The Devil's Triangle

A voice crackled over the airport speakers. “Final call for flight EJU6163 to Miami, Florida. Please proceed to gate 12 for boarding.”

“That’s us, guys—let’s move!” I said, grabbing my suitcase in one hand and slinging my duffel bag over my shoulder, already half-jogging toward the gate.

At the counter, the female Gate Agent barely looks up as she speaks. “Boarding pass and passport, please.” Her voice sounds as mundane as someone being forced to watch paint dry.

I hand over my documents. Her face remains unchanged as she opens my passport, stamps something inside, and hands it back to me. Barely giving me a second, she raises her voice and calls out, “Next.” The sudden shout startles me as I walk towards the plane.

I’m Sam by the way. And I’m here with my mates.

Let’s introduce the squad shall we.

First there’s George, built like a twig, but she’s got a mind and tongue sharper than a blade. Second is Simon, the tallest in the group. In a way I guess you could say I look up to him, I mean if I looked at him at eye level I’d be looking at his chest.

Then there’s our girly girl- Lydia, enough curves and confidence to turn heads in any room, and somehow always dressed better than the rest of us. Lastly there’s Ashley, my childhood best friend, and three-time boyfriend before he finally came out a couple of years ago.

We’re kind of a weird mix—our group’s basically the Breakfast Club of this generation: the gamer, the artist, the jock, the glam girl, and the hipster. Somehow, it works.

We’ve all been tight for years, and this trip? It’s for Simon. After surviving a brutal heart surgery that nearly ended his life, we decided he needed something big—something unforgettable. So here we are, flying from London to Miami, kicking off three weeks of sun, adventure, and freedom before real life and college pull us in different directions.

Once on the plane, we search for our seats. For some reason when booking the flight George insisted on booking seats near the back. Weak bladder, I guess. I slide into my preferred window seat, with George settling in beside me. Simon and Lydia sit down one row ahead, and Ashley lands in front of them, sitting next to a young woman who was already tucked into her window seat.

Once everyone was settled on board, the flight attendant stood at the front of the plane and went over the usual instructions—how to fasten our seatbelts, where the emergency exits were, and that this was going to be about a 9 and a half hour long flight. I have a strong feeling my ass is going to be numb as hell when we land.

Once the plane took off I stared out the small window for about twenty minutes watching the clouds drift by. Eventually, exhaustion caught up to me. I’d been up all night helping Lydia with her “last-minute packing.”

And when I say last-minute, I mean she was still trying on outfits at 4 a.m.

God that girl can never decide on anything when it comes to her looks. First, it was the evening outfits—everything was either too flashy or not flashy enough. And don’t even get me started on the bikinis. I swear she has an entire wardrobe dedicated just to swimwear, and yet she still couldn’t pick one. In the end, I think we packed her entire bedroom. Once that circus was over, it was a chaotic rush to meet the others and make it to the airport on time.

Just... perfect.

After about seven hours of some well-earned sleep, I wake to the sound of a couple chatting behind me. Having nothing better to do, I listened in on what they were saying.

″I heard that we were going through the Bermuda triangle on this flight, is that true?″ The woman asked the man next to her who replied to his partner in an irritated tone.

″I bloody hope not, last time they did that they were lost for two hours when they thought it was only a few minutes. I don’t want to be late for this meeting!″

‘What? That doesn’t make any sense.’

I turn around to face them, failing to contain my curiosity. “Excuse me for being rude but I couldn’t help but overhear that you said that we’re going through the Bermuda triangle, why aren’t we going to be flying on its usual course?”

The lady smiles at me and answers my question politely. “It’s because there is a storm on the usual course that the plane flies through, so they’re hoping to go around it by going through the Bermuda triangle, or at least that’s what I’ve heard.”

I pause for a moment and process what she said. “Hmm, okay I see, thank you and sorry for bothering you.”

The lady smiled again and accepted my apology, I turned back around to my seat and sat down in it properly. The lady gestures to her partner. “I know you’re acting like this because you’re a nervous flyer. But relax—the odds of dying in a plane crash are something like one in eleven million.” The man lets out a long, defeated sigh. “Somehow that doesn’t reassure me dear but thanks for trying.”

I look to my side to see that George is sleeping with her ear plugs in. Knowing her she probably didn’t get a wink of sleep last night either.

I peer over at the two seats in front of me to see Simon and Lydia chatting away with Ashley who is facing them from his seat. Taking no interest in their conversation, I slouch back into my seat and just stare out the window with the ocean as my only view, I try and look into the distance to see if any land would come into range for me to look at, I saw nothing, but did notice some heavy grey clouds coming our way.

‘Looks like we might pass through that storm anyway.’

Still feeling quite fatigued, I start to drift into a light sleep, hoping that when I wake up we’ll either arrive by then or that there’ll be something more interesting to look at.

Just as I’m drifting off I could just hear the pilot talking on the speaker. “Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. Would all passengers and cabin crew please be belted up and no-one is to walk around the cabin for any reason. Seems our attempts to avoid the storm have failed. So I’ll ask all passengers and crew to please remain calm and be prepared for some turbulence.” At that point I was just too tired to notice the words he said and fell asleep.

*CRASH* *RUMBLE* *BEEP* *BEEP * *BEEP*

I suddenly wake up to the plane shaking violently and making loud, breaking and crashing noises. Opening my eyes I’m greeted by an air mask hanging in front of my face. The ‘seat belts’ sign is constantly flashing and people were yelling and screaming like mad. The plane was starting to go down.

My friends were also yelling and screaming words like ‘OH MY GOD!’ and ‘WE’RE GONNA DIE!’ Everyone was holding on to something, anything really, couples were embracing each other in fear and the flight attendants were holding on to the side of the seats or the walls on each side of the plane. It was like being on a really scary, dangerous roller coaster, the gravity was just like it too, where you feel yourself being pulled upwards.

″WE GOTTA MOVE! FOLLOW ME, NOW!″ George shouted over our heads. She then got up and with a bit of difficulty, and using the seats beside her to hold onto, she dragged herself up the hallway to the back of the plane, her body bashing left and right as she did so. Me and the rest of the group quickly exchanged terrified looks but followed anyway, as anything was a good idea in this moment.

We struggled to reach the back but once there she shoved us all into the tiny closet-like room. I vaguely remembered hearing her tell me once that small enclosed spaces were meant to be safer in crashes. Honestly, I have no clue if that’s true, but it sounded a lot better than sitting out there.

The plane started to break apart. The tail went first making the plane shake even worse than before, then one of the engines on the wings exploded, taking a few passengers and most of the wing with it, causing the plane to lurch violently to one side and making all of us in the closet-like room to fall into each other, crushing one another, unfortunately I was on the bottom.

Damn these guys got some weight on them. The thought quickly enters and exits my panicked mind while I’m continuously wondering if this is the end for all of us.

All of a sudden the plane starts falling downwards, and fast, some passengers seat belts break and are tossed from their seats into the walls and many out of the now exploded hole in the plane. The storm outside was horrendous, there were so many dark storm clouds that the pilots couldn’t see a thing, and because of the lightning striking the plane they couldn’t message anyone for help.

The extremely small closet-like room that George put us all in was packed but still had enough room for some of us to bash our heads about on the walls and into each other, after about a minute of bashing my head against the wall behind me, Ashley’s head swings backwards and smashes into my face knocking me out cold. Talk about having a thick skull.