Chereads / Ghost for a Soul (Hiatus) / Chapter 20 - Chapter 20: Oni Tomodachi

Chapter 20 - Chapter 20: Oni Tomodachi

"'Won't get you back?'" Lina said, terrified. "What does that mean?"

"Nothing. Just get some rest." Crimson replied, trying to sleep.

We all listened, but I prefered to stay awake. There were too many thoughts in my head to let me sleep.

Eventually, I gave up and left my seat to explore. I passed many people that looked like they came from famous families and businesses. A few of them looked at me with confusion and disgust, but I ignored it.

One person, a girl, got up from her seat and followed me. "What are you doing?" She asked me.

I turned and shrugged. "Just checking out the place, that's all. What about you?" I looked at her more carefully. She looked about my age, with slightly more expensive clothes than the ones I normally see at school. She had long, hazel hair that reached her elbows, and a welcoming smile.

"Nothing. It gets really boring sitting in one spot for five hours." She noticed my uniform jacket. "Are you friends with Vanitas?" She asked.

"Hmm? Oh, yeah sort of." I scratched the back of my neck. "How do you know him?"

She smiled again. "He helped my family when we needed it the most." Her eyes widened in excitement. "Is he here now?"

I nodded quickly, and she squealed. "I'm guessing you want to meet him?" I said sarcastically. She nodded eagerly.

I took her back to my seat, upset that I couldn't see the rest of the plane. When she saw Vanitas sleeping on his seat, she squealed again.

Vanitas groaned, and woke up slowly. "What the hell is going on now?" I sat beside him and relaxed in my seat, ignoring his question.

"Hi Vanitas!" The girl said excitedly.

Vanitas woke up immediately and looked at her. He frowned. "Not you again. What do you want now, Annie?"

Annie pulled out a pistol on his forehead, her smile never fading. "Revenge."

Vanitas took the gun out of her hand and glared at her. "I'm not in the mood for jokes. Why are you really here?"

She sighed, and replaced her smile with a serious face. "Yuuto asked me to keep an eye on you."

He raised an eyebrow. "He never sends people to do his own work. Try again."

"I'm sorry, but who's the good looking lady, Vanitas?" Jay asked behind our seats.

"What are you doing here?" I asked, surprised.

"Lina and I switched spots." He answered. "Back to what I was saying. Who's she?"

Annie took her gun from Vanitas and pointed it in his direction. Jay immediately hid. "Forget what I said."

She turned her attention back to us. "Carlos needed help at the shop, so I was sent for assistance. What about you?" She confessed.

"We were sent to find a kid named Keith. You heard of him?" Vanitas revealed.

"You kidding? That guy's a pain in the neck, won't hesitate to ruin our plans whenever he gets the chance. He goes as far as ticking Yuuto off, and you have to find him?" She laughed at us, and tucked her gun into her jacket pocket. "Good luck with that."

"Thanks, really appreciate the support." Vanitas said tiredly. "Now go away. I'm tired and wanna sleep."

Annie giggled. "You never change. Alright, I'll leave you to your task. You'll know where to find me if you need any help!" With that, she left to her seat.

"How did you find her?" Vanitas asked. I shrugged. "She was following me, and then she said something about knowing you, so I took her here."

Vanitas sunk further into his seat. "If you bring her back, I will personally throw you out of this plane, got it?"

I subconsciously nodded and got up again. I went back to walking, ignoring the people around me. As I did, I thought back to the kid with the heterochromatic eyes. I had seen him somewhere, almost as if I had recently met him. Maybe it's just the after effect? I can't be sure.

I was brought back to my senses when I heard a loud noise coming from beside me. I looked up to find myself in front of what looked like a storage door. How did I get here? I thought. I stared at the doorknob as the sudden urge to open the door began to overwhelm me.

"I should leave." I said aloud. I turned around and came face-to-face with a person in a black cloak. Before I could do anything, I was kicked to the door, which broke off at the impact.

