the nightmare above waves
Legacy dissolves in the storm’s maw, a reminder that permanence is a story we tell ourselves to feel brave.
Lightning tears through the sky, a jagged scar of light slicing the dark. The cockpit becomes a theater of chaos—harsh, blinding flashes, shadows that lunge and twist.
Then comes the thunder, a deep, gut-punching boom that feels personal, like the sky itself wants me down. My Lockheed Electra shudders, every rivet trembling. The harness digs hard into my shoulders, the straps biting as I grip the controls tighter.
The rain is merciless.
It hammers the windshield in sharp, angry bursts, snaking across the glass like something alive. Each droplet joins a furious tide, the hiss of it louder than my thoughts.
Instruments betray me—altimeter spinning like it’s lost its mind, compass swinging wildly, useless. Outside, the ocean hides in the dark, a black void. Lightning spits across the waves now and then, revealing brief glimpses of foaming crests, sinister and fleeting.
I can’t see the horizon. I can’t find the line between sky and sea.
Cold snakes its way through me—not just from the storm, but from the razor-sharp realization pressing into my brain: I might lose it all tonight.
The plane. My life. Everything.
The storm doesn’t care.
It’s a beast, relentless and unfeeling, and I’m just trying to stay ahead of its teeth.
She waits—
the void shivers.
Wind claws at her ribs;
her name bleeds away.
The sky unravels,
teeth bared in silence.
Storms churn—
she dissolves between them.
Two voices wrestle in my mind—Ego and Shadow.
They’re not strangers. Usually, they hover in the wings, content to watch. Tonight, they’ve stormed center stage, uninvited but impossible to ignore.
“What if I’m too far gone?”
The words slip out, shaky, barely audible.
“What if there’s no way back?”
Ego speaks up first, tone harsh and laced with fury. “Seriously?!? You’re Amelia Earhart. The pilot who shattered ceilings and made history look easy. Are you about to let a storm rip that away? Pathetic.”
Then comes Shadow, smooth as oil, cold as ice.
“Legacy?!? That’s cute,” it sneers.
“That’s assuming your legacy matters to the clouds or the waves. All the medals, the headlines, the fans—none of it holds any power here. One mistake, and the ocean devours your name faster than the newspapers ever built it up.”
I grip the controls harder, knuckles white.
My jaw aches from clenching. The plane bucks wildly, dropping like a stone before surging back up. My chest tightens with pain as the harness cuts in, unforgiving.
Above, thunder growls like a beast that hasn’t eaten in weeks.
Lightning slashes through the cockpit, illuminating my face in the glass. Damp hair plastered to my skin, eyes wide, fear etched into every line. I barely recognize myself.
The storm rips through me, dragging an old memory to the surface.
I’m ten. Barefoot, wild, unbothered.
Kansas farmland stretches endlessly, sun-soaked and golden. My arms slice through the air as I run, faster and faster, until the wind feels like wings.
Laughter pours out of me, clear and untamed, filling the open sky. For a heartbeat, I believe it. If I jump, the wind will catch me. Fear doesn’t even exist here.
Then, reality punches back.
Hard.
The plane lurches, slamming me forward.
My teeth snap together so fast I taste blood, sharp and bitter. My voice scrapes out, raw. “I really thought once—just believed—that wanting it enough could make the sky mine.”
Ego doesn’t waste a second. It stomps in, barking orders. “Snap out of it! You’re Amelia Freaking Earhart. The trailblazer. The icon. People don’t want a tragedy. They want headlines, records, triumph. So, stop it. No more pity parties. Handle it.”
But Shadow slides in like smoke, curling, creeping, sly. “Ah, but isn’t the storm honest? No applause, no fanfare—just raw power. Doesn’t care who you are. No titles. No accolades. And deep down, isn’t that why you’re shaking? Because here, none of it matters.”
I grip the yoke tighter, knuckles stiff and pale.
The storm roars louder, indifferent to the fight in my head.
A grating rattle rises from behind the instrument panel. Sharp. Persistent. It slices through the storm’s roar like a blade. My stomach knots.
