The Airway

Prologue

Rap rap rap.

The sharp tapping echoed across the small inlet, drawing the attention of the modest crowd that was gathered.

A self-possessed, curly-haired woman in a white robe sat at a makeshift table made out of one of several large boulders that dotted the shoreline. The stone was long and flat and served its purpose marvelously. The woman’s hands and wrists were adorned with gold rings which shone brightly against her dark skin. In her left hand she held a small wooden scepter, which she once again hit upon the rock.

Rap rap rap. 

“Please be seated,” she said in an authoritative voice.

On either side of her sat one man and one woman, with another man and another woman next to them. All five figures were dressed in identical white robes with similar adornments.

Across from them stood five separate and distinct groups of people. One group, sitting on a small collection of rocks in front of the group in white, consisted of four nervous looking young men and three equally anxious-appearing young women. A few feet to their left, equidistant from the head table, sat two older men, one of whom was wearing a scowl that could've carved wrinkles in steel. A third group sat on the shoreline, submerged in the ocean up to their waists as the tide rose and fell around them while a group of two stood clear across the island in the seagrass. The curly-haired woman spoke in a loud clear voice so that all could hear her over the din of the waves.

 “Let’s begin, shall we?” the dark-haired woman said, appraising the group of seven as she sat down on the only actual chair that had been brought to the meeting. “I'd like to begin with Hunter Perry, if you could please approach the stand.”

Someone from the nervous-looking group directly in front of the table side stood up. He had short dark hair and piercing brown eyes. He wore a black suit, his impressive physique quietly displaying itself in spite of the modest cut of the garment. After a quiet word exchanged with the people who’d been seated on either side of him, he ambulated awkwardly across the beach, sand seeping into his formal footwear with each step. At the woman’s gesture, he sat on a chair-shaped rock directly in front of the long, table-like boulder.

“Please state your name for the record,” the woman in white said.

“Hunter Perry.”

“Would you please share a brief summary of the events at hand from your perspective?”

The dark-haired man nodded. 

“To start,” he said, glancing around at the dozen-or-so people before him, “I just want to make it perfectly clear that I never intended for any of this to happen. I’m about as normal a guy as you could ever care to meet. I own a normal house, I have a normal every-day career, I have normal interests and hobbies. This situation is, by far, the most abnormal thing about me.”

The woman at the long table looked over to Hunter and asked, “How did you get involved in all of this, then?”

A series of unidentifiable emotions flashed across Hunter’s features before they ultimately resolved into a frown. The young man seemed to mull this question over for a moment before saying, “I guess it started in my early childhood… but everything really came to a head a few months ago. It’s a fairly long story, though.”

The woman before him nodded, “We have time.”

“Okay,” started Hunter, taking a deep breath to steady himself before pressing on, “Well, it all started in April…”