A Departure from Gate 17

"Flight 1070 will be boarding in ten minutes." The automated female voice echoed through the airport.

"Come on, we have to go fifteen gates, or we'll miss it!"

A pair of teenage boys scurried through the airport, skimming the signs dangling from the ceiling. They couldn't miss this flight — their hockey team depended on them to make it.

"If we tire ourselves out now, Damien, we won't be able to perform well."

"Gabe," he spat. Damien brushed his unruly brown hair out of his eyes as he dragged his teammate. "Performance won't matter if we're not there. Now come on!"

The two brushed passed several people bustling to their respective gates. Eventually, not one gate away, they nearly toppled a young girl. She barely looked eleven.

"Hey! If you don't slow down, you'll hurt someone." Gabe stopped to help pick up everything they knocked out of her hands. "I am so sorry. Are you okay to make it to your flight?"

She spoke softly. "Yeah… I'm just going to gate 17," she sighed. "Almost there…"

Despite the impatient looks he got from Damien, Gabe replied kindly. "How about you let us help you with your stuff and walk you there. We're going to gate 17 too, and it's the least we can do." He picked up a piece of her luggage and thrust another into Damien's arms.

"Oh, thank you," she gushed, ignoring Damien's clear scorn of Gabe. "It's my first time flying alone." This girl with wispy blonde pigtails matched the boys' pace to the best of her ability. "What are you two heading to Denver for?"

Damien's silence was almost deafening for Gabe. The latter sighed. As he fidgeted with his auburn locks, he explained: "We're on our way to a hockey tournament. We had too much school work, so we had to miss our team's bus. This is our last chance to make it, or we're both cut from the team."

"Oh no! Well it's a good thing we've made it to the gate." Gate 17's sign was somewhat faded. The seating area looked oddly unkempt compared to the neighboring gates. Instead of shiny and swept wooden floors, it had dirty, loudly colored carpeting. The carpeting was torn in places, and so was the material on a few of the chairs. It was also less populated, as it had but three other people sitting around it. Others had at least twenty.

The automated female voice sounded again. "Attention passengers, due to hazardous weather, all flights are canceled."

A siren began.

"Please take shelter in one of the designated tornado-safe areas."

Everyone at gate 17 shuffled into a small, grimy family bathroom across the airport's walkway.

Damien was devastated. "Of course Oklahoma couldn't step out of Tornado Alley just this once! Goodbye scholarships, goodbye friendships, goodbye life!"

A thick-bearded man spoke up with a heavy southwestern accent, "if y'all can't handle a little tornaduh delay, then good thing y'all just passin' through."

Gabe held Damien back from striking the stranger. "We're gonna get cut from the team," he said, straining. "He really is a born hockey player…"

Another stranger piped in, a woman with a pink and blue hairdo. "Hey now, no need to get into any fights." She stood up on the dingy tile floor to step between the two. Her clothes were just as bright as her hair. "My name is Shawna. Would you like a stress ball?" Shawna held a squishy ball, which was painted to look like a pastel plague doctor, out to Damien.

"It's so cute!" The young girl who arrived with the hockey boys squealed with delight. "I'm Maggie, and I think we could be great friends, Shawna."

Shawna grinned, but before she could respond, yet another new voice spoke. "Would you all please quiet down? There is a tornado, and if we're all busy talking, we won't hear any instructions over the P.A. system." This was another woman, decked out in professional clothes in neutral colors, most notable were the gray patches on her elbows.

Not a moment later, everyone could hear the crashing, shattering, and howling of the tornado outside. None of it compared to the moment one of the walls were torn away.

"Gabe!"

The teen was shaken awake by his short-tempered friend.

Damien continued to shake him. "Come on, wake up! Our flight is boarding," he urged as he dragged him to his feet.

Disoriented, Gabe followed. He could've sworn their flight was delayed, maybe even canceled. Didn't something happen?

The boy thought hard..

…but his thoughts were interrupted. There was a scramble all around him. The plane's few passengers were trying to get settled so the plane could fly off as soon as possible. Gabe and Damien quickly sat together and buckled their seat-belts. As always, however, the plane took quite a long time for some unknown reason.

"Ugh, this is why I hate planes!" Damien complained.

A familiar southern voice came from ahead of the two. "Will you be making this much of a ruckus the entire flight?"

He responded with a slump into his seat and a harrumph from his throat. As time passed, it was innumerable to him. Was it an hour? Thirty seconds? A day? His sluggish and irritated mind could hardly tell.

He was snapped back to reality by a rumbling thump resonating from the plane itself.

"Sorry about that folks… Uhhhh… looks like we'll … Uhhhh… be having a delay until the engine gets fixed. Go ahead and… Uhhhh… head back to the boarding area, everyone."

"Of course we had to be told we're delayed again by the most annoying pilot voice in the world!!" Damien was absolutely exasperated.

Gabe paused. "What do you mean, 'again'?"

"I don't…" His expression changed from enraged to confused. "I don't remember."

Without another word, they followed the other passengers out of the plane. They tried to brush off the eerie feeling of having forgotten something crucial. The sight they were met with, however, did the opposite of help. Furthermore, a small girl's voice added to that sinking sensation.

"Where is everyone?"

"I'm sure there's a reasonable explanation for this," said the academically dressed woman. "The other flights around us probably left as scheduled, and the rest are probably further down the airport." She adjusted her glasses and squinted in each direction. As she scratched her head, avoiding messing up her tight bun, she continued, "…much further down."

Gabe and Damien looked at each other, nodded, and started down the hall of gates in the hopes of proving her right. They began at a run…

Then a jog…

…Then a sluggish walk.

The teens found no one.

They were all alone in the airport in broad daylight.

Even more concerning was this: despite seeming to have passed at least twenty gates, they looked up at the current gate number and saw… 18. They looked back and forth down the hall and saw nothing but 18. The two ran the opposite direction in a panic.

The others weren't handling the experience well either. Back at the gate, they were noticing more and more out of place.

Maggie asked, "didn't there only used to be one family bathroom?"

Shawna's breath grew heavy. "Y-yes, yes there was."

"Hey, maybe you should get out your cute little stress ball?" The young girl suggested, approaching Shawna.

"Yeah, you're right, Maggie…" She started clenching her fist with the pastel plague doctor inside.

Maggie was confused for a moment. "How do you know my name, Miss?"

Shawna was just as perplexed. "…and how did you know about my stress ball?"

"WOULD EVERYONE JUST QUIT IT?!" Everyone stopped to look at the source of the interjection. The Southern man stood, punctuating his words with wild arm waves. "I am sick o' y'all's 'how do you know' junk! My name's Russel, and I need to take a leak whether there're more toilets than before er not." He walked to the nearest one, and opened the door. "What in the…?" It took more force than expected, and it made a sound of stones scraping on ceramic tile.

Not a moment later, his guttural screams could be heard throughout the skewed airport. Everyone rushed to his aide, and they froze alongside him.

Gabe and Damien started sprinting the moment they heard the loud noise — they couldn't help but freeze at the sight too.

It was no wonder they were half-remembering things.

As they stared, their own dead gazes met them among the bloody debris and wreckage of the tornado.