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humanerrorbutterflyeffect · 27 days ago

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Prelude

Dawn cracks. You could hardly tell as the sun hasn’t peaked over the mountains yet. In the distance are gentle hums of arriving aircrafts in the distance. Those sounds get lost with the hustle and bustle of people walking and talking, loud beeps from the overhead speakers as announcements are made, spoons hitting teacups, all of which are unbearably overwhelming to handle.

Out of all the things he had accounted for, this is the one thing he didn’t think about. Even if he had, he quickly realised that the music he’d drown out the noises with would drown out the boarding call announcements. His knee kicks up and down anxiously as he yawns, absolutely knackered from the lack of sleep; he prays to Kigem that he can get at least a couple of hours of sleep on the aircraft.

His new boss paid for the business-class seat, so it should be fairly comfortable to sleep in… but what if it isn't? Having never flown in an aircraft before, he worries about if it’ll be neigh impossible to sleep due to various unforeseen factors: frequent turbulence, awful seats, loud children, seats that cannot even fit his tall stature…

He didn’t have long to find out.

“Now boarding business guests flying from Anerita to Endina at boarding gate 5.”

His ears perk up at the announcement, getting up and grabbing his suitcase as it’s repeated once more.

With each step to the front of the line, his nerves grow stronger, rethinking the past month to make sure he has everything he needs, knowing he won’t be able to afford a trip back home for a long, long time.

He checks the pockets of his tan, heavy cotton trousers for his passport, panicking at the realisation it isn’t there.

He checks the outer and inner pockets of his dirty white, light weight lab coat that extends down to the knees, with a hole in the middle of the upper left arm, showing its vintage nature. Not in the waist pockets, nor the right chest inner pocket.

While he uses his right hand to pat down his chest, checking if he somehow dropped it down his black, short sleeved shirt. As he looks down to look at his shirt, he stops as he notices.

“Oh,” he thinks, taking the passport out his mouth, “there it is.”

He adjusts his large, round, bulky googles to make sure they aren’t crooked. The purple lenses distort his eyes to appear as small dots. The metal rims are cushioned at the base, with the strap covered by his thick, bushy hair that flows down to his neck.

His well used, vintage suitcase is adorned with scuffs and dents across the worn blue leather body and golden metal corners. In contrast to its age, the address tag looks brand new, signed with his name but lacking an address.

His thought to open it and check for any missing objects is halted before he can even begin to start as the gate agent politely yells “next!”

He steps forwards, handing them his passport and boarding card.

“Name, please?” They begin typing on a computer as they look at their passport and boarding card.

“Victor. Victor Dontoya.” The friendly sounding gate agent eases his nerves, beginning to dawn a smile.

“Lovely name. Going to the lab, Mr. Dontoya?” They ask, Victor mistaking their small talk as interest.

“Yes, actually!” He nods with a cheery tone, or at least as cheery as you can get with his deep, typically monotone voice, “Well, n-not today,” he stutters, correcting himself, “I start work tomorrow. Today will be my last day here.” Victor glances out the window, as if looking at a dog he has to leave behind.

“Well, that’s nice!” Their small talk has become genuine interest, “What are you researching?”

“Plants!” He smiles at the gate agent, “they’re a lot more interesting than you’d-”

“Oh.” The interested look in her eyes quickly disappears as she cuts him off. “I hope you enjoy your flight. Next!”

Victor’s beaming smile fades into a disappointed frown, putting his passport and boarding card into his inside pocket as he walks down the boarding tunnel towards the aircraft, waiting in another line to get onto the aircraft. He’s happy it’s at least progressing faster than the other one, enough to where it feels like a slow walk than a start and stop; before he knows it, he’s already in the aircraft, showing his boarding card to a welcoming flight attendant so they can point to the direction of his seat.

The first thing Victor sees are the spacious first-class seats with a shrug. Too extravagant for his tastes. Victor considers himself a simple man, and the seats look far too large for him. Though, he does lament the thought that he might need to book one in future travels if business class is too snug.

