The storm hit just as the captain's voice crackled over the intercom, his calm, practiced tone doing little to reassure anyone on board. I was barely paying attention. I was too busy staring out the window, watching the dark clouds roil in the sky like an angry ocean. It was strange, how the sky could look so beautiful and so terrifying at the same time. I pressed my forehead to the cool glass, feeling the vibration of the plane beneath me as the storm churned outside.The first jolt was small. Barely noticeable. Most passengers didn't even stir. But then the plane pitched violently to the side, like something had struck it from the outside. The lights flickered, and I heard gasps from the people around me.A cold wave of dread washed over me as the plane lurched again, harder this time. My stomach turned with it. I'd flown enough times to know that turbulence could get intense, but this... this felt different. It was as if the plane was fighting against something, as though it were struggling to stay in the air.Then, without warning, the oxygen masks dropped from the ceiling with a hiss, and that was when I knew. We were in trouble. Panic spread like wildfire. Some people screamed, others began frantically putting on their masks, their hands shaking as they fumbled with the straps. I was frozen in place, my heart racing, my breath coming in short, shallow gasps. My eyes were locked on the window, watching the storm swell into something monstrous. The horizon had disappeared behind a curtain of rain and wind, and I could no longer tell where the plane was headed. Just when I thought things couldn't get worse, they did. The plane pitched downward with such force that I was thrown against my seatbelt, my chest tightening with the sensation of falling. The scream of the engines filled my ears, but it was nothing compared to the silence that followed. A heavy, unnatural silence, as if the world had stopped. We were descending too fast. Too much, too soon. I glanced over at the woman with the baby. Her eyes were wide, and I could see the terror etched across her face. But I couldn't look away. I couldn't look away from the window. Something was coming. Something I couldn't see, but I could feel in my bones. And then, in the split second before everything went black, I heard the sound of metal twisting, the scream of a tear in the hull, and the dreadful realization that we were going down.