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to black out and slump into his seat. The woman seemed to thank Donovan with her eyes as she leaned back and gripped the armrest.
    The plane lurched and pushed Donovan hard against the row of seats. He turned his face from the icy blast and looked out the window. He was momentarily relieved to see clouds far below. They were somehow still at high altitude, not seconds away from the ground as he had feared. Donovan fought to orient himself, to understand what the airplane was doing. Everything felt wrong. It took him a moment, but he finally realized the 737 was in a steep turn to the right, heading back toward the severe weather they’d just flown over.
    “What’s happening?” Audrey shouted above the slipstream. Her hair and clothes whipped in the tempest.
    “I don’t know! We should be descending but we’re not!” Donovan yelled in return. He pushed his mask back on, taking two short breaths. “I need to get to the cockpit.”
    “Go!” She urged.
    Around him were the wide eyes of passengers who had survived the impact, yellow masks secured to their terrified faces. He saw others who had masks, but appeared to be unconscious. The panic and chaos that had filled the cabin only moments earlier had vanished. As they’d blacked out, people had dropped in the aisle and between the seats, their bodies twisted and contorted. Donovan wondered if those without masks were already dead.
    He pulled his way forward, fighting the river of freezing air racing in from the massive rip in the roof. In row after row, he saw mutilated passengers. Shards of metal and plastic debris pierced their blood-soaked bodies. The gore-splattered seats and walls of the airplane gave grisly testament to the force of the impact. He saw a woman he’d spoken to briefly as they boarded. Her vacant eyes seemed to be looking in dismay at her blood covered hands.
    The sight forced Donovan to move faster. As he pulled himself forward, the airplane lurched and he almost lost his balance. With careful steps he reached the forward section of the 737. All that remained were empty seat tracks. Everyone was gone. He thought of his own seat assignment in 2B, and understood that if he’d been sitting there he’d have been sucked out of the plane with the others.
    Another shudder from the 737 threw Donovan into the bulkhead. He hit his head sharply and the pain brought him back to the present. He sensed the last jolt had been from turbulence. He pictured the thunderstorms, and with his head lowered, forced himself toward the cockpit
    Bending down to escape the worst of the slipstream, Donovan reached the door to the cockpit. He tried to straighten up but couldn’t; the roof above him was partly caved in, bundles of wires whipped viciously in the wind. The door was closed and no doubt locked from the inside. The reinforced Kevlar would be virtually impossible to penetrate. Donovan gripped the heavy oxygen bottle and brought the butt end down heavily onto the latch mechanism of the door. To his complete surprise the door flung open and slammed heavily inward. Without hesitation, Donovan guided his precious oxygen bottle through the opening, and found himself standing in the cockpit.
    Oh no . Donovan tried to blink away his disbelief. He wanted to reject what he was seeing. The instrument panel was dark. Tubes that should have been burning brightly, giving precise information on the airplane’s condition, were black. As his practiced eye quickly darted from one part of the cockpit to the next, he found nothing was working. No radios, no navigation, no engine gauges. Everything on the flight deck was dead. The captain sat slumped back in his seat, unconscious or worse. The copilot didn’t have his shoulder harness fastened, his forehead rested against the control column. Donovan grabbed his shoulders and pulled the copilot’s torso off the controls; the young man’s head dangled loosely from his broken neck. In one swift motion, Donovan unfastened the