts, "Are you crazy? Or just..." she goes silent, her eyes wide, backing away from the woman in front of her as if she's gone psycho. Cil's thundering on the door seems to provoke caution from those waking, but mostly they seem to be taking an oddly long time to wake up. Banging loudly against it, the bolt slides open, allowing egress from the cramped cabin.
Forgetting about Sienna for a moment, Cilan trudges into the now open cabin, looking around to the pilots, "Something’s wrong with one of the engines." she says warningly, "Anything I can do?" she looks expectantly.
The answer is silence, the cockpit completely empty. The plane's nosed downward at a gentle crawl toward a sea of forest below. The cockpit itself isn't large, and there's no sign of the pilots themselves.
Cilan blinks surprised at the emptiness of the cabin and rushes over to the seat, gripping tightly at the wheel and pulling as hard as she can to level the plane once more.
The plane jerks and stutters under the inexpert control, there are voices and commotion now from the back. The voices change to screams of pain, anger, confusion. A panoply of noises is pretty distracting when the plane appears to be heading for doom on the ground below.
Over her shoulder, Cilan shouts "I need a god damned pilot in here! Someone, anyone, HELP!" the woman again turning her attention to the wheel, trying to clear her mind, and compose herself to adequately pilot, and hopefully end the screams of terror from outside.
Cilan has little luck doing more than steadying the decent, the plane is definitely gravitating towards the earth. And then there's a strange noise, and the sounds behind get stranger.
"Autopilot, autopilot.. where the hell are you.." is mumbled to herself before forgetting it and rising to her feet, and charging outside of the cabin, looking with concern to her passengers, watching what was causing the strange, and strangled noises.
Entering the cabin again, it's easy to see what caused the noises, some with their throats slashed wide open, others with a penetration in their ribcage; the passengers are all quite dead, except for Sienna in the back, who's huddled and wide-eyed, staring. She gasps as Cil enters, "What have you done..."
Cilan stares wide-eyed, full of panic to the killed passengers before looking to Sienna, "Wh-what.. what do you mean?!" she asks before she looks at herself.
Sienna raises a finger up toward Cilan, shaking, pointed at a blade gripped in her hand, her trench knife, the blade covered in blood. She turns around to the cabin, and the two pilots both sit dead in their seats, similarly struck down.
Cilan lets the blade drop from her hands, looking at her bloodied hands, and weapon in shear disbelief. "What.. have I done?"
In the moment of shock, the land behind is approaching quicker now, not long before the end. Distracted, Sienna is suddenly on top of her, anger flaring on her face as she wraps her hands around Cilan's throat trying to choke the life out of her.
Cilan blinks as Sienna is on top of her, reality quickly hitting the woman once more which prompts her hands to grip tightly at Sienna's and pull them away from her throat, giving her the opening to charge into the cockpit, and return to stabilizing the plane.
As Cilan pulls the hands off her throat, she looks up into the eyes of Sienna, and she sees sadness and anger, but not evil, just anger and betrayal. The emotions hit home, and flashbacks of memory overwhelm. Sienna's strange shape flashes in her mind, a gryphon's beak proudly raised as she pins the woman beneath her with inhuman strength.
Remembering the form suddenly attacking her memory, Cilan punches Sienna in the jaw, and attempts to force the gryphon off of her.
Cil, distracted in her response, doesn't notice the shadows creeping up around the pair. Cilan manages to throw the beast off of her, the discarded knife in reach and the bird-woman prone on the ground in front of her, her only focus.
Cilan forgets the blade, discarding it for now, and hoping her fist was more than enough to keep the gryphon down long enough to finally get to her feet, and stabilize the plane once more. All the while, she pays no attention to the encroaching shadow, preferring to save both her, and Sienna's life.
There is no plane anymore, just her and the gryphon, and when Cil turns to move to the cockpit, there is nothing but black, and the gryphon is gone. There's some voice that can be heard in the distance, but it's hard to make out the owner, and the words.
