Someone's a natural airhead, and sure enough, they actually sent Jack Young a guide called "How to Survive When Death Comes." Jack skimmed through the guide once, but the details are fuzzy now. One thing stuck with him, though: when Death shows up, it's seriously dangerous—you could drop dead at any moment. So, job one is to figure out if you're actually in that deadly world.
Then there's the whole 'Death' thing—what's that all about, anyway? Jack's only read the guide; he never watched the movie.
Three people—one guy, two girls—brought Jack Young back to the dude's place. Quick intros: handsome guy is Kevin, round-faced girl is Wendy, and the skinny one is Julie (Wendy's actual little sister). Listening to their story, Jack finally started to piece things together.
Everything kicks off with a flight on Air France. Back in 2000, a bunch of American high schoolers were off to a French class field trip, planning to fly to Paris. Just as the plane's about to take off, one kid totally freaks out, yelling that the plane's going to blow up and everyone will die. He causes a big scene, and a few classmates plus a teacher end up getting off the flight because of him.
Everyone's grumbling about that kid—until the plane actually explodes right after takeoff. Nobody on board survives. Just like the kid said, it all really happens.
That lines up with the number one rule in the guide: trust the random guy who suddenly freaks out and starts yelling—he knows what's up.
Jack Young propped his chin on his hands, thinking it over, then shook his head and said, "That alone doesn't prove much. I mean, some people just have weird sixth senses."
Jack once read a news story in real life: an old couple on an Australian train, the wife kept telling her husband she felt something was off and didn't want to sit up front. Hubby ignored her and stayed in front, while she moved to the back. Then the conductor had a heart attack, the train sped out of control and derailed. The husband died instantly, but the wife survived—just because she switched seats. (True story, by the way.)
"Yeah, if that was all, it'd be nothing special. But that's just the opening act," Kevin said, shaking his head and pulling out a stack of clipped newspaper articles. Jack skimmed them and finally got why people say "that's just the beginning."
The handful of folks who dodged death didn't get to just go back to normal life. One by one, they started dying in bizarre ways. Some amateur sleuths figured out the deaths matched their seat order on the plane—whoever was supposed to die first on board, died first after. The order never changed. Even if someone survived a round thanks to smarts or luck, Death would just come back for them in the same order next time.