I’d heard something earlier—soft, irregular tapping in the hangar. Brushed it off. Eagerness will do that to you. Now I wonder if I’d ignored the plane trying to warn me.
My eyes snap to the oil pressure gauge.
It wavers, stutters, then lands at the edge of acceptable.
Barely.
Is it the storm’s fury messing with my instruments? Or is that faint rattle about to graduate into something catastrophic?
My brain chews on both options. Neither comforts me.
The rain doesn’t let up. It slams against the Electra’s metal skin like it’s trying to tear through. Every drop feels alive, hostile.
The rivets tremble, buzzing like they’re ready to pop loose.
My hands tighten on the yoke until my knuckles ache. Sweat crawls down my spine, soaking into my flight jacket, the collar itching like sandpaper.
I yank the microphone close, hand shaking.
“This is Amelia Earhart. Can anyone hear me? Anyone at all?”
My voice bounces back in my headset, hollow and mocking. But the only answer is a jagged burst of static.
I call again.
Once. Twice. To no avail.
Silence swallows every word.
“Alone.” The word escapes before I can stop it. “I’m totally alone out here.”
Ego snaps back with anger. “Alone? Don’t kid yourself. You’ve got no right to quit, not after the newspapers propped you up as an icon of courage. You can’t let them down. You owe them victory, not failure. Get it together.”
Shadow’s tone lowers to something that grazes the back of my mind. “You owe yourself more than you owe the crowd. Forget what you owe them. What about you? Isn’t this what you wanted—pushing past every limit? Maybe you’ve finally arrived. The edge. The unknown. Isn’t that worth facing?”
My fist slams into the side panel.
Pain shoots up my wrist, sharp and immediate.
The anger doesn’t dissipate; it burns hotter. Frustration tangles with fear, wrapping tight around the raw jolt of adrenaline coursing through me. It’s a mess—a storm inside the storm.
“I just want a way out,” I say with uncertainty.
The words feel heavier than they should, like they mean too much. A path to safety, sure. But maybe something else. Something deeper. Something I’m afraid to name.
Lightning streaks across the glass, slicing through the dark. For a split second, the clouds outside are illuminated—revealing huge towers of cloud on both sides. They hang there, heavy, like silent, watchful giants.
Sheets of rain blow sideways, shaking the windows.
The cabin rattles.
Each shift in air pressure makes my ears pop. Again. And again. My breaths grow shallow, each inhale tight and quick, matches the pounding of my heart.
I glance at the instruments. Bad idea.
The altimeter spins, diving, climbing, plunging again.
Erratic. Useless.
The storm has me in its teeth, and it’s not letting go. My arms ache as I wrestle the controls, muscles screaming from the constant corrections.
I keep the wings steady, or at least I try.
Every time I think I’ve got it—just a sliver of calm—a new gust slams me from another angle.
The storm plays dirty. And I’m not sure I can keep up.
In the faint, flickering glow of the cockpit, my eyes fall on a photo wedged near the throttle. George. Smiling under a bright morning sky. Carefree. Unshaken.
The sight hits me like a gut punch, sharp and immediate. My breath hitches.
The memory rushes in, uninvited and cruel.
“Don’t push it,” George had said, his tone a mix of worry and exasperation. “These weather patterns are unpredictable. Don’t chase the impossible.”
“I know what I’m doing,” I’d shot back, maybe too quickly. “People are counting on me. This flight isn’t just for me—it has to happen.”
And now…
Now the storm throws me around like I’m weightless, and I can’t ignore the taste of regret sticking in my throat. My palms sweat against the yoke. My mouth feels like sandpaper.
“I’m sorry, George,” I rasp, voice cracking under the strain. “I should’ve listened. I should’ve—”
Ego cuts me off, sharp and unrelenting. “Don’t spiral now. You’re still in the cockpit, aren’t you? Fight. Fix it. Regret isn’t a parachute.”
Shadow’s response slithers in like smoke, dark and mocking. “Apologies?” It chuckles, soft and venomous. “What good are they here? Maybe this is what you’ve been chasing all along—the edge, the danger, the real risk.”
