It's shaping up to be a tough week for imaginary airline passengers. First came AMC's "Fear the Walking Dead Flight 462," which brought the creepy undead prequel onto a very crowded airplane. That was bad. This is worse. In a patent application filed just last week, airplane manufacturer Airbus has proposed a new seating arrangement that can only be described as a horror show. This drawing tells it all, really:

Oh no you didn't, Airbus.

Yes, you're seeing correctly. Airbus has proposed putting passengers on top of one another. To quote the application, "a passenger seat arrangement comprises at least one first seat arranged at a first lower level, and at least one second seat arranged at a second elevated level." That's even worse than the face-to-face design proposed by Zodiac Seats back in July. (Or maybe not. Depends on your personal phobia matrix, I guess.)

What's more, the elevated seats will apparently flatten and fold in some fashion. It's a little hard to puzzle this out from the legalese, so we made a handy GIF from the drawings. You may want to advise small children and the weak of health to skip this part.

Airborne torture manual. U.S. Patent Office

It looks like this is Airbus's attempt to alleviate the inevitable panic attacks their design will provoke: Hey, you may be stacked on top of one another, but at least you can straighten your legs. And that might work. Legroom has become so cramped it's not inconceivable that passengers would rather make like firewood than squeeze deeper in.

Just try to remember, through the pain (quoting the application again): "In modern means of transport, in particular in aircraft, it is very important from an economic point of view to make optimum use of the available space in a passenger cabin."

H/T to the Verge for giving us an early warning. Read on for the full patent application.