I could feel my head swirling, with black dots dancing at the edges of my eyes. I had only sat up when I was thrown across the room into a pile of luggage. The pain in my body was excruciating. I tried to get up, but I couldn't move.

The person in the cloak went up to a wall, and ripped the metal like it was paper. Cold breeze whipped at my face, making me cower and curl into a ball. I didn't pay attention as they picked me up by the collar and tried to throw me out of the plane.

I panicked and threw my hands up to grab anything. Instead, I shot out pillars of ice at the hole, blocking it completely. The person dropped me and stared at me. I took no time and kicked his legs and ran out the door.

I wasn't paying attention to anything as I ran past doors, terrified. Who the hell was that? My mind tried to answer that question, but I was more in the mood on how to get back to the others.

I don't exactly remember how I got there, but I managed to make it back to the first class without being followed. I continued to run past scared, snobby rich people, hoping to find my friends. When I got back to my seat, Vanitas and the others were already leaving theirs.

"Where the hell did you go?" Vanitas yelled amongst the screams. "Nevermind. We need to get to the cockpit immediately. Come on!"

Confused and slightly panicked, I followed him to the rest of the elites and my friends arguing.

"What happened?" Vanitas ordered.

Zane turned to him, a furious look plastered on his face. "Someone killed both the pilot and co-pilot. They also destroyed the lever, so-"

He was interrupted by Jay's screaming. "We have a problem!" He informed, pointing at a nearby window. There was black smoke engulfing the right wing. Standing beside the smoke was the person in the cloak. I froze.

Vanitas cursed under his breath. "We have to get off this plane immediately. Are there any parachutes here?" We looked around the place, but couldn't find one anywhere.

Vanitas made an inhuman screech and pulled at his hair. He took a deep breath and started giving orders again. "Jay, try to re-attach the lever. There should be a tool box in one of the cupboards here. Once you're finished, see if you can fix the engine outside. Mune, Lina, try to contact one of the towers in Mexico and inform them of our current situation. Zane, Crimson, go outside and try to calm the passengers, I can't keep calm if I hear any more screaming outside. Eli, see if you can stop that person outside from doing any more damage. And Oni-"

He noticed my situation and frowned deeply. "Oni!" I blinked a bit and looked at him. "Snap out of it! I need you and Nico to follow Eli, got it?" I nodded weakly and ran off to find them.

I rushed past Zane and Crimson, who were trying to relax everyone. Annie was helping them as well. I noticed Nico's silver hair and ran off in that direction. The emergency door was open, and Nico was about to jump out. I ran behind him and jumped out the door with him. Guess I'll die, I thought. Then, someone grabbed me from the back of my shirt and pulled me up.

Eli was looking at me and Nico with a disappointed look. "Let's go." He dropped us and ran back to the right wing. Unsure of what to do, we followed him and slid down the edge of the plane when we approached the cloaked person. Him and Eli were already fighting, the cloak guy was continuously blocking against Eli's . . . water? Was that what he could control?

As I watched in awe, Nico ran up the person and shot a bolt of lightning at them. "Don't just stand there!" He yelled. "Come and help us!"

I immediately stiffened. No way in hell was I going to find that person again. Not when I nearly died. Of course, they noticed my hesitation, and went straight for me. Panicked, I raised my hands and accidentally shot spears of ice. At the same time, the plane tilted, and the four of us fell.

The sound of wind was blowing past my ears and face. Eli and Nico were trying to do something, but I wasn't listening. All I could hear was my ragged breathing and my thundering heartbeat. I felt like screaming, but my mouth wouldn't move.

It's really happening, I thought. I'm really dying. My breathing became more ragged and I finally screamed. I didn't care who heard me, I wanted to be at home, I wanted to go back to school, and live my life like I used to. I didn't want to be here, fighting strangers and falling off of planes. All of a sudden, I was on a cloud, my eyesight slightly blurry.

