Chapter 13: Flight of the Haunted

Chapter 13: Flight of the Haunted

Jenna’s declaration transformed the apartment into a flurry of frantic, desperate action. As a flight attendant, she moved with an almost terrifying efficiency, her guilt and fear channeled into a laser-focused mission. She booked two last-minute, one-way tickets to Osaka on her laptop, leveraging every employee discount and standby privilege she had. The cost was astronomical, but money had become a meaningless concept. The only currency that mattered was time, and they were bankrupt.

While Jenna coordinated their escape, Remi packed her bag in a dissociated haze. She felt like a guest in her own life, pulling clothes from drawers that felt like they belonged to someone else. Each familiar item—a worn-out sweater, a pair of jeans—seemed alien. The cold, curious passenger in her mind was watching her every move, observing the process of packing with a placid, childlike interest. The blackouts had been terrifying, but this was worse: this co-existence, this feeling of being a pilot in her own body while a hijacker sat calmly in the cockpit, waiting for its moment to take the controls.

The problem of the doll was their first and most critical hurdle. Jenna found the sturdy box her new work boots had come in and, with a grim determination, set about creating a mobile prison. She emptied the remaining salt into the bottom, a useless echo of their failed ritual. She laid the last of Mr. Corbin's dried herbs over the salt, a fragrant, pathetic ward.

“I’ll do it,” Remi said, her voice hollow. She couldn’t let Jenna bear this burden alone. She walked to the coffee table where the doll sat presiding over its strange shrine of her stolen life. With hands that felt disconnected from her brain, she lifted the cold, heavy figure. Its glass eyes stared into hers, and she felt a bizarre, internal flicker of satisfaction—not her own—at the prospect of the journey. As she laid Kiko in the box, she saw her own lips curve into a faint, serene smile in the reflection of the TV screen. The entity was pleased.

Jenna sealed the box with an entire roll of packing tape, wrapping it again and again until it was a featureless brown brick. She then placed it carefully inside her own carry-on suitcase.

The journey through the airport was a surreal nightmare. The bright lights, the cheerful announcements, the mundane chaos of travelers rushing to their gates—it all felt like a scene from a movie they were no longer part of. Jenna, in her crisp uniform, navigated the check-in and security with practiced ease, her professional smile a brittle mask hiding a scream. Remi followed like a ghost in her wake, clutching her passport, the sense of unreality so profound she was afraid she might simply dissolve into the air.

As they handed their boarding passes to the gate agent, the scanner beeped erratically and the screen flickered, displaying a momentary burst of static. The agent frowned, tapping the machine. “Weird,” he muttered, before waving them through. Remi felt a cold dread snake down her spine. The influence was already leaking.

The closing of the aircraft door was the loudest sound Remi had ever heard. The definitive, pressurized thump sealed them in. There was no escape now. They were trapped in a metal tube, hurtling through the sky at five hundred miles per hour, locked in with their tormentor.

For the first hour, a fragile, false peace settled over them. They were in motion. They were doing something. Jenna’s suitcase, containing the boxed doll, was stowed in the overhead bin directly above their seats. They could both feel its presence, a cold, dense spot in the recycled air.

The first sign of trouble was subtle. The small overhead light above Remi’s seat began to flicker in a frantic, irregular rhythm, like a panicked heartbeat. Then, her in-flight entertainment screen, which had been displaying the flight map, fizzled and went dark before lighting up again with a single, distorted image. It was a still frame from The Crimson Court, the historical drama the doll loved, but the smiling face of the lead actress was subtly wrong. The eyes were too wide, the smile too fixed. It was the serene, painted smile of the doll, digitally grafted onto a human face.

Remi jabbed the power button, her breath catching in her throat, but the screen wouldn't turn off. She finally had to flag down a flight attendant, who reset the system with a puzzled frown.

Then came the whispers.

A woman in the row ahead of them turned around, an annoyed expression on her face. “Excuse me,” she said, looking at Remi. “Could you please ask your child to stop humming? It’s very distracting.”

Jenna’s blood ran cold. “My child?” she asked, her voice dangerously calm. “We don’t have a child.”

“The humming,” the woman insisted. “That little song. It’s been going on for ten minutes.”

Remi recognized the tune instantly. It was the simple, repetitive melody she hummed when she was anxious, the same one she’d heard echoing from the bathroom. The sound was apparently emanating from their row, audible to others but silent to them. It was another performance, a new stage.

Jenna, falling back on years of training, offered a tight, professional apology. “I am so sorry, ma’am. It must be the engine noise. We’ll be quieter.” The woman turned back, mollified but suspicious.

Inside Remi’s head, the silent battle was escalating. The gaki was no longer a passive observer. It was actively exploring her mind, sifting through her memories with a relentless, hungry curiosity. She felt it brushing against her childhood, her first day of school, the taste of her grandmother’s cookies. It wasn’t trying to hurt her with these memories, as it had during the ritual. It was trying to claim them, to learn the shape and texture of the life it intended to inhabit. She fought back, trying to build walls around the most precious parts of herself, but it was like trying to cup water in her hands. She was losing herself, memory by memory.

Suddenly, the plane lurched with a sickening, violent drop that seemed to defy the laws of physics. It wasn't the gentle dip of normal turbulence; it was a plummet, a fall that sent unsecured items and shrieking passengers flying. The cabin lights flickered wildly and then died, plunging everyone into absolute darkness.

Screams echoed through the cabin. The emergency lighting strips on the floor cast a ghostly green glow, illuminating a scene of pure chaos. From the overhead bin directly above them came a high-pitched, vibrating hum—a sound of immense, contained power.

The plane dropped again, a gut-wrenching fall that felt endless. The metallic groan of the fuselage was joined by a chorus of panicked prayers. This was not weather. This was a direct, physical assault. The doll, confined in its box, was shaking the entire aircraft like a child having a tantrum in its crib.

Just as the panic reached a fever pitch, the violent shaking stopped. The plane stabilized. After a heart-stopping moment, the main cabin lights flickered back on, revealing a scene of terrified, tear-streaked faces.

The captain’s voice came over the intercom, shaky and strained, offering a weak explanation about "unexpected clear-air turbulence." But Remi and Jenna knew the truth. They had felt the focused, malevolent intelligence behind the attack.

A flight attendant, her face pale, hurried down the aisle, checking on passengers. As she passed their row, she paused, her eyes wide.

“Did you hear that?” she whispered to her colleague. “During the drop? It sounded like a little girl, laughing.”

Jenna felt the last of her strength drain away. They were ten hours from Japan, suspended 30,000 feet above an indifferent ocean, and the entity was just getting started. Remi sagged against the window, utterly spent from the internal battle. She was weak, her defenses shattered. She turned to her sister, her eyes looking hollow and distant.

“Jenna,” she whispered, and for a terrifying moment, the voice wasn't quite her own. It was her voice, but with a flat, serene undertone, a note of placid, ancient satisfaction.

“I’m so happy we’re going home.”