While Victor is skinny, he is taller than most at 6-foot (approximately 1.82 meters) and has always had trouble sitting in the majority of non-adjustable chairs comfortably. Upon walking into the next cabin, he figures he must be in business-class when he sees the similar, but thinner, cubicle-style seats. Feeling anxious, Victor looks at the boarding card to find his seat number, comparing it to… wherever the number is. Not on the floor… not on the seats… not on- ah, there they are, placed on the lowered roofs above the seats.

He gives the numbers a quick scan as he walks past, checking the boarding card frequently.

E6-7… F6-7… G6-7… H6-7… H6-7. This seems to be it! Victor bends down to avoid bumping his head on the lowered roof as he sits down in his aisle seat. The first thing he notices is how roomy it is; stretching out his legs as far as he can comfortably. It would be roomier, were there not a suitcase beside his legs.

On the wall in front of him is a small, but perfectly viewable, TV with a footrest underneath it. On the wall next to it is a small door that, upon inspection, has two sealed bags: one containing a set of pyjamas and another containing all sorts of hygiene amenities he had no use for.

Next to that is a fogged window that he finds strange but shrugs off, looking below it to see a mesh pocket that contains safety card and a menu for food and drinks that, for the most part, aren’t to his taste.

Looking at the window, he notices the frame has a small indent on the top. Pushing down on it, he-

“AH!” he screams

“AH!” the woman in the seat on other side screams back.

“Oh Kigem, I’m so sorry!” He apologises to the stranger, grabbing his chest as he recovers from the scare.

“It’s fine, just don’t scare me like that again…” she looks annoyed as she also recovers.

“S-sorry…” Victor apologises again, partially putting the divider back up before, pulling it back down again. “Real quick, do you know where I can put my bag…?”

“Above your head,” she grumbles, going back to her newspaper before gasping to herself. “Wait- is this your first time flying?” Her tone is curious, with a hint of excitement.

“Yeah… sorry again for-”

“Well, why didn’t you say so?” She tsks with excitement in her voice, getting up and opening a door behind the head rest to a storage compartment to get out her bag. “You can have my seat! Mine’s on the window, it’s a must if you’re travelling to Endina, especially for the first time!”

“Moving, actually.”

“Even more of a reason to have my seat!” Her excitement, as well as her insistence, is unmeasurable.

“Are you sure?” He asks nervously, “I wouldn’t want to be a bother.”

“Oh, it’s fine!” She waves her hand reassuringly, “I run a travel related newspaper, I go on trips all the time,” she humbly brags, “I’ll have the window seat on the way back anyways, ain’t no skin off my nose, especially when I have a rare opportunity to give someone the best first-time flight experience I can!”

“I… guess, then.” Victor is beginning to wonder if this friendly face is going to turn obnoxious quick. Out of all his worries, he didn’t think someone who might talk his ears off throughout the entire flight would have been one.

“I’ll try to leave you alone for the most part, just enjoy the view!” She smiles as she gets into the aisle seat, reaching across the open divider to grab her newspaper before closing it, along with sliding privacy a door he didn’t even know existed.

He walks past her seat and into the small corridor to his new one. It looks similar, except with the addition of the place behind the head that he quickly takes advantage of. He gets seated with a relaxed sigh, looking out the window at Anerita, his relaxation slowly turning into sadness as he realises this will probably be the last time he’ll ever see it with his own eyes. It’s all he’s ever known. He feels like he’s not just leaving behind his home, but his memories, most of himself. He wonders if this will be worth it as the anxiety kicks back in-

“Oh, one last thing!” The helpful blogger from earlier scares him from the pulled down divider. “The lock is by your head. Enjoy your flight!” She beams a bright smile before closing the divider, followed by a click of a lock.

A sudden buzz from the speakers on the roof of the cabin startles him as someone says something he can’t quite understand. Victor has been studying Endinian for a long time, so he isn't sure if the quality of he just couldn't understand what they were saying or if the quality of the microphone was awful, (assuming it was even Endinian at all). Shortly after, the TV at the end of his seat turns on, aided by the audio coming from the cabin speakers.