And maybe it’s right.
Lightning splits the horizon, sharp and blinding. For a moment, everything is illuminated—the rain, the chaos, and something else.
A funnel.
Twisting clouds, eerie and alive, tinted with flashes of green.
It rises, spinning furiously, pulling smaller clouds into its orbit like a greedy vortex. From sky to sea, it stretches, massive and unrelenting.
My breath catches. My chest tightens. It doesn’t just look dangerous—it looks impossible, like a storm birthed from a nightmare.
“That can’t be natural,” I speak out in disbelief.
My throat tightens at the possibility that I’m witnessing something far beyond typical weather phenomena. The funnel’s presence is hypnotic and repulsive all at once.
Shadow is quick to pounce, voice slithering in. “Didn’t you always crave this? The mystery, the thrill, the boundaries no one else dares to touch? You found it.”
Ego, less poetic, snaps back with fire. “This isn’t mystery, it’s madness. Steer clear, Earhart. You’re not dying for curiosity.”
But the funnel calls to me. It’s magnetic, inevitable.
My stomach churns as the turbulence worsens, the plane jerking like a puppet on tangled strings. The controls fight me, and I’m not sure I have the strength left to win. My head pounds, a dull, relentless throb from hours of strain. My eyes burn from trying to peer through the sheets of water.
The memory of my first flight instructor surfaces.
He stood by the biplane, arms folded, frowning at me. His face carved from equal parts concern and exasperation. His voice, sharp but steady, cuts through time.
“You’ve got nerve, kid,” he said, shaking his head. “But nerve only takes you so far. The sky doesn’t care how brave you are. You respect it, or it’ll teach you why you should.”
I hated that.
I bristled at his warning.
Back then, his words felt like a slap. I didn’t need caution; I had ambition. I was untouchable, unstoppable—a force of nature. Or so I thought.
Now, the plane shudders again, and my illusions of invincibility feel terribly thin. The storm rages, unconcerned with my boldness, my determination, or whatever illusions I once carried.
“Maybe I never respected the full force of the sky,” I confess under my breath.
The wind howls, a feral scream tearing over the wings. The Electra tilts hard, rolling sharply to one side. I grip the yoke like my life depends on it—because it does.
My shoulders burn, my wrists scream, every muscle stretched to its breaking point. Beneath me, the floor shudders violently, rattling like it’s ready to come apart.
Each jostle of the plane forces me to reevaluate my altitude and heading, but the instruments give me no true guidance. The gauges blink, the compass spins, and I’m left guessing whether I’m angled up or down.
“I’m losing track,” I say, dread pumping through me. My mouth is bone-dry, yet my clothes are soaked in sweat. “If I can’t correct soon, I’ll—”
“—crash,” Shadow interrupts, smooth as silk, indifferent as death. “Why dance around it? You know the truth.”
Ego comes in swinging, furious. “No. No, no, no. Don’t say that! You’re Amelia Earhart, for fuck’s sake. Get it together. Fight. Fight for control. You don’t crash.”
But the plane bucks again, and control feels as distant as dry land.
A new sound claws its way through the chaos—a rattling, sharp and uneven, coming from the right engine. My pulse stutters. My eyes dart to the oil pressure gauge. It flickers again, teasing me, hovering between “you’re okay” and “you’re screwed.”
The airframe hums with the building strain. Every part of this machine feels like it’s on edge, one wrong move away from disaster.
If this engine gives out, I’m finished. The thunder alone is deafening, but the idea of engine failure is more terrifying than any lightning strike.
I swallow back a surge of panic. “Hold together,” I beg the machine. “Just… hold together a bit longer.”
Shadow isn’t so easily convinced. Its voice slinks in, cool and detached. “But what if it doesn’t? What if she quits, and you’re left gliding blind into oblivion?”
Ego barges in, bristling with frustration. “No. No way. You did the checks. You prepped this plane. It’s supposed to hold. This isn’t how it ends.”
Supposed to.
But machines don’t care about “supposed to.”
The thought gnaws at me, relentless. My hand tightens on the throttle. I push it forward, and the engine sputters. A cough, rough and uneven, before it surges back to life with a roar that fills the cabin.
