The Last Loop

The jet is dropping out of a barrel roll, descending, decelerating, until the engines roar up again and send the aeroplane soaring back into the skies, afterburners ablaze in the grey clouds, hunting its opponent in the simulated dogfight.

In the distance, a group of curious spectators is cheering at the daring manoeuvre, waves of clapping hands and laughter washing over the field and the treetops of the nearby forest.

Sitting on a big mossy rock, Jacob follows the jet’s course with his binoculars. He doesn’t take any photographs today, completely focusing on the exercise. No distractions. No interruptions. It’s him on the ground and the Typhoon in the air, filling his heart with peace. Coming from a long high-G turn, the jet rolls over to flying upside down. Jacob feels his fingers twitch at the sight of it. He can still remember how it felt to turn the Typhoon over onto its back and roll. He misses flying. He was a Royal Air Force pilot once. He flew the Typhoon, and it was the best thing in the world. But one day, flying was taken from him. He became depressed because he couldn’t fly anymore. Then, he got divorced because he couldn’t love anymore. All that was left was darkness. Until that day when he went to an airshow with an old mate, and he was looking at the sky, watching his beloved aeroplanes, and the darkness around him diminished.

The longing, however, remained.

The deafening roar of the jet engines interrupts Jacob’s gloomy thoughts. He can feel the hot airstream on his face. How low does this Biggles think he can go? Jacob drops his binoculars into his lap, staring after the jet until he can’t see it any longer. He’s laughing at the pilot’s boldness.

With a loud warning wail, the Typhoon suddenly emerges from the thick clouds and descends in a steep curve right over the forest, once more disappearing from view, tumbling, obviously going down. The sound of a distant explosion and fountains of fire erupting from somewhere beyond the trees only moments later confirm the jet’s crash. The spectators in the background fall silent for a second before they start screaming. Someone back at the air base sounds the alarm, but out here, close to the woods, an eerie silence fills the air as black smoke rises into the sky.

Jacob grabs his binoculars and bag and runs towards the trees. He needs to be fast.

Not far from the edge of the forest, Jacob can see the pilot on the ground, writhing and groaning, with a growing dark patch covering the lower left side of his flight suit and the ground beneath it. He is a young Royal Air Force pilot, if Jacob remembers correctly, a lad you might see at a football match or at a pub, hanging out with his friends. Now, the man is probably bleeding to death, unless Jacob can save him. Almost sprinting, Jacob fights his way through the thicket, hissing as thorns tear at his arms and legs.

When he reaches the accident site, a tingling sensation in his neck causes him to skid to a halt, looking around, before he shrugs off the unpleasant feeling and moves forwards, dropping down by the pilot’s side.

“Where is the plane?” Jacob asks him, slightly out of breath, swiftly removing the oxygen mask and shoving the helmet-mounted display and the visor up and out of the pilot’s face. The man is indeed very young, twenty-five at the most, and he has a symmetric face with dark hair and puppy eyes he can barely keep open. Jacob gently squeezes the pilot’s shoulder.

Glancing around the perimeter, he discovers the parachute in the tree above them. The pilot seems to have crashed right into it, which strikes Jacob as odd. Why would a trained fighter pilot steer into the woods after ejecting from his jet?

“Please stay still, I want to help you,” Jacob says, his mind still occupied with too many questions. He looks at the blood on the ground, quickly unzipping the flight suit to access the wound. His heart is beating violently against his ribs, and he feels numb, but he ignores the rising panic and focuses on doing what is necessary.

“...shot down,” the young man mumbles. He is barely conscious now.

“You mean shut down?” Jacob asks, looking at the pilot’s pale face.

“No... I... got shot down,” the pilot repeats with a strained voice, groaning and hissing as Jacob cautiously examines his body.

“Hmm,” Jacob replies, shaking his head. The answer makes no sense at all – the pilots were training –, and he can’t grasp what has happened to the Typhoon either. But he understands two things: one, the wounds are bad. And two, the young pilot will probably die within the next thirty minutes.

Jacob reveals an ugly gash on the pilot’s left side, but it doesn’t bleed too much. Below that, however, blood is gushing from the left thigh. A ruptured artery, without doubt.

“Bloody hell!” Jacob curses, looking around frantically. With a frustrated groan, he unbuckles his belt, yanks it out of his trousers, and pulls it around the pilot’s thigh as hard as he can, gritting his teeth. He searches the ground until he finds a stick nearby. Holding the belt tight with one hand, Jacob stretches until he reaches the stick, straining his protesting muscles to grab it. Panting, he returns into a sitting position and wraps the scarf he’s been wearing around the wound with as much pressure as he can muster. As soon as the wound is covered, Jacob uses the stick with his belt as a tourniquet. The pilot cries out in pain, shaking and sobbing.

Jacob replies with an apologising half-smile and whispered words of comfort, shifting his attention to the gash on the pilot’s left side. It needs stitches, but pressure will suffice. For now. Considering how ashen the pilot’s face looks, all the effort might still be in vain.

A shadow suddenly spreads over the pilot’s body. Jacob looks up and finds himself confronted with a tall humanoid owl-like creature with a stern expression on its alien face. Jacob flinches, crying out in shock, scared to the bone.

“Bloody hell, what are you?” he exclaims, trembling, but the owl-thing doesn’t reply. It cocks its head to one side, letting its gleaming orange eyes wander over the scene.

Raising his hands in defence, Jacobs starts backing away, his neck tingling in anticipation, his heart thrumming in terror. The owl-creature continues staring at the trees and the pilot, showing no interest in Jacob. It neither moves nor threatens him in any way. It just stands there, towering over them.

Despite his fear, Jacob crawls back to the pilot, pressing his hands against the gash, hoping for help to come soon, hoping for a miracle.