I groaned, and got up slowly. I looked around me. I was sitting on a cloud, and I couldn't really see anyone around me. I sighed and fell on the cloud, a soft smile appearing on my face. "I'm finally dead." I whispered.

"No, not yet." Someone groaned beside me. I jolted up to see Nico slowly getting up from the cloud beside me. "Come on, we got a job to do." He ran to the edge of the cloud and jumped down.

I rolled my eyes and laid down again. "Nope. I'm staying here. I'm not falling off a plane again." I retorted, but life loved to torture me, and dropped me from my cloud. I panicked, and screamed for what felt like an eternity. "OH GOD NOT AGAIN-" I yelled. Instead of landing on a cloud, I fell on top of the damaged plane.

"There you are!" Eli yelled, picking me up. "Come on, we have to go back. I'll stay here to help Jay, you and Nico go and help the others in the plane." He pushed me in Nico's direction. I tripped and tried to follow. It wasn't easy. The plane kept turning, and the smoke coming from the damaged engine, blocking my view in front of me.

Once I found the door, I jumped in and nearly fell out again. Luckily, Nico caught me. "Come on, we have to go help the others." With that, we both ran past terrified passengers, screaming and crying and yelling at one another. I was too panicked, however, to notice the noise. By the time I got there, Jay and Vanitas were arguing, Zane and Crimson were still trying to calm the passengers, Mune and Lina were asking Vanitas to talk to some people, and Ash and Sholto were sipping some coffee on the pilot seats.

Vanitas made another inhuman screech and yelled at Jay. "No, you're right! Let's do it the dumbest way possible because it's easier for you!"

"It's not dumb! We need to get a bunch of rope so I don't fall. Didn't you see Oni and the others on the wing? The same thing could happen to me! I don't want to die, you know!"

Vanitas scoffed. "Eli is out there. If you fall, he will catch you. Now get out there, and fix that engine!"

Jay groaned, and left the cockpit. He noticed our presence, but said nothing. Ash sipped more of her coffee. "Drama in the plane-a beautiful sight."

"Mmhm." Sholto agreed.

Vanitas ignored them and took the call the twins were begging him to answer. "¿Hola?" He said. ". . . Sí, el avión está dañado. . . el ala izquierda,. . . no, está muerto, . . Él también. . . no, la palanca ha sido desgarrada,. . . ok, donde es eso? . . . Okay, . . . Okay, . . . No estoy muy seguro de dónde estamos, posiblemente cerca,. . . Muy bien, gracias señor." he ended the call.

"Alright! So, we need to get everyone and ourselves to the back of the plane. There, we'll find rafts and emergency parachutes for everyone. We'll give the parachutes to the kids and women, and the rafts to the men."

"Wait wait wait. Why do men get the rafts?" I argued.

"We might not have enough parachutes for everyone. In case we run out of them, we'll have to give the rafts to the men. Simple."

We all agreed, and led the frightened passengers to the back of the plane. Thankfully, there were enough parachutes for everyone.

Except for the elites and my friends and Sholto and I.

Eli and Jay managed to find us after we got everyone in a parachute. "There you are! We have been looking for you!" Jay said worriedly.

"Yeah, we have some bad news," Eli said. "The guy that we encountered earlier seemed to have torn the engine apart completely. So, we can't fix it."

Zane sighed. "Well we have worse news. See, we gave all the parachutes to the passengers. And now, the only way to survive is to get on the rafts."

"What?!" Jay freaked out. "You're joking, right?" There was an awkward silence amongst us. He freaked out again. "I can't die, not yet! I still need to prove I'm capable of taking my dad's place, and that I'm better than Nico in everything he does!"

"That's what you're worried about right now?" Nico said, annoyed. "Our lives are at stake, and you're upset you can't be better than me?"

"Nico, not right now." Mune commented.

