At first, it went unnoticed.
The airship glided smoothly through the open skies, basking in golden sunlight. Passengers moved casually, chatting, napping, or admiring the views. But slowly—subtly—something began to shift.
A young woman in a green hoodie walked toward the rear lavatory, earbuds in, bobbing her head to music. She entered the bathroom.
She never came out.
Twenty minutes later, a tall man with a neck tattoo asked the attendant if there was a storage closet. Said he wanted to stretch without bothering other passengers. He was directed toward the broom closet near the cargo access hatch.
He disappeared.
No one saw him again.
Near the middle of the ship, a middle-aged businessman took a call and quietly stepped into one of the private soundproof compartments used for personal conversations. He slid the door shut.
The call ended mid-sentence.
No one noticed the light outside his door never turned off.
The remaining passengers kept moving, unaware of the thinning around them. There were still smiles, conversations, even laughter—but here and there, empty seats began to grow in numbers.
Attendants whispered to each other.
"Didn't that girl go to the restroom a while ago?"
"Yeah… I think so."
"Should we check—?"
"We're midair. Maybe she just… ate a lot of those tacos?"
An uneasy tension slowly spread through the air. People began to glance toward the back of the ship more often. The lights in the rear corridor flickered once. Just once.
Then the shadows stretched just a little longer than they should have.
From the cargo hold below, the faintest sound could be heard.
Something was moving.
...
Silver leaned against the observation window, his forehead resting on the cool glass. He'd been staring at the clouds for what felt like hours, but something was different now.
It wasn't the view.
It was the sound.
Or lack of it.
He blinked and pulled back from the glass, glancing around the cabin. The lively hum of chatter that had filled the blimp when they took off had dulled to a soft murmur—no laughing, no shouting, no kids running down the aisle.
The air felt… still. Too still.
He turned around slowly. "Huh."
A group of tourists who had been taking selfies earlier—gone.
The guy with the crazy pompadour and headphones from three rows back—missing.
Even the bubbly flight attendant who kept offering snacks hadn't passed by in a while.
Silver walked toward the center aisle, glancing left and right.
Whole rows of seats sat empty now.
He raised an eyebrow. "Did I miss an announcement or something?"
His pace slowed as he walked through the passenger deck. A magazine fluttered to the floor beside an open bag left on a seat. The pages flipped back and forth in the cool recycled air. No owner in sight.
His fingers clenched slightly.
The blimp was big—but not that big. People didn't just vanish.
Then he noticed something else: a red "occupied" light still glowing on the restroom door near the rear of the ship. It had been on for almost an hour.
He turned toward it and took a step forward… then paused.
A shiver rolled across his spine.
Something wasn't right.
Silver looked up at the overhead vents. The air was fine. The temperature normal. But the silence—it was like the ship was holding its breath.
"Okay… chill," he whispered to himself. "Maybe it's just turbulence paranoia or something…"
But even he didn't believe it.
His eyes narrowed, instincts prickling.
...
Agent Neville Flynn adjusted his tie and checked his watch again. Routine. Composed. But even through his professional calm, he felt it—that silence.
The energy of the blimp had shifted.
Across the aisle, John Sanders sat stiff in his seat, staring at the emergency exit map with the hollow gaze of someone trying to distract himself from gnawing anxiety.
Flynn leaned closer.
"You feel it?"
Sanders glanced at him. "You mean the fact it sounds like someone hit the mute button on the whole cabin?"
Flynn's lips thinned. "Exactly."
He stood slowly, eyes scanning the seating rows ahead. "Where's that flight attendant that kept offering peanuts every five minutes?"
"Gone," Sanders said. "And the loud couple two rows up? Their seats are empty too."
Flynn took a careful step into the aisle, eyes narrowing as he walked forward. "That's half a dozen passengers missing. No noise. No announcement. No movement."
Sanders followed him, voice low and tense. "You think we've been made?"
Flynn shook his head. "If this was Kim's doing, there'd be bodies already. Public. Loud. He wants a message. This... this is something else."
He moved toward the rear of the blimp.
As they passed a bathroom, Flynn paused. The "Occupied" light glowed a dim red.
He knocked gently. "Excuse me. Everything okay in there?"
No response.
He exchanged a look with Sanders, then twisted the knob. Locked.
Flynn's fingers hovered near his jacket a second longer before he glanced back at Sanders.
"Stay here. Watch my back."
He turned to the small crowd beginning to stir around the nearby seats, sensing the rising unease. "Ladies and gentlemen," he said camly but with authority, "I'm going to ask you to remain seated and stay calm. I'm an Air Marshal and I need to inspect this restroom immediately."
There was a flicker of relief in a few faces. Whispers followed.
Flynn didn't wait. He reached into his jacket, pulled out a lock-pick, and slid it into the panel beside the lavatory lock. With a click, the red "Occupied" light flickered off. The door swung inward slowly.
The smell hit first.
Not decay—not yet—but something stale, cold, and metallic. Like air that hadn't moved in too long.
Inside, slumped sideways on the tiny floor, was the girl in the green hoodie. Earbuds still in. One arm bent awkwardly beneath her.
Flynn dropped to a knee.
"Ma'am?" he said, even though he already knew.
He pressed two fingers to her neck. No pulse. No breath. Her skin was pale—too pale.
Behind him, Sanders stepped back. "She's…?"
Flynn nodded grimly. "Gone."
He scanned for obvious injuries. No blood. No bruising. No wounds on her neck or face. No signs of struggle.
But her expression—eyes wide open—was frozen in shock.
Flynn narrowed his eyes. Something was wrong. Terribly wrong.
"She didn't die from trauma," he muttered. "No marks. No signs of suffocation. But she looks like she saw death… just before it happened."
He turned to Sanders, voice hardening. "We've got a situation."
Sanders swallowed. "You think it's Kim?"
Flynn didn't answer right away.
Flynn's hand instinctively moved to the inside of his jacket—where his holstered sidearm waited.
"Whatever this is," he muttered, eyes cold now, "it doesn't feel human."
From somewhere far off in the lower levels of the blimp, a vent cover clattered to the floor.
Flynn stood. "We need to secure the cabin. Now."