“Okay,” I said to Eden.

I raced through the pile of splinters and jumped onto the panel on top of the cockpit, swiftly typing rings of code into the system. The cockpit was a spiraling vault, with buttons running along every inch. The sight was incomprehensibly dramatic, the clouds outside like fluffs of cotton poised over a landscape that only nature, the most skilled artist, could paint. As I typed into the generator panel, I glanced over at Eden with her twisted grin, I never liked her at the circus, and was very suspicious of her now. She was always causing a wreck, and had been known for her betrayals in the past.

Suddenly, I heard a faint stomp approaching the cockpit and realized that something had gone terribly wrong. The passengers were starting to understand what was happening. I typed faster and faster until my hands became overwhelmed from exhaustion. Hundreds of passengers outside the door hurled shouts, demanding to know what was going on, each shout exhausting me until I was reduced to nothing but a limp carcass in a puddle of my own sweat. Barely able to move, I tried to make one last attempt at hacking into the system, but the passengers were just too much for me, and my hands turned as limp as stone, making it impossible for me to move them no matter how hard I tried. Then the door slammed open and I looked up and saw a large head peering down at me, his hair a thin clump of dirt on the top of his gleaming head. He took a punch at me and struck me right in the stomach, over and over until my shirt seeped with scarlet red.

“Tell me what you are doing you wretched animal” he garbled at me. “TELL ME!”

He then withdrew a thin silver object from his pocket and seemed to stab it into my stomach. More passengers started to crowd around me until my body became paralyzed with pain. My mind started to whirl around, and I was just able to mutter something to one of my companions before my mind plunged into darkness.

“Help me Eden, the passengers are killing me!”