My sister has always been a nervous flyer, so I thought that was all this was. She didn’t want to make the trip, but it was inevitable. Our Mum had died, and we had to travel back home to England for the funeral. Kristen had been dreading it for weeks. It wasn’t just the flying that made her nervous, but seeing the family again. We had escaped, moved far away to start a new life, and sometimes, it was like we could forget everything that had happened before, but now, we were heading back and our past was inescapable.

We own a little bakery just outside Calais. Kristen had always dreamed of going when we were kids, so once I got a job after school, I began saving so that one day, I could make that dream come true. She loved to bake. Sometimes, it was the only thing that calmed her down. It took me until I was twenty five, but seeing her face light up when I showed her the tickets made every hour of work worth it.

Mum didn’t want us to go. She followed us all the way to the ferry port, begging and pleading with us to stay. Everybody stared, but I just tried to ignore it as we filed onto the boat and watched Mum being dragged away by security. As we sailed away from Dover, I could still see her, fighting with police officers and calling out our names, but it didn’t matter, because we were off to begin our new life.

I’d never known what it was about flying that bothered Kristen. She was a nervous person in general. Jumping at noises, terrified of her own shadow, and I guess it made sense. We’d been through a lot, and that was just what it did to her. Planes were just another thing she was afraid of.

I’m normally better at handling her nerves, but today, I just couldn’t handle it on top of everything else. I don’t resent her, but it is a lot. Normally I can handle it, but we were thousands of miles up in the air, my mother was dead, all the planning for the funeral and work to sort the estate had all fallen to me, and Kristen was biting her lip, as she always does before she starts to cry.

She had begged me to stay back in France, but we didn’t really have that option. She has also begged to take the ferry, but we didn’t have that option either. There was industrial action, with ferry drivers refusing to move until they got a pay rise. I understood it, to be honest. Nobody has it easy these days. I thought it wouldn’t be an issue, because there was always the Eurostar.

Except, there wasn’t.

There was an issue on the line. Some freak issue where the rails just began snapping, one by one. Last night, out of nowhere, the rails just began buckling, snapping off the tracks and falling to the ground. Thankfully, it was long after trains had stopped for the day, so nobody was hurt. The maintenance crews couldn’t figure out why, or even how it had happened, but there were no trains running back to England for at least a week. It was not the best for the planet, or for my nervous sister, but a plane really was the only way. I managed to snag two tickets from Paris, and despite my sister’s protests, I packed everything up into an Uber, and we drove down to Paris to catch a flight back to London.

She begged me to find another way. She had been having nightmares. She’d never tell me what happened, but she told me that there was something bad on the plane. I knew it was just her worries, as usual, so I pushed on with the plans.

I kept telling her that it was only an hour and a half, but it didn’t help to calm her down. I asked if medication would help. I know it isn’t really the best thing to do, but you hear about people doing that on flights, right? She turned me down. She didn’t want a drink, or a smoke before we headed into the terminal, she just stayed quiet, her frightened eyes full of tears, and her lip, trapped between her teeth.

As we boarded, I felt awful. She was terrified, but it really was the only way. I got her into her seat and asked the steward to explain the process of flying to her, to see if it would help.

I’d read somewhere that having it explained by a professional can put a nervous flyer at ease. Whoever said that is a bloody liar. The idiot just made her more nervous! He barely went into the logistics of flying at all. He knelt down in front of her, took her hand, stared deeply into her eyes and said “He’s taking care of your Mother now, Kristen.”

I don’t know what kind of bullshit he was trying to pull, but he scared her to death. She started sobbing and shrieking, and it took me a good ten minutes to stop her from fleeing the plane altogether. I had mentioned that she was a nervous flyer, and recently bereaved when we boarded, but I didn’t expect… THAT. I mean, you just don’t, do you? I figured he must have been one of those religious types that thinks everyone will be comforted by their mumbo jumbo. Kristen obviously was not.

I managed to calm her down after a while, and I hoped that would be the end of it. The plane was taking off and she was still a bit anxious. She gripped my hand as the plane shook, her nails digging into my palm as tears fell from her eyes. We began to move, hurtling down the runway, and as the plane left the ground, Kristen began to scream.

Everyone looked, whispering behind their hands and staring at her. Some even got their phones out and started to film her. Nothing I did would make her stop. She wasn’t moving, frozen in fear, her eyes streaming with tears as she looked up ahead and just screamed.

