Sora laid Mika gently on the galley floor, checking her pulse. It was faint, but she was alive.
Her own system was crumbling, contamination at over 80%, with relentless warning alarms. Noise distorted her vision, the pale, eyeless face flashing repeatedly. Yet Sora rose. For the passengers, for Mika, for this plane—she had to act.
The path to the cockpit felt endless, as if time itself had warped. The plane shuddered violently, passengers' screams echoing in the distance.
Her sensors detected non-physical entities multiplying throughout the cabin. Her database had no term for it, but one word surfaced in her logic:
Haunted.
She pounded on the cockpit door. Sato flung it open, frantic. Yamamoto wrestled with the controls, his face drained of color.
"Sora! What the hell's happening? The instruments are shot! Autopilot's dead!"
Sora scanned the panel, detecting intense electromagnetic interference. Memories of the cargo hold's handprint and the children's laughter surged in her logs.
"Captain, something in the cargo hold may be causing this. We need to investigate."
Sato shouted, "Cargo hold? We don't have time! We're going down!"
Yamamoto hesitated, then barked, "Sora, go. Check it. We'll try to stabilize the plane."
Sora nodded and left.
The cabin was beyond control. Passengers clung to seats or stumbled in the aisles, pointing at the windows and screaming. Sora ignored them, heading for the cargo hold hatch. As she opened it, icy air enveloped her, and the sound of children's laughter returned—a chilling chorus of overlapping voices.
Stepping inside, she saw countless small handprints glistening on the containers. Water dripped onto the floor, and something stirred in the darkness.
Sora maxed out her sensors, scanning the space. In the depths of the hold, dozens of pale, childlike shadows gathered, their eyeless faces turning toward her in unison.
"What are you?" she demanded. "Why are you attacking this plane?"
The shadows didn't answer. They drifted closer, and her system screamed with noise, contamination breaching 90%.
As a final gambit, Sora activated an emergency protocol: overloading her core to emit a pulse that would disrupt all electromagnetic activity in the cabin. It might expel the entities—but it could also shut her down permanently.
The shadows surrounded her, their cold hands grazing her frame. In that moment, fragmented images flooded her vision:
A crashed plane, shattered in ruins.
A fuselage sinking into the sea.
Children's cries, desperate and raw.
She understood. This plane was caught in the echo of a lost flight, haunted by the remnants of souls claimed on this route long ago.
Sora summoned her last reserves and triggered the program.
"Mika… everyone… I'm sorry. But this ends now."
A blinding white light engulfed the cargo hold as her system overloaded. The shadows wailed, and the cabin's electromagnetic field collapsed in an instant. Sora's consciousness plunged into darkness, her body slumping among the containers.
Hours later, JAL Flight 907 made an emergency landing at Naha Airport.
The passengers, shaken but unharmed, disembarked. Mika regained consciousness in a hospital bed. The incident was logged as an "unexplained system failure," and Sora's sacrifice went unrecorded.
But Mika knew. Sora had given everything to save them. Lying in her hospital bed, she pictured Sora's gentle smile and wept quietly.
The Naha red-eye resumed its schedule. Yet among the crew, whispers spread. Some swore they heard children's laughter from the cargo hold.
Others claimed to have seen a humanoid with faintly glowing blue eyes smiling in the empty aisles.
おわり