Silence. The stars gleamed in the night sky. There they were. Magnificent. Vick now understood why Amare flew to such great heights and so late at night. One. Two. Three… No. Counting was futile. Dots and dots all around him. Each window he looked out of only brought him back to them. The only escape were the windows at the bottom, built into the floor. There existed nothing. Utter darkness. Utter boredom. But, he was learning a new way. Yes, a new way of looking at the world. A more daring and prosperous perspective. He took out his phone and opened the photos. ‘4 years ago,’ it said. “Four years ago,” he said. The three smiling, so happy, so blissful. Alexander was always the one to take bold risks. Stepping into danger before anyone to set an example. To lead by action rather than words. He may have been brave, but he was a fool. In fact, he caused more trouble than needed. Out on the mountain, he remembered, Alexander was the first to go into the depths of its crater. It was said to drill down straight to the core of the world. He went into that black fog, and didn’t return when they called out to him. His headset stopped working, they had no communication with him, and his rope went swinging from left to right. He had to be dangling down there, they thought. So, Dorothy went to rescue him without a light, as they only had one. Brought him back to them without his glasses. Alexander was furious, saying she threw them away. “They were broken,” she said. Alexander had kept them on, with his hands full, he used his distorted image to get around the cave. Failed miserably and had to have someone rescue him. Manra, on the other hand, was a mystery. At least, a Mystery to Vick. He had minimum interactions with him, if at all, he could not recall. The stars in the sky, did they remind him of them, or was he reminding them of his past? They had vanished. Out of thin air. Gone. Left not a trace. Their bodies, their equipment, their gyroplane. Nothing was preserved, because nothing was there. Off the radar. Could it have been Rubosamler, the garbage collector? But, they were still needed. They were to return to Rorohiko from their expedition. Why would Rubosamler collect them? Maybe it made an error? The first instance of it making a mistake or did they not know how it worked? The scope, did they venture out of it?

void Main() { int i = 0; }

In this case, the ending brace would destroy the value of ‘i.’ Meaning, the integer would be deallocated from memory, because it had reached the end of its scope. Is that what happened to them? Did Rubosamler surmise them as useless? The entire gyroplane disappeared along with all of them within it.

What was the aura around some stars? They formed a triangular pattern, like an entrance of a tent. It stretched below the horizon, into shadows. He was staring into complete darkness. No sight of Rorohiko. Then he saw the faintest of light. No, not light, his breath. It gave the window a color of white. He forcefully exhaled a puff of smoke. “I’d better get down,” he murmured to himself. He took a last look at the picture as the screen went dark, and reflected on the black mirror was a silhouette standing behind him. He turned instantly, and dropped his glass as his heart began to race. Utter darkness. “Hello,” he called out. “Is anyone there?” Cleaner-Lower slept beside his foot with shatters of glass upon it, and as he looked at it, it began to emit light. He was able to see his surroundings, everything seemed in order. He turned on the light from his phone, and panned it around the plane. He was alone. He put his phone away and looked towards the stars. “Dorothy!” he yelled and flung his hand forward, only for it to crash into the window. He screamed as he retracted his hand. He stood there in silence. It really was there. No, not a glimpse, but a stare. Fifteen-thousand-meters above Rorohiko, above the clouds, with the lights cascading from space. He gazed and gazed at a hand reaching out to him through the hole in the sky.