"Well, we've got no chance of survival other than the rafts," Sholto said, determined. "So we might as well use them and hope for the best."

After a bunch of arguments and debates, we all agreed with Sholto's idea. We put ourselves into three groups. The first one was Vanitas, Sholto, Zane, and Eli. The second one was Ash, Crimson, and Lina. The third one was Mune, Jay, Nico, and I.

Ash looked outside. "We're at least 12,000 feet above the water." She informed us.

Eli understood and started telling the passengers to jump at the hatch of the plane. I watched as families and couples, young and old, jump from the hatch. After the last person jumped, the figure from earlier appeared from behind us.

"Does this guy ever stop fighting?" Nico asked. Ash grabbed one of the suitcases beside us and lit it on fire with nothing. She then threw it towards the person as they ran from her. She continued this process until they were surrounded by fire.

"I can't keep this up, so we have to get on the rafts now." She said. Everyone went with their groups and placed each raft at the edge of the hatch.

Eli checked outside. "We're at least 9,500 feet above water now."

The first group ran and jumped into the raft as they descended down to the ocean. The second group followed without hesitation. The four of us were about to follow pursuit, but before we could, the person kicked one of the burning bags at us and made us all fall in different directions.

I'm not quite sure what happened after that. All I know is that there was a lot of screaming, or maybe that was just me. I also know that I landed in the water, and took a nap of some sort? I couldn't really hear anything, and seeing was another thing.

After a few hours or so, I managed to wake up in a white room. Everywhere was blurry, and people were talking to each other in a different language. I heard a few people talking beside me, saying, "Look, he's awake." "He's moving." "Finally."

I groaned, and slowly got up. I felt my left arm grow in pain, and I felt back on the bed, wincing.

"Hey, calm down," Someone said beside me. "You just woke up, so relax a bit." I opened my eyes a bit more to find all the elites and Lina staring at me with concern and relief.

I felt my head spinning. "What happened?" I asked.

"You fell off the plane without your raft." Zane said bluntly.

"I know that much," I frowned at him. "I mean what happened after I fell?"

"Well, you fell into the water and passed out," He began. "Eli got you out along with the others before you all drowned."

"Señor, por favor, deje de correr!" Someone said outside. "¡No deberías correr después de despertarte! Señor, por favor escúchenos!" Crimson got up and looked outside. She yelped, and revealed Jay running towards me.

"I don't know what you're saying!" He yelled at the nurse. He ran up to me and tried to hug me. "Oni! You're okay! I thought you died!"

Vanitas entered the room to find the situation at hand. He sighed, and tried to talk to the nurse. "Señora, por favor relájese," He said to her. "Conozco a este hombre. Me ocuparé de la situación. ¿Por qué no vas y ayudas a los otros pacientes? Yo insisto."

Defeated, she agreed. "De acuerdo, pero si sucede algo con respecto a ese paciente, no tendré más remedio que trasladarlo dentro del hospital."

"Si entiendo. Gracias." With that, she left. Vanitas kept a smile on his face until she left. When he couldn't see her anymore, he attacked Jay.

"What is wrong with you?!" He whisper-yelled at him, shaking him. "You should be lucky you're still alive, else I would have left you to drown, you idiot!"

Jay got out of his grip and yelled back. "Gah! Calm down, would you? I wanted to know if the others were okay! It's not like I was running from the doctors or something!"

"You kinda were, Jay." Lina interjected.

"I don't care what you wanted to do, just get back to your room before the doctors get here." He groaned, and left the room.

After a few minutes, I spoke up. "So, um, how long was I out for?" I asked.

"Two days." Vanitas said.

"TWO DAYS?!"

"You should be glad," Ash said. "Jay and Mune woke up yesterday. Nico is still unconscious, though."

"But that doesn't matter right now." Vanitas said. "What does is that you're safe. So rest while you still can. I'll come back to check on you tomorrow." With that, everyone left my room and wished me well.