Short story
The plane landed at Fiumicino with a jolt, its wheels screeching against the runway. I exhaled, gripping my partner’s hand. The relief was short-lived. Outside the window, a plume of smoke rose in the distance, black and menacing. Sirens wailed, mingling with frantic shouts.
We disembarked into chaos. An explosion shook the ground, and I turned to see another plane crash into the terminal. Flames erupted, swallowing everything in their path. “Run!” someone screamed. We followed the crowd, rushing toward the railway station.
Smoke filled the air as we reached the tracks. With the station consumed by fire, the empty train rails were the only escape. Hundreds of us climbed down, stumbling over gravel, and ran.
We ran until the air no longer smelled of burning metal and flesh. The sun was setting when we reached the outskirts of the airport. Desperate for shelter, we found a small farmhouse, but the doors were locked, the windows boarded up. The fields surrounding us were eerily silent, save for the distant crackle of flames.
I pulled out my phone and dialed Claudia, my friend in Valmontone. “Do you have space? Anywhere to hide?” I asked, my voice trembling.
“It’s bad here too,” she said. “Everyone’s fleeing Rome.”
Night fell, and the group of us—strangers united by fear—pressed forward into the darkness. A faint light appeared in the distance, and soon a 4x4 emerged from the woods. A man waved us over, his face obscured by shadows. “Get in,” he said.
We hesitated but had no choice. The vehicle bumped along a narrow path until it stopped before a massive villa, hidden deep in the forest. The man gestured us inside without explanation.
The villa was grand but lifeless, as if no one had lived there for years. Inside, we found two other women I recognized from a trip to Portugal. We exchanged wary glances. Something about the villa felt… wrong.
The first thing we noticed were the cameras. They were subtle, tucked into corners, but always watching. The man, whom we began calling “the owner,” appeared occasionally, offering food and vague reassurances.
One day, he announced a “visitor” had come for me. I froze as my grandfather stepped into the room. But it wasn’t him—not as I remembered. He was younger, vibrant, his speech clear and confident. He cracked jokes, just as he had decades ago.
Tears streamed down my face as I hugged him. “How is this possible?” I whispered.
He smiled sadly. “Some questions are better left unanswered.”
When the visit ended, the owner told us he would take us “somewhere closer to the real world.” We piled into the 4x4 again, this time driving for hours until we reached a clearing. There stood a small wooden house.
I circled the house, my heart racing. An inscription on the back wall stopped me in my tracks: “You are 150 kilometers from Italy.”
A flicker of hope ignited within me. I showed the message to one of the girls from Portugal. “We can walk. We can escape,” I whispered.
But before I could tell the others, the owner appeared. His calm demeanor was gone. “What are you doing?” he demanded. His voice cut through the air, cold and sharp.
“We’re close,” I blurted out, “close to Italy.”
He stared at me, and then I understood. His anger wasn’t about the message—it was about the truth I had uncovered.
The realization hit me like a tidal wave. The attack, the running, the villa—it wasn’t real. None of it. We had all died at Fiumicino. The villa was a limbo, a place to forget the horrors of what had happened. My grandfather’s presence wasn’t a miracle; it was confirmation.
As the owner stepped closer, I held onto the flicker of hope. Maybe, just maybe, there was a way out.
“I won’t stop running,” I whispered to myself.
And then I ran.