Relief rushes through me, sharp and fleeting, but my arms won’t stop trembling. My body knows better than my mind—this isn’t over yet.
A crackle of static slices through the storm, faint but undeniable.
My pulse spikes.
I lunge for the microphone, fingers clumsy, heart hammering. “This is Amelia Earhart! Do you read me?” My voice shakes, loud and desperate.
Something answers.
Or maybe it doesn’t. A garbled sound, distorted, almost human—but not quite.
My breath catches.
Was it George? A tower? Anyone?
I lean closer, straining to catch more, but the noise vanishes as quickly as it came. The storm swallows it whole, roaring louder, drowning out everything.
Hope flickers. Then dies.
Ego jumps in, bold and relentless. “Don’t give up. Keep trying. Someone might hear you—someone has to hear you.”
But Shadow slides in like a cold breeze, low and sly. “Still clinging to that, huh? You’re shouting into the void, hoping for rescue that isn’t coming. Face it. You’re alone. Save your breath—where you’re headed, no one’s waiting.”
I grip the yoke tighter, the weight of the words settling in my chest like a stone.
Lightning claws through the sky, illuminating the funnel in a stark, otherworldly glow. It’s bigger now. Twisting. Seething. Alive.
Each rotation shimmers like it’s been charged with some unnatural energy, its massive form swallowing the storm around it. Rain spirals in violent, perfect circles, a vortex commanded by winds that roar like they’ve forgotten the concept of mercy.
Every instinct screams the same thing: Run.
But where?
The storm isn’t just surrounding me—it’s steering me.
The air currents shove the plane toward the funnel, relentless and deliberate, like the storm has decided it’s my turn. My gut twists, caught in the ugly space between terror and a maddening, undeniable fascination.
I yank the yoke, pulling it hard.
Climb. Escape. But no. The storm slaps me down, shoving the plane back toward its chosen path. My chest tightens. “No, no, no!” The words grind out of me, strained and cracking.
My hand pushes the throttle as far as it will go.
The engine protests, a high-pitched whine that screams in defiance.
Ego, always dramatic, practically shrieks. “Turn around! Stop this! You’re Amelia Earhart! You built a legacy of success, not—this.”
Shadow laughs, low and smooth. Too smooth. “A legacy’s just a story. Maybe this is the chapter you were meant to write. You feel it, don’t you? The pull. The inevitability.”
I laugh back, sharp and raw, the sound jagged like broken glass. “What is wrong with me? Why do I—why does this—?”
The words stick. They don’t want to come out.
Maybe because the truth is too tangled to name.
Horror and curiosity. Dread and desire. Fear and something I can’t even define.
A memory slips in. Two nights before takeoff. George stood in the doorway, arms crossed, shoulders heavy with tension. His eyes—dark, steady—watched me like he already knew what I’d refuse to admit.
“You don’t have to go if the conditions aren’t right,” he said, voice low but firm.
I shrugged, brushing him off. “I’ve faced worse.”
His frown deepened. “There’s a line between bravery and stubbornness. I’m afraid you’re crossing it.”
I turned away, unwilling to let his worry stick. Doubt had no place in my plan, no seat in my cockpit.
But now…
Now his words press against my skull, relentless and sharp.
Maybe he saw something I didn’t.
Maybe I was too proud to consider that nature doesn’t care about nerve, skill, or ambition. It only knows power. And sometimes, it makes sure you know it too.
The right engine stutters—another rattle, louder, angrier.
My pulse spikes.
Images flash through my mind: a piston cracking, an oil line rupturing, the whole engine seizing up in one fatal gasp. I swear I can feel it already, the plane’s heartbeat faltering, one beat away from silence. If it quits, the sky takes over. And the sky doesn’t ask permission.
I glance toward the wing.
Rain hammers the metal, strafing it in relentless, violent streaks. Lightning flares, slicing through the dark, and for a second, the wing glows like silver.
Beautiful. Terrifying.
My stomach knots tighter, twisting itself into something that feels like nausea and dread rolled together.
