6 Jan 2020, Heathrow International Airport

A tall, wheatish young man in a casual shirt and blue jeans was fiddling with an amber locket. He had an athletic build, about 186 cm tall, sharp eyes, and handsome appearance. He was sitting in the waiting area, waiting for his flight to arrive. Now and then, he would attract the gaze of nearby onlookers, but his cold demeanour would keep people away.

A beautiful woman with a dusky appearance in a black sari approached him with a bottle of water in her hands.

“Aarav! Stop playing with that. It’s an ANTIQUE”

“Where did you find it?”

“In a private auction. I paid a million dollar for it. Can you please be careful with it?”

“A million, for this piece of junk?”

The woman rolled her eyes and sighed.

“It’s for my friend Jennifer. It’s her family heirloom. Her uncle lost it in a gamble and she had been searching for it for ages. I’m just helping her. You should make time to meet her and deliver it to her. Also, it is an antique. So, of course, it will be worth that much. It’s not just mo_”

“Okay Janhvi, I got it. My flight has arrived. I should be on my way”, Aarav stopped her charade as he heard the announcement of his flight’s arrival.

He grabbed his bag and stood. He bid his farewell and went ahead to board his flight.

Midway through he stopped and turned to look back. Janhvi had already left. ”Goodbye, my love. Goodbye forever”, he muttered to himself.

Aarav and Janhvi had been friends since junior high. And they remained friends. Aarav always had feelings for her but they lived in two different worlds.

The first time they met was in junior high school. A girl was sitting over a desk and talking about politics in a very enthusiastic way. Other students were listening to her intently. When Aarav entered the classroom, other students got silent except for Janhvi. She was criticising a politician. Her friends told her to stop. She was reluctant to stop until someone drag her away. She didn’t know the person she was badmouthing was one of her classmate’s father. That was Aarav. Aarav looked at her. He didn’t say anything to her or anyone. He silently took his seat and prepared for the class. After the classes were over, Janhvi came and apologised him.

“I’m sorry I didn’t know he was your father. I never said anything wrong anyway”, Janhvi apologised in a not so apologetic way. A guy who was standing behind her pulled her ears.

“Do it properly”

“Aah Sameer. I wasn’t wrong, to begin with.”

Aarav laughed at them, “It’s okay I didn’t mind that at all. She is right. She didn’t say anything wrong at all. My father is the absolute worst”

It didn’t lighten the mood. But the three became very close friends.

“Excuse me, ” a pat on the shoulder from behind Aarav, brought him back from his reverie. He moved ahead to board the plane.

After a few hours, inside the plane, a young man of 20 was looking around with a bored expression. He had a large headphone around his neck, a black sweatshirt with the sign of Walker on it. His facial features were of Japanese. He stood not too tall about 176 cm, he had glasses which gave him a geeky appearance.

His eyes stopped at a bespectacled girl who was reading a book.

A pale-complexioned hardly 20, with a high nose, and smallmouth had an overall cute appearance in a white baggy shirt and blue jeans. The girl was not particularly beautiful. It was rather her expressions that attracted his attention.

This girl was, at times frowning, sometimes smiling while reading a book. He became curious about the book she was reading and more about her.

The flight was turbulent from time to time. A passenger sitting beside the bespectacled girl leaned on her, making her expressions uncomfortable. That passenger was a woman in her mid-30s who was sleeping soundly. She tried to push back her neighbour, but she couldn’t make her budge an inch. This woman was huge and the bespectacled girl was tiny in front of her.

Exasperated, she looked around. Her eyes met with the Japanese man who was looking at her. He quickly turned his head. A flight attendant moving a trolley passed through, it was an exceptionally beautiful woman.

“Excuse me, can you change my seat?” She enquired while pointing towards the neighbouring passenger with her eyes.

“I’m really sorry about it. I will see what I can do.”

The flight attendant’s response didn’t bring any relief to her. She pouted. She nudged the shoulder of the woman till she woke up.

“Uhh… Did we reach”, said the woman confused.

“Yes, we will. Very soon. I was just wondering where you bought this bag. It’s so….so…umm stylish”, she said while looking at a weird-looking bag with polka dots.

“Oh! You like this. It’s nothing special. I randomly picked it up somewhere in Europe. I don’t know much about fashion”

“Is it? It looks nice on you. I’m Kiara by the way, and you are?”

“Fiona, a free-spirited traveller”

“Oh. You are. I like travelling too”

Fiona and Kiara kept talking to each other. Kiara was going for a vacation in the US and Fiona was coming from one. They instantly liked each other. Their conversation was gaining attraction from other bored passengers.

Fiona was recently divorced after ten years of marriage. The guy was an absolute jerk. Fiona was a beautiful woman in her prime. She left her job at a bakery after her marriage because of her husband’s persuasion. He had said that he would take care of her all his life. She didn’t need to even lift a finger. After ten years he said he couldn’t stand her as she was fat and ugly and doesn’t do anything at all. But he was having an affair with a young woman of 20. Fiona founded out. She wanted to take revenge on him but she had already wasted ten years on him. She didn’t want to waste more. So, she demanded divorce saying her husband was impotent. The mistress of his husband ran off hearing it. She had specifically told all her relatives the reason for their divorce. She looked like a jerk to her relatives but she didn’t care at all. She wouldn’t have gained anything if her husband divorced her for being fat. But she got her revenge by destroying her husband’s reputation. They didn’t have a single child in their marriage.

After a while, the turbulence in the flight started getting worse and worse. Suddenly alarms started blaring. Rescue instructions kept on repeating.

“What’s happening?”, Aarav asked a flight attendant.

“Please be seated and keep your seatbelts on”, she replied as calmly as she could and moved towards her seat. She almost reached her seats when all of a sudden, the flight trembled and the air hostess got thrown away.

“What’s going on?”

“We’re going to crash”

“I don’t want to die. Please help.”

People started panicking and crying.

The flight was shaking, throwing away luggage around. An ear-shattering sonic boom sounded. And then the plane carrying 252 passengers, 30 people from flight crew and two pilots, flying over the Atlantic Ocean vanished into thin air.