Fear of Flying - MonsterBrainSoup

Fear of Flying is a story that I originally started as a webcomic. It’s about an alternate timeline in which extradimensional ghost-magic has been leaking into our world for years, and shapeshifting dragon-people are the only ones who can stop it.

The story follows Kay, a twenty-something transgender man with extreme anxiety about making decisions and no clue about his goals in life. That all changes when he finds a weird magic orb that turns him into a dragon, leading him to become the target of dragon-cops, suspicious government agencies, and hordes of creepy ghosts.

Comic Prologue

: Wouldn’t it be great if we all knew what the hell we were supposed to be doing? “Make your own path!” they say. “Go out there and find out who you really are!” Yeah, that sounds really great and motivational. So what, does that mean that ‘who I really am’ is a depressed trainwreck with no friends?

: I wish someone would just tell me what I was meant to be. At least then I could be disappointed in myself for failing to meet that goal. As it stands I don’t even know what the goal is, so I don’t know how I feel about my lack of progress towards it. I don’t want to be in charge of my own destiny. I make terrible decisions.

: Maybe I’ve already found my purpose and I don’t know it. Or more likely, it’s still out there waiting for me and I’m just too stupid to find it.

: Fear of Flying Prologue – Pearls Before Swine

: I take this path home from work every day. It’s usually pretty quiet. There’s always that fun risk of being randomly mugged but at least I don’t have to steer through crowds of people. Hey, at least if I get mugged, I’ll have a good excuse to stay home from work for a few days. Did you know Cincinnati was halfway through building a subway system in the 20’s, but it was abandoned? Really neat and creepy. I pass by one of the barricaded entrances on this walk. It’s just these big metal doors slapped over a cracked concrete tunnel. They’re always covered in fun graffiti. Every now and then the lock gets busted by someone or it rusts enough for them to replace it. I’ve always been curious and jealous of all those urban explorers on YouTube, but also way too afraid of ending up spit-roasted by a lost race of underground subway-dwelling cannibals. I, uh… I watch a lot of bad horror movies. Well, today, that big metal door was open.

: There was an intense, cold, white light coming from something small on the ground, just inside the door. As craned my neck to look at it, my music started skipping and breaking up. The source of the light was a ball – a crystalline sphere the size of a nectarine, swirling with marbled pearly colors. Light radiated off from it in pulses, like a heartbeat. I mean, come on, I had to touch it.

: So actually, I gave it a little kick first. Just a gentle shove with the inside of my foot. It was lighter than it looked and rolled easily, making a sort of hollow ceramic scraping against the nasty concrete floor of the tunnel. The light from it pulsed brighter as it rolled, then dimmed back down a bit. It gave me the weird sense that the ball was upset or surprised at being moved. I hovered my open palm over it. I wasn’t sure if I was expecting it be hot, or maybe electrical, or even radioactive. Can you feel radiation? I don’t think so. Either way, the air around it didn’t feel like anything, except maybe a little bit heavy, like the pressure in the air before a thunderstorm.

: …!

: I was suddenly a different, bigger, stranger version of myself, and both versions of me somehow existed in the same place at the same time, like a double-exposure –

: – that was weird. My hand felt a little bit tingly, but that’s all. Also, the weird glowing ball thing was completely gone without a trace. So now I was just a weird kid standing in an off-limits area staring at my hand and possibly having vivid hallucinations.It was definitely time to move along.What was that, though? Could that have been a ghost or one of the other crazy things you might see in abandoned places? I’d never had any kind of aether sickness before. I felt really violated at the idea. Despite my social awkwardness and anxiety, I’d always thought myself to be… well, better than that. Getting your head screwed with by ghosts was for people with really poor self-care, or, I dunno, addictions and such.I could only hope that this would never come up again and I’d forget all about it soon.

The World of Fear of Flying

Aether

In the alternate timeline of Fear of Flying, an extradimensional force known as Aether began “leaking” into our world via abandoned places some time during the 1980’s – run-down buildings, alleyways, sewers, empty malls, even abandoned subway lines. It wasn’t formally discovered and its existence made public until 1992.

Aethersickness

The human body doesn’t have a mechanism to process Aether, so it tends to run rampant when absorbed into the body Humans with trauma and mental illness are particularly susceptible, but everyone has different capacities and tolerances for Aether within their body. Aethersickness is identified by symptoms like insomnia, depression, paranoia, and hallucinations. Sufferers often describe the sensation of their life essence or soul being weakened, displaced, or drained.

Passive Aether exposure can occur from venturing into abandoned places where a leak is present, or direct exposure can occur if a ghost (see below) touches a person.

In extreme cases, people may develop glowing vein-like markings on the skin, and entire limbs may turn translucent. These people universally cite a sensation of being “less real” and often suffer long-term consequences.

Ghosts

Left unchecked, Aether can gather and form “ghosts” – humanlike specters that can drain the energy from living humans by touching them. This is correlated with the worsening of the Aether infestation, leading to theories that the human life energy stolen is converted directly into more Aether.

Ghosts vary in form depending on the severity of the Aether infestation, typically starting with “peepers” – glowing eyes appearing from a shadowy mass. Shadowy humanlike hands may also manifest, grasping at passersby.

In extreme cases, the ghosts may appear as full-bodied humanlike apparitions that are fully motile. These are the most dangerous, as they may wander off from their nest (see below) to try and lure victims back to the nest.

Nests

Excessive densities of Aether can form an abscess in reality, a “nest” that defies physics and often results in a maze-like liminal space that exceeds the exterior dimensions of the space. People typically fail to notice when they have entered a nest, because it resembles the normal area – matching the appearance of the walls, floor, and even objects in the real space. However, the deeper one ventures into a nest, the more mazelike and surreal it becomes, but often, by the time one is deep enough to notice something is wrong, they are hopelessly lost in the liminal space.

Department of Aether Control

The United States federal government established the Department of Aether control in 1993 to monitor and control Aether infestations in the USA. There also exist federally-funded Aether Assistance Centers, where members of the public may seek services related to Aether identification, cleansing, and seek urgent relief for Aethersickness symptoms.

The Department of Aether control also shuts down fraudsters who claim to be able to manipulate, control, or remove Aether using esoteric methods. Official Aether-detecting and Aether-cleaning equipment is extremely carefully protected.

Drakothropes

Dragons – also called drakothropes, angels, or drifters (portmanteau of “dragon shifters”) – are entities with a special artificial organ in their chest called a Pearl.

The Pearl acts as storage and pump for Aether in the body, allowing the drakothrope to control Aether within their body. The stored Aether can be used to “shift” – swap their physical form to another reality in which they are a dragon. A drakothrope’s dragon form has functional wings and numerous natural weapons including claws, a tail, and horns. Their senses are greatly heightened in this form, and they can sense Aether (described as both a smell and sound that is both desirable and annoying – they are compelled to consume it).

While in dragon form, absorbed Aether can be expelled as Aetherfire, a luminous plasma-like energy which is extremely effective against ghosts and the interior of infestations/nests.