“Around two hundred and fifty years ago,” a mature, yet youthful, voice narrates as an animation plays, showing a silhouette of man climbing a snowy mountain “a man by the name of Venver Keya climbed the midpoint of one of the many mountains that surround Endina. On that snowy night, he looked to a nearby cave blocked by a rock for warmth. Moving the rock revealed something beyond our imagination: Kigem, the origin of the universe, trapped in the cave for millions of years. Out of appreciation of Venver, she told the whole world of her rescue, as well as giving him a kiss on the head.” The animation shows Kigem kiss Venver on the head, then panning to show the front of Venver’s face with the kiss in gold. “While Kigem may have returned home, her blessing has remained on the heads of the Keya family for generations,” the camera scrolls to the right, going past Venver to others from the Keya family, slowly increasing in speed as it passes a silhouette of each member of the Keya family, with only the kiss on the head staying the exact same. Eventually, it shows the final silhouette, then fading to show a plump, white woman that looks to be in their mid-30s. Her brunette hair is bunched up in a bun, held by a flowery clip. Her brown eyes are framed with purple eye shadow, complimented by her glossy lipstick and faint blush on her cheeks. Her outer robes fade from white at the top to purple in the middle, with her inner robe having a purple flower pattern on the left side and white on the right, with a black waist belt with red string tied in the middle. “I’m Keyla Keya,” she welcomes, standing in the aisle of an empty aircraft, “heir of the Keya family and all its subseries! As you should know, when Venver returned home, the world tried to give him as much as they could as thank you for helping Kigem, but he did not wish to be given help, opting to give help to those in need of it. We continue that tradition today through the Keya Foundation, and today we extend that help to you...”

“...Help make sure you have a safe and comfortable flight.” The camera cuts to an elderly white woman, around her mid-60s, displaying the name 'Kristen Keya', leader of the Keya family. Her grey hair is, like Keyla's, is also tied in a bun, but with the sides flowing freely down and over her ears. Kristen's green lipstick and eyeshadow are a stark contrast to her brown eyes, but match the knee length dress perfectly, lightly decorated tree patterns. Kristen looks comfortable in the first-class seats Victor saw earlier. “Before lift-off, it’s important that your tray is folded away and your window shutter is open. You can hide your tray by folding it in the extended armrest beside you...”

“...Or in the seat in front of you.” The camera cuts once again, this time to a formal, yet faintly gruff sounding white woman in her early-30s by the name of 'Ivy Keya', the youngest of the family. Ivy humbly sits in what Victor can only assume is economy-class. Her thick hair, black flows down her back and right side of her face, partially covering one of her brown eyes. Her robes, though a similar set to Keyla's, except with no outer robes and decorated with pink, same for her eyeshadow. All three members have the kiss mark on their heads shown proudly, like it was a badge of honour. Next to her is an elderly man, looking contently out the window. “It’s important you don’t leave your hand luggage in the aisle, so please stow them in the overhead lockers above your seat, or under your seat.” The footage shows Keyla putting two bags in the overhead locker, then Ivy putting a bag under her seat.

As the video drones on, Victor's gaze turns towards the window, beginning to wonder why people as famous as the Keyas would dedicate themselves to something so mundane. It's not like they need the publicity, their history is well documented and taught internationally. Perhaps he, like seemingly most of people, are apathetic to them. That gives Victor an interesting thought: how could people ever become disinterested in the living proof of a higher power? Despite his apathy towards the Keyas, he has donated to the foundation whenever he has the spare cash. He admires their goal, especially once they helped his town put out and recover from a fire that burned half of it down. When Victor gets to Endina, he wants to pursue the local customs, such as going to the temple cave and donating to the shrine every New Years, or attending one of the many parades. Maybe that will give him a greater appreciation for the Keyas.