I can see it—too clearly.
The plane spiraling down, spinning into that endless black ocean below, swallowed whole. The thought makes my throat clench.
Acid rises, bitter and sharp, but I choke it back.
Barely. No time for panic now.
I yank the controls, desperate to turn, but the wind shoves back like it’s got something to prove. The funnel looms ahead, monstrous and growing.
It spins with a kind of violence that feels vindictive, pulling clouds into its orbit and shredding them apart. Flashes of light spark inside, not quite lightning—something stranger, like electricity caged and raging.
My grip tightens on the yoke, knuckles white.
Sweat drips into my eyes, stinging. Or maybe it’s tears.
Hard to tell.
Shadow slides in, smooth and cutting. “This is what you were chasing, isn’t it? The edge no one else dared to reach?”
Ego roars, furious and shrill. “You think anyone’s going to applaud your death? Get a grip, Earhart. Turn back before you end up a headline no one wants to read.”
I want to scream, to shut them both up, but my voice sticks in my throat.
There’s no room for yelling, no energy to spare. My arms ache, trembling with the effort of keeping the plane steady. It’s a losing fight.
The funnel churns faster, wilder, its power pulling at me like gravity. The Electra jerks and bucks, tossed around like a toy. I’m nothing. A speck in the storm’s teeth.
With one last desperate jolt of strength, I yank the yoke back, slamming the throttle all the way forward. The engine screams—a raw, guttural roar that rattles my skull and vibrates through my teeth.
For a fleeting moment, the Electra obeys.
It claws upward, punching through rain that feels like needles. The funnel’s pull eases, just enough to make my chest swell with something dangerously close to hope.
Maybe—just maybe—I can outmaneuver this thing.
But the storm isn’t done playing with me.
A savage gust slams into the plane from the side, hard enough to pitch the wings nearly vertical. I lose it. A sharp, helpless yelp escapes, torn from somewhere deep and instinctive. My arms burn as I wrestle the controls, veins popping, muscles screaming, every ounce of strength focused on keeping us upright.
The Electra doesn’t care.
It jerks downward, the nose dipping straight toward the swirling beast below. The funnel looms larger now, churning and spinning with the kind of inevitability that makes my stomach turn to ice.
Thunder rolls endlessly, a low, guttural growl that refuses to let up. Rain lashes against the canopy, streaking diagonally, a relentless blur of motion.
The cockpit lights flicker, spasms of dim illumination that do nothing to reassure me. Somewhere behind the panels, wires strain and groan, struggling to keep up.
Ahead, the funnel churns. Its core pulses with erratic flashes—green and silver bursts that seem alive. They crackle and shimmer, holding a charge I can’t comprehend, something far beyond the natural chaos of storms. It’s mesmerizing. Horrifying.
I’m losing control.
The pitch won’t hold. The yoke resists every adjustment, twitching like it has a mind of its own. The altimeter spins wildly, the horizon gauge flutters like a dying moth, and the compass is a drunken mess, spinning in circles as though mocking me.
My only reference now is the monster ahead, its swirling form filling the windshield in jagged, blinding flashes.
I’m flying blind. Fighting blind.
Shadow purrs, its voice slick with triumph. “That’s it, Amelia. There’s no escape now. You’ve found the edge you were always chasing.”
Ego howls back, shrill and frantic. “Edge? She didn’t want this! She wanted triumph, glory—not annihilation!”
The two collide in my mind, trading blows like rival storm fronts, each one claiming to know me better. Am I the one who craves the unknown, who thrives on the impossible? Or am I the one who clings to reason, to success, to safety?
The answer eludes me, slipping between the cracks like rain through fractured glass.
My breath catches.
My fingers lock around the yoke, trembling under the pressure, the chaos, the weight of the storm inside and out. The plane bucks hard, threatening to tip into a catastrophic roll. My arms scream as I fight to steady it, every ounce of determination funneled into one desperate task: keep flying.
A flash of memory ignites—sharp, unyielding.
My early flight days. Young, reckless, and too cocky for my own good. I’d ignored the wind shear warnings, convinced I could handle it, and nearly plowed a training plane straight into a wheat field.
