The following days also went by in a flash. Emilin spent her remaining time in Polo Country with her family. Gabriel went to work as usual and when he came back home, he would also join Elena, Emilin, and Theo as they caught up with some shows and movies that they had been missing out on.

It was all in all, a very relaxing week. ​​

When the day of her departure came her whole family came to the airport with her. Theo’s plane would takeoff two hours after Emilin’s and so they all came together.

“Remember to keep your passports close, as well as your bags! And get some extra sleep on the plane. Don’t forget to eat something too. And call often.” Gabriel was the one listing out all of the reminders while Elena stood back and watched her two children pretend to pay attention.

Emilin and Theo who had already heard this speech 6 times on their way to the airport looked at each other and then back at their father.

“We got it, daddy,” they said simultaneously in a childishly cute manner. If there was a health bar here, Gabriel would most likely have been one-shot KO’d. He would at most be left with 1 HP. (HP= Health Point)

The children stopped using the term daddy a couple of years ago and reserved it for special occasions.

Mainly when they wanted to coax their father.

Gabriel knew that, but it didn’t really matter, the endearing term still warmed his heart, so he let his children off. He also knew that they were aware of when to be careful and how to take care of themselves.

Emilin and Theo: ‘glad to know it still works like a charm.’

He sighed. All he could do now as a father was to give his children a firm hug and send them off, which is exactly what Elena and he did.

They separated when they reached the bag checking areas, leaving only Emilin and Theo to go in by themselves.

Emilin was wearing black leggings and a dark blue hoodie with a white print with her hair tied up in a loose bun. Everything was for comfort on the plane.

Theo was the same. He was wearing loose sweat grey pants and a white hoodie with a red print.

Both looked like university students that were going to go back to school after visiting their parents. The time was a nice fit too since schools were about to start. That’s what the surrounding people believed.

After going through all the checking procedures, they had to part ways too. Emilin’s port and Theo’s ports were in opposite directions and they had to use their boarding passes to get to their specific waiting areas.

“Take care and be careful in your travels.” Theo reminded Emilin again because Gabriel’s reminders were definitely not enough.

“You too. Have fun, but don’t let your guard down too much. You can always fall back if necessary.” Emilin was reassuring Theo that even if he was met with troubles, there would always be people for him to fall back to.

These were the people he could give his unconditional trust.

They parted ways after a few more casual reminders.

Emilin headed straight to the first-class lounge. It was the first time she traveled alone and so she didn’t want any complications, plus she also wanted to get some sleep in during the 15-hour trip.

She went straight to the self-serve bar and filled up a plate with small snacks before finding herself a couch.

The remaining time before the boarding commenced was spent scanning the various tourist spots of her next destination, Malalakan Country. She had already set her heart on some places to find out some more of this world so that she could compare it to the world she lived in, in the past.

She marked any areas that interested her and wrote them down on her new notebook that she had bought a couple of days ago.

It served as a bucket list, but with a two-year deadline rather than death. Then again, if she didn’t do some of these things in two years, she could always do them later on.

Around half an hour later.

[Attendants on flight 18FC24 from Polo Country to Malalakan Country please get ready to board now, the gates will close at 12:30 it is now 12:00, thank you for your patience.]

Emilin who had been scrolling on the computer she brought stopped to hear the announcement when she heard the number of the flight and then continued when it was over.

The people around her, no more than a dozen, who were all going into business class started to board the plane and when Emilin noticed that no one was left, she started packing up and boarding too.

Her seat was on the front row by the end, a window seat.

She quickly settled down and put down her bags, putting on her seat belt before putting on her earphones for the takeoff.

The take-off of the plane proceeded smoothly, and the Wi-Fi was back on. Emilin didn’t feel like worrying about anything else and so she ended up doing a movie marathon, a moviathon.

This would go on for the next couple of hours. Emilin scrolled through all kinds of movies. After watching 3 consecutive horror movies, she couldn’t take it anymore.

It was then that she finally changed to something more friendly.

Finding Dory caught her eye.

By then she had already gone through a few scares and 6 hours of the flight had passed. She started with her eyes fixated on the screen that she had already been staring at for multiple hours.

Watching as the little fishy swam, it reminded her of the lunch she had eaten on the plane, sushi. Yet, that disturbing thought didn’t stop Emilin from smiling.

10 minutes into the movie and Emilin’s head was already placed on her hand, swaying, about to fall off before she caught it again.

She was dozing off.

And it wasn’t long before she fell asleep.

When she woke up again the movie had already long ended, and people were already leaving the plane.

Over 9 hours had passed.

Emilin looked around the plane. She noticed that the people in her compartment had already left and that the flight attendant who had woken her up was still there.

“Sorry for disturbing your rest Miss, but the plane has already landed.” She said. Emilin rubbed her eyes a little as she started to get her things together.

“Yes, sorry for the trouble, thank you for waking me up.” Emilin stood up after grabbing all her bags and followed the flight attendant as she took her to the exit.

As she got out of the plane to the airport, she saw a large banner saying, “Welcome to Malalakan Country!” And it was only then that she woke up from her daze.

‘How did I end up sleeping so soundly?’ She really didn’t think that she would be able to sleep for such a long period of time on the plane.

She looked back at the time she spent on the plane and still couldn’t figure it out.

‘My eyes were probably too tired from the long hours staring at the screen.’

Was that really the only result of her long contemplating?

But then again, she felt like she couldn’t even remember any of the content of the movies she had just watched.

She knew that she was watching Finding Dory before falling asleep, but she couldn’t remember anything that had happened during that movie. Or any of the previous movies for that matter!

Was she inflicted with Dory syndrome just by watching the movie??

‘What the heck!?’

[Well yeah, she didn’t watch much of it, to begin with, but she had watched trailers and some short clips before starting, which is how she figured some of the characteristics of the characters.]