MBL: A New Beginning

Everyone has bad days, right?

Yeah, we've all felt life give us a good kick when we're already lying on the ground. However, there's only so much kicking a man can take before he stands up and kicks back.

For me, that moment came when I was idly staring out an airplane window, thinking about how I was gonna fix the mess I was in. I'd just had the hands-down worst day in my life. Seriously, I was pretty sure I'd broken some sort of record so far as shitty days go. Now, to top it all off some nutjob was waving a gun around and screaming in the aisle on my left. The gun looked a little odd, ceramic maybe. I wasn't exactly an expert, but I remember thinking for a brief moment that it would explain how he got it through a metal detector.

He kept screaming and ranting for a while. Something about the sins of America and purging with fire. I couldn't see a bomb anywhere though. Not that I was a bomb expert either, but he wasn't carrying anything other than the gun from what I could tell. Nor could I detect any signs of some form of wearable bomb under his clothes. Then again, if airport security couldn't find it, how would I?

I guess something in my brain snapped in that moment and suddenly I was done getting kicked. I gritted my teeth, clenched my fists, and decided to kick life back. I slowly stood from my seat with a somber expression, much to the shock of our supposed 'executioner', as he had declared himself. In fact, he almost seemed afraid as I stood.

"S-sit back d-down asshole! I control this plane!" his voice nearly cracked as he pointed the (possibly) ceramic gun at my head. I guess he hadn't expected any resistance. All eyes in the plane were locked on us, even a baby which had been crying before had gone quiet. Despite the extreme tension of the situation, the only sound for a brief moment was the hum of the jet's engines. I took the chance to really size up our 'captor'.

He was a tall, thin stick of a kid. Not any older than maybe 18 and shaking like a leaf in a fall breeze. I couldn't help but wonder why he was doing this, how anyone could throw their lives away like he was willing to do.

With speed born of a survival instinct, I lashed out with my left hand and knocked his arm to the side. Just as expected, he fired the gun reflexively. The bullet narrowly missed my side and embedded itself harmlessly in a seat. I then grabbed his wrist firmly to keep him from whipping the gun back up.

"Stop! You don't have to do this!" my voice was calm and commanding. I can't really explain why, but in that moment I felt more like a babysitter dealing with an unruly teen than a man facing down an armed terrorist.

"Y-yes... I do..."

Only then did I finally see the detonator in his left hand, which had been obscured from view from my spot on his right side. With a cry, I leapt forward and tackled him, trying to wrestle the device from him or... something. In retrospect, I'm not even sure I had a plan. His thumb slammed down onto the detonator before we even made contact.

Then the plane exploded.

What luck, right?

To my immense surprise, I eventually woke up. Albeit, in immense pain. Which, in itself, made no sense to me. I had just witnessed a plane-engulfing explosion. I'd seen the light, felt the heat. I should be dead, certainly not in pain and definitely not alive. It suddenly occurred to me that I might be in hell. That would explain it.

I groaned and decided to simply try to figure out my own body which felt incredibly dull, aside from the nigh overwhelming pain, and unresponsive. I cracked my eyes open and saw brown. Just brown, a distance away from me. After much intense concentration and a bit of wiggling, I managed to figure out that I was laying on my back, and the brown was the color of the ceiling. I almost immediately tried to prop myself up on my elbows to get a better view of my surroundings. Mistake.

"Aw fuck!" I cried out as searing pain shot through my arms. I dropped back down the mere centimeter I had managed to lift myself and cried out again as more pain jolted through my back and chest. I hissed gently and made a mental note to not move.

After the pain subsided, I sluggishly realized I had heard something move when I cried out. I decide to open my eyes, which I had clenched shut when my back hit the floor, and look for whatever had moved. At first, turning my neck to search was an agonizing activity, but the pain eventually dulled and I zeroed in on the source of the movement before.

To my great surprise, I saw a small, purple, horse. No, unicorn, it had a horn sticking right out of the middle of its forehead. It looked almost... concerned, I would say. When it saw me moving my head it started to timidly move towards me.

"Oh." I rasped, my throat barely allowing me to form words. "I guess I'm in a hospital. They must have really good stuff here..." that seemed logical. I must've survived the explosion and been rescued somehow. Then when I was carted to the hospital the put me on tons of painkillers which had to be why I was seeing a purple unicorn.

I had just enough time to realize that theory made no sense, as I was still in massive amounts of pain, before I passed out.