I begged her to be quiet. I held her hand tightly, undoing my seat belt so that I could get in front of her and pull her focus from whatever she was looking at, but nothing worked, she just kept screaming, and so… I snapped. I shouted at her. I’d never done that before. I don’t even really know how I could have done it. I suppose it was the hectic nature of the situation, the stress of the funeral, the embarrassment of everybody watching and filming. Nothing excuses it though. Her face fell, and as her soft, shocked eyes met my own, I felt like such a bitch.

She didn’t stop screaming though. It just went on and on. The other passengers were complaining, and the stewards were trying to keep her quiet, but nothing helped. She began to get frantic, pulling herself free of the seatbelt and dashing into the aisle. She pushed the stewards away, her screams filling the air as she fought her way to the back of the plane.

We fell across passenger’s laps as the stewards and I chased her up the plane, and eventually, I reached her, taking her into my arms and holding her close as she cried, the endless screams echoing as we shook.

“What if we put her in the bathroom until we land?” It was the steward from earlier. He was suddenly by my side, smiling down at Kristen and I in a way that made me uncomfortable. I was shocked by his proposal, but before I’d even had the chance to object, the other passengers were nodding and calling out in agreement. “She’ll be safe in there, I promise.” I tried to say something in response, but as I watched my shrieking sister being towards the bathroom, it was like something was stuck in my throat.

I’m so ashamed. I know that she was being disruptive, but she couldn’t help it, and to be honest, being locked up in a tiny aeroplane bathroom will have probably made it worse. Of all the many things Kristen fears, enclosed spaces are the worst. It was Mum’s way of punishing us,and she was already so vulnerable that I should have stopped them, but… I was exhausted, stressed, and unsure of how I could keep Kristen quiet and safe during the next hour.

I’m the worst sister in the world.

As I watched the Door close, I could see her reaching out to me, pleading helplessly as the bathroom door slammed shut. I was a monster, but beyond the faint screams that managed to break through the heavy door, the plane was almost quiet for the first time since take off, and things began to go back to normal. They tied up the door with ties and stuff, and as they locked her in, I knew that I had made a horrible mistake.

There was an empty seat at the back near the bathroom, so I moved my things up there to be close to her, talking to her through the door to try and calm her down. I told her that I was sorry, and that I’d make it up to her, but she just screamed and sobbed… until she didn’t.

All of a sudden, she went quiet, not making a single sound, and that was when I began to worry. I called out to her, knocking on the door, pulling at the ties that bound the door shut, but there was nothing. The stewards came over, and tried to stop me, but I had left her there long enough and it had to end.

I pulled on the door, desperately trying to free my sister from the bathroom, but it was no use. It was too tight, and I was already exhausted. I begged them for scissors or something I could use to get her out, giving it one last yank before I fell to the floor in a heap.

As I looked up, I saw that same steward, smiling down at me. He reached down to pull me from the floor, and as he gripped my hand, I jumped. His hand was ice cold and slimy. I scrambled back, but he grabbed me, both of his cold, slippery hands grasping my shoulders tightly, as he pushed his face against mine, his eyes, sunken and yellow as a figure seemed to crawl from his shadow, reaching out a dark claw to me. The creature towered above me, just darkness and rows and rows of teeth that glittered in the low light of the moving plane.

“We’ve taken Kristen to see your Mother, Jodie.” I shrank back at his words, my eyes darting between him, the creature and the bathroom door. “Would you like to go too?” I shook my head hurriedly, as he lifted me from the floor and pushed me back down onto my seat with a grin. “Maybe some other time.” He said with a shrug, the creature descending down into his shadow as he shot me one more smile and walked away.

I think that my sister is dead, but nobody will believe me if I tell them what happened to her. By the time we land, they will probably say she was on drugs and had a bad trip, or that she had some kind of heart issue, but I know that isn’t true.

That thing did something to Kristen. I don’t know how, but it wanted us on this plane too. The strikes, the weird stuff on the railway lines, it’s all just too much of a coincidence. I know I sound crazy, but I’m sending this recording as an email, and if by any chance, this patchy wifi stops acting up, someone in my address book will receive it and know what happened up here. I’m almost certain that my body will be joining Kristen’s but I need you to know, it was…

RECORDING CORRUPTED! RECORDING CORRUPTED!