Watching the End of the World – 13

���Mozambique���s not going to allow us to land either,��� Adam said.

���You don���t know that,��� she replied.

���I do know it and so do you if you would stop deluding yourself.���

���I���m not deluding myself, I���m being professional. Which is what you should be doing.���

���Stop it!��� Adam snapped, his voice rising. ���Just give up the calm professional bullshit. We���re all fucked and you know it.���

���You don���t know that. Not for sure. Even if it���s true, those people need us to be calm. They need us to tell them they���re going to live through this.���

���I���m not going to lie to them!���

���Keep your voice down. They���ll hear.���

���So what? Why should I care if they hear or not?��� He was practically yelling.

���Get a hold of yourself and do your job.���

���I don���t give a shit about the job. In case you didn���t hear, the world is coming to an end. I���m pretty sure that means this job is coming to an end as well.���

���You���re overreacting. The world is not coming to an end.���

���Didn���t you listen to the reports? The virus is spreading out of control.���

���Maybe it is, maybe it isn���t. But it���s like the captain said: our first priority is to get this plane safely on the ground. Having hysterical passengers won���t help that.���

���Where do you think we���re going to land? In a tree?���

���We���ll find somewhere.���

���We���ve got less than a half hour of fuel left. There���s nowhere else to go.���

At that moment Kelly looked over, saw Nate watching, and bit back on what she���d been about to say.

He pushed the door open the rest of the way. ���Is it true? Only a half hour of fuel?��� he asked.

���Maybe a little more,��� she admitted. ���But I���m confident the captain will put us down safely.��� She shot a glance at Adam. ���Even if we have to land in a tree.��� She moved toward Nate and began shooing him out of the galley. ���Please return to your seat, Mr. Devereaux. Buckle yourself in and remain calm.���

Nate allowed her to usher him back to his seat. It flashed into his mind that this couldn���t be happening. It couldn���t be real. Death was something that happened to other people, not him. Was he really going to die here, now? It didn���t seem possible. All his struggling, all his striving, all his planning. The one thing he had never planned for, never quite believed was possible, was that he would just simply die. Everything he���d dreamed of, gone in an instant.

Excerpt from��Watching the End of the World