“We are angry,” the owl-creature says, its toneless voice buzzing like a swarm of irritated wasps.

“Angry?” Jacob repeats doubtfully, squinting at it.

“Our children have perished. We seek redemption. You will pay.”

With a frown, Jacob takes a closer look at the owl-creature. It’s as tall as a grown man, and its body and head are covered with grey feathers, but it looks more like a statue than an animal. It looks surreal.

Nothing but a weird dream... Jacob thinks. Or maybe he fainted and hit his head on the rock. But the sound of the Typhoon would have woken him up.

“Pay,” he hears himself repeat. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

The owl-creature raises a clawed hand and points at the pilot. “He must not leave our realm. He has made our children suffer. I am the Guardian of the woods, Father to all who breathe and roam here, and I protect them.”

Jacob glares at it, dumbfounded. But when his gaze flickers back to his own bloody hands pressing onto that nasty wound, something unwinds inside of him. Of course, this is just someone in a weird costume messing with him! “Alright, listen closely now, feather-face!” Jacob snarls angrily. “Is this some bloody joke? Save your breath for an emergency call then! Because this young lad here, this...”

He leans over to read the name on the flight suit, “Flight Lieutenant Jacob Egerton...” His voice falters. He blinks, shaking his head in disbelief, but the name is still there.

It’s his bloody name.

Suddenly, Jacob feels nauseous. Lightheaded. Powerless. Applying pressure to the wound seems too exhausting. He removes his shaking hands, wiping them on his trousers, casting an agonised glance at the young man now lying still.

Is he gone?

The owl-creature gets down on the ground beside the pilot, lightly tugging at the m tourniquet with a curious expression replacing the angry stare.

“Your machines end lives. Your wars destroy worlds. Humans only see themselves, disregarding life around them. I am to protect all life invisible to humans, all worlds neglected by people. I am a Guardian, and I see all my children.”

“He was only training, only flying,” Jacob croaks. “Did you kill him?”

“He is not dead.” The Guardian touches the gash with its hand, slowly mending it. “I stopped the machine. It has been destroyed. It has not brought death.”

“Will you let him go?” Jacob whispers. “He is young, he’s got a whole life to live.”

“There has to be an offering. A trade. One life given for all those already taken.”

“Let me die in his place, then,” Jacob pleads. He closes his eyes, reaching for the old darkness within; it’s always there. After all, he has nothing to lose. He can take his memories of soaring through the air with him. Maybe there is a brighter place waiting for him.

The Guardian stays silent. The leaves in the trees whisper. In the distance, Jacob can hear sirens. Help is coming.

Jacob coughs so violently that he almost topples over in his chair. He must have dreamed and forgotten to swallow. Annoyed at himself for being so clumsy, he grabs the water bottle in the cup holder of his chair, still coughing. When he has regained control over his breathing, he opens the bottle and drinks.

Martha is approaching him, looking slightly alarmed. “Are you alright, dear?” she asks.

“Yes, yes,” Jacob mutters, but then he forces himself to smile. After all, Martha is here with him.

But wait – Martha? As in his ex-wife Martha?

Jacob looks around. He is sitting in a camping chair instead of on a mossy rock. And Martha is now placing two more camping chairs next to him.

“They are taking off soon,” a male voice says from behind them.

Jacob turns around, seeing a tall man in his fifties approach them. Martha meets him, hugging him, leaning into him.

“Great, Geoffrey,” she says to the man. “It will make Jacob happy. It always does.”

Martha and Geoffrey sit down, starting to talk. Jacob is trying to understand what is going on. Is he hallucinating? Dreaming? Maybe he needs to see his doctor about his medication.

A loud roar catches his attention. Jacob looks around and towards the air base. Two Typhoon have taken off and are ascending vertically with high velocity. As Jacob grabs his binoculars, his eyes get caught on his left leg – or the place where his left leg used to be. The trouser leg is folded over and tucked under a short stump, and on the left side of his chair, a prothesis and crutches are lying in the grass.

Jacob gasps, thoughts whirling in his mind. Then it all comes back: the accident, him almost bleeding to death, losing his leg and his work, the depression, the divorce, Martha meeting Geoffrey and getting married to him.

Only, that is not the whole truth, is it?

He raises his binoculars, seeing the Typhoon coming closer. The pilot will soon roll and descend, and then he will pull the Typhoon up again, afterburners ablaze. After that, he will fly a high-G turn into a loop. It was the last loop last time, but it will only be the beginning of a mesmerising demonstration of power and supremacy this time.

Jacob is sitting in his small kitchen with a cup of tea, reading the newspaper. There is an article about the pilot training.

“Flight Lieutenant Elias Smith was clearly satisfied by the squadron’s performance and expressed his gratitude for being surrounded by such strong and talented pilots. Together, he explained,they will play a central role in further developing and maintaining airspace safety with the Typhoon.”

Next to the article is a photograph of a young man with dark hair, puppy eyes, and a big smile, standing in front of a Typhoon. It is the same man Jacob found in the forest, closer to death than to life. Jacob puts the newspaper down and rests his head in his hands. Tears are falling onto the photograph.

The end.

Author’s note:

I came up with the idea after the airshow in Sweden in August when the Swedish Air Force was celebrating 100 years, and I was marvelling at the Typhoon display by the RAF – twice. Writing was then postponed by the tragic accident at the airshow in Greece. After a while, when I felt less spooked about it, I could move on with The Last Loop. The story is inspired by a Stephen King classic from my youth (The Girl who Loved Tom Gordon), my love for fighter jets (especially the Eurofighter Typhoon), and a cosplayer I saw once (only loosely, but still). These were the main ingredients for my 2026 Halloween story, and I hope you enjoyed reading is as much as I did writing it.

Agnetha Lucas

October 2026