As the sunlight finally peaks over the mountain, the runway has a beautiful glow and the windows of the airport a glistening shine. While not the best, this view makes it worth getting up at 4 in the morning, it makes him excited for what the view from above will be like. He can hardly believe it's already 9 in the morning.

Returning his attention to the TV, he notices Keyla holding a small, brown fabric pouch with gold-coloured laces, decorated with a white kiss mark similar to the one on her head.

“As the flight crew do a final safety check, we would like to ask that, if you have any donations you wish to give to the Keya Foundation, you can find a small donation pouch in the mesh pocket in front of,” Keyla narrates as the camera shows Ivy pulling out the small pouch from the pocket on the back of the seat in front of her, “or beside you,” she continues, cutting to Kristen pulling out the same pouch from the mesh pocket in the extended arm rest, similar to Victor’s seat. However, upon inspection, Victor sees no such pouch. “Any amount is greatly appreciated, and we accept any currency you may have on you. Even if it’s the spare change in your pocket, it’ll mean so much to those in need. From all of us in the Keya family, we hope you have a safe flight and enjoy your stay at Endina. And for returning residents, we can’t wait to welcome you home!”

With that, the TV turns off.

Despite his search, he cannot find the small pouch, deciding to get the attention of the flight attendant walking down the aisle.

“Sorry to be a bother,” he apologises, “but I don’t see a pouch anywhere.”

“So sorry, we no longer provide the pouches, but you are more than welcome to use the donation tray as you disembark!”

The flight attendant takes their leave, checking on the other passengers before the aircraft slowly starts moving. He watches out the window as he sees the aircraft moves backwards out of the loading bay, before turning and moving away from the airport.

The aircraft beings making humming sounds, confusing Victor at what the heck is happening and wondering if the sounds he’s hearing are normal, before suddenly… the aircraft stops.

Trying to avoid worrying, he tries to get as relaxed as he possibly can in his chair as he waits for what feels like forever until the PA system makes another noise. This time, he heard the flight crew loud and clear.

“We are cleared for lift-off.”

A loud, high pitched electrical sound is heard as the blades of the quadcopter start to spin. Although the cabin does a good job of dampening the sound, making it bearable to listen to, it’s still a lot for someone as inexperienced as Victor. Soon, the high-pitched sound is overpowered by the sound of the propellers at full speed as Victor feels butterflies in his stomach from the feeling of the quadcopter slowly, but surely, lifting off the ground. Victor’s eyes look towards the window as he sees the airport slowly lift out of view and the sounds of the aircraft dampening as the wind from the blades no longer reflect back onto the cabin, quickly becoming little more than background noise. As he looks out the window, seeing the quadcopter move up and over what he called home, that anxiety he felt earlier no longer lingers, those memories of the past become bittersweet, and the goodbye no longer hurts as much. That feeling of dread and worry is replaced with peace and excitement, ready for whatever new adventures await him as he lays back in his seat, sighing with a sense of content and relaxation.

Once the seat belt signs turn off, he gets out his notebook from his suitcase, pulls out his table tray and begins to write down notes for his big project to pass the time. Given he’s a new hire, he wants to start small by researching the Bluebell Rosequartz, a plant that surprisingly has little to no research despite its beauty. While it is more in his interest, Victor thinks of questions that would help secure funding. “What medicinal value does this provide?” “What causes the petals to have a sparkling blue and pink gradient?” “How does it react when put in habitats outside its own?” “Could you reconnect a severed nerve of a human with the stem of…” okay maybe not that last one. As much as he finds the idea interesting, he crosses it out.

Getting ahead of himself, he ends up writing ideas and notes down for his other research project ideas, eventually getting to the end of the notebook. His thoughts stop dead in his tracks as he looks as the last page. Turning the book upside-down, he sees the old scribbles and doodles of a simple robotic mechanism. He wasn’t always an aspiring plant biologist, he experimented with robotics before then but dropped out once he realised it wasn’t really a role for him. He thought that if he could rebuild the engine of his car, he could build a robot that could help mechanics by fetching tools. The skillsets were too different; plants interested him more anyways.

