The scratching at the door woke Captain Philips up. It was a loud, deep scratching noise, and for a moment he thought that he back in his flat in Lancaster, and that Robin’s dog Mindy was scratching at the door, waiting to be let in. 

	He blinked, attempting to marshal his thoughts. There was something wet running down his face and into his eyes, so he wiped his face with his hands. His hands were slick with something red. He tried to stand up, but something held him down. He was strapped into his seat? He checked the chair on his right. McAllen wasn’t there, which wasn’t right. McAllen was the copilot, he helped fly the plane. He was always supposed to be in his seat. What was that the seat was stained with? It was a very dark crimson color soaked into the fabric. Why?

	There was a pounding throb in his head. Fragments of memory started to come back. Philips and McAllen entering the cockpit, running checklists, taking off. They had been cruising for a short while and the attendants had started the meal service. McAllen wasn’t in the mood for the airline’s food, so he’d bought a fancy sub sandwich from duty free and asked an attendant to stow it. There’d been a confusion though, as meal service started, and Philips remembered McAllen’s words oddly clearly. 

	“Look, I just want my sandwich.”

	With that McAllen gotten out of his seat and opened the cockpit door. The next moments were hazy. All that Philips remembered was being slammed against his harness by an overwhelming force and that his head had cracked against the windscreen. The rest was a blur.

	Confused, but now more focused, Philips turned in his seat to look over the cockpit, but his breath hitched in his throat at what he saw. McAllen, or rather his bloodied body, lay propped against the cockpit door. The once white and crisp uniform shirt was torn in places and filthy with blood.

	Philips tried to process the situation. McAllen, a guy that he’d known for years, partied with, gone clubbing with, bitched about corporate with, been friends with… was dead. Something had come into the cockpit and attacked them, and judging from how bloodied McAllen’s hands were, looked like McAllen had fought it off, before succumbing to his wounds. Philips looked at McAllen’s face and shuddered. Eye staring ahead, from a sunken in face, gazed right back.

	Tearing his gaze away from the body’s haunting visage, he looked around it, at the door. It was locked tight. The door scratcher had stopped scratching and was now butting against the door, rattling the frame with each hit.

	Settling down in his seat, wincing with every thud against the door, Philips evaluated the situation. Something had come into the cockpit and attacked them. Currently, it was outside of the locked cockpit. He needed more information. He checked the small monitor that gave the view of the cabin. It was a bloodbath, bodies thrown against each other, the walls of the cabin painted with blood. No one was moving, the entire cabin still, save for the chitinous dog sized creature that was pounding on the door, putting more weight behind every blow. A plan wormed its way through Philip’s mind.

	He sunk into his chair and considered it. It was diabolical, it was unethical, it was morally wrong. But he had to go through with it. In the event of a terrorist hijacking, the cockpit door stayed closed and the pilots kept control, no matter the cost. Someone might’ve still been alive in the tangle of bodies that littered the cabin, but Philips had a duty to bring the plane down safely. If anyone was alive, in a few minutes they wouldn’t be, nothing would. Morbidly, he prayed that everyone was already dead so that his conscience might remain clear. His next actions would save him or damn him.
He grabbed his oxygen mask from above his head and donned it, turning on the oxygen. Next he turned off the plane’s pressurization system and opened the outflow valves. The air in the plane rapidly thinned. Within moments alarm bells rang out, meant to warn an unsuspecting pilot of a quick death from hypoxia. Philips ignored them, simply silencing the alarms. The plane, having rapidly unpressurized, was now an environment unsuitable for life. 

	Philips slumped back in his seat and solemnly keyed his radio.

	“Mayday, mayday, mayday. Aloha One-Three. Crew incapacitation…”