Afterward, my mentor cornered me, his voice a volatile mix of anger and relief.
“Pushing limits is admirable,” he’d said, every word cutting like steel. “But knowing when to yield? That’s what keeps you alive.”
Back then, I’d brushed it off.
Smiled through the sting of his words.
Fear didn’t stand a chance. I had something to prove.
Now…
Tears streak my face, hot and unchecked. My chest tightens, each breath scraping against the weight of regret. “I’m sorry,” I murmur, the words slipping out like confessions.
Sorry to that instructor. Sorry to George.
Sorry to everyone who believed I was invincible.
Because I’m not.
The funnel yawns wide ahead, a vortex of roaring clouds and chaos. Rain lashes in spiraling, vengeful patterns, each gust carving impossible shapes in the air.
The Electra’s wings groan under the strain, trembling as though the plane itself knows it’s being pulled apart. The frame rattles with such ferocity I half expect it to disintegrate midair. Thunder doesn’t just rumble—it detonates, a shockwave that burrows deep into my bones.
“This is it,” Shadow purrs, smug and certain. “No more pretending. No more masks.”
Ego’s response is a raw, desperate scream. “You’re not doing this! You can’t throw it all away—pull up, Earhart!”
I choke on a mix of rage and desperation, my voice splintered and hoarse. “Please,” I rasp. “Just one more sunrise. Or—something. Let there be a reason for this!”
Then lightning splits the sky, so bright it sears my vision. The engines shriek in agony, a metallic wail that drowns out even the storm.
Pinpricks of light dance in my eyes, white-hot and blinding. The Electra tilts, caught in the vortex’s grip, and everything lurches.
We plunge.
The funnel swallows us whole.
Wind tears at the control surfaces, a relentless, crushing force pressing down on my chest. It feels like the sky itself is trying to crush the air from my lungs, dragging us deeper into its heart.
Everything stops.
The propeller’s roar fades into a lifeless hum. Thunder becomes a distant murmur, a vibration somewhere on the edge of awareness.
My body feels unmoored, floating as if gravity itself has called it quits. The harness presses in strange, unfamiliar directions, squeezing but not anchoring. My heart pounds slow and deliberate, each beat echoing like a lonely drum in a cavernous void.
Am I falling? Spinning? Or simply… stuck?
I don’t know.
All I see is black—dense, endless, broken only by fleeting arcs of light skittering across the windows like restless ghosts. Breathing feels like a chore, my lungs constricting against the weight of the unknown. Somewhere, a faint crackle rises, soft and erratic, but I can’t tell if it’s the storm or my mind splintering under the strain.
Ego…
Silent.
Gone, maybe.
Shadow lingers, smug and quiet, a lingering smirk before it, too, slips away.
What’s left is something raw.
Exposed.
Tears burn my eyes, but my arms hang useless, too heavy to wipe them away. A suffocating stillness wraps around me, thick and wordless, like the air has forgotten how to move.
Then chaos.
The wind explodes back with violent ferocity, slamming into the plane like a battering ram. The Electra screams in protest, every bolt and seam rattling like it might rip apart.
Am I upside down? Nose-diving?
I have no idea. The horizon doesn’t exist anymore. The harness digs cruelly into my thighs as the cockpit plunges into darkness, the instruments dead, the world reduced to wild motion and noise.
One thought hammers through the haze, sharp and insistent:
Let there be one more tomorrow.
And then—
Everything went black.
In the silence that swallows me, I can’t feel anything.
Not my body.
Not my thoughts.
Everything from the engine roar to those relentless voices, has faded into the unreachable.
Gone.
If the plane is spiraling toward the ocean or tumbling into some uncharted void, I can’t tell.
What’s left?
Barely a sliver of awareness. A faint thread of existence, thin and unraveling. And in that fragile flicker of thought, a single question hums, sharp and unrelenting:
Am I lost forever?
Or worse—have I crossed into something I was never meant to understand?
P.S. "Lightning tears the sky not in rage, but in revelation—truth made visible for an instant, only to vanish."
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