Not wanting to dwell on the headache that is robotics, he puts away the notebook and pencil just in time for the helpful journalist from earlier to gently pull down the divider.

“Hey!” She grins. “It’s time!”

“Oh, uh, hey. Time to land?”

“No, silly! Look out the window!”

Victor opens the window shutter and peaks down below at Endina, his new home. It’s much smaller than the view of Anerita, but still large enough to not see the whole country from the small view the window provides. The towns below are quite small, with plenty of grass land between them. It reminds him of where he used to live. As he looks closer, he can see tractors going around the farm as a dog chases animals back into their pens. He’s always wanted a dog… his dad was always allergic, and university never let him have one in his dorm. This time should be different. As he looks up, the small community towns become less frequent as places become more and more dense, until eventually he sees it: the National Institute of Science and Research. While it isn’t the tallest building in the country, it’s by far the biggest, with employees using scooters and rollerblades to get around the facility (or so he’s heard). Looking further ahead, he sees the coastline. He’s never been to a beach before! The idea of standing at the edge of the only continent on the planet is still so surreal to him. Soon, it’ll be within walking distance!

“We should be over it now!” She sounds excited, almost kicking her legs.

Victor, confused, looks down to see they're right over top a mountain, and right below he can see a small, wooden structure that stands at three stories tall on the east side of the building, with the west being one story tall, but much wider. Further up the east side of the mountain, about a 5-minute hike up, there’s a construction crew that seem to be installing solar panels that connect to a thick, long cable that run down the mountain to the back of the building. The construction crew and a plump person in purple wave at the passing quadcopter, the person in purple more enthusiastic than the others.

“So, whadya think?!” She asks with an impatient squeak.

“Wait,” Victor squints his eyes. He slowly starts to recognise the building; how could he not have realised it before? “That’s the Keya temple! And is that Keyla?”

“Keyla?!” She gasps, frantically trying to unbuckle her belt as she rushes towards the second window in Victor’s area. “By Kigem’s good graces, it is! How exciting! I’m jealous, you really got lucky today!”

“I guess so,” he nods for a moment before looking back up at the city, “you see the institute?” Victor points, even if she can’t see where he’s pointing to. “This time tomorrow, I’ll be having my first day there.”

“Oooooohhhh, won’t be long until you see the head Keya herself, then!”

Before Victor could ask for elaboration, the seatbelt sound plays as the accompanying sign turns on, causing her to immediately rush back to her seat and lift the divider back up. The flight crew announce over the PA that the aircraft is approaching Endina International Airport and will be descending shortly, asking passengers to get buckled up, close their trays, and put their seats in the upright position.

As the aircraft makes its way to the airport, unknown to anyone, Keyla is also starting an adventure of her own…

Sumate Junel, While I was overseeing the construction of the solar project, something rather strange happened. For a brief moment, I felt like I flashed back to the past, standing in front of a small, sad, young boy. I didn’t think of it much at first, perhaps it was a boy who was visiting the cave? Lots of children are scared of the cave below the temple. But, as I pondered more on it, I recall seeing him in the guest lounge after a party many years ago. Perhaps an early teenager? Either way, it was quite strange… I told Ivy about it and while she may know what I’m talking about, she wasn’t entirely sure. Mother and father did not share the same sentiment. Mother didn’t recall such a child, while father just, well… he just looked to mother, saying nothing after she shook her head. This memory feels like an itch I must scratch, but I don’t have the foggiest idea as to why. Perhaps this is something worth investigating, or maybe this isn’t anything at all, but what I do know is that I won’t find the answers inside the temple, but I might just be able to find them outside. Wish me luck. Sulame, Keya Keyla

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#Human Error: Butterfly Effect #HE:BE #novel writing #original story #oc writing #self published #Victor Dontoya #Kristen Keya #Keyla Keya #Ivy Keya

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