Chapter one.

“Here we go Ash.” I said to myself as I wiped away the water, I had splashed on my face with a paper towel. The faucet turned off and I looked at myself in the mirror of the airport’s bathroom.

My short messy blond hair and storm gray eyes stared back at me. I picked a small piece of paper from my face that had been scraped off by the stubble growing on my face. I was handsome not in a classic over the top way, but in an angular solid way.

I wasn’t here to admire myself, ‘just another adventure. This time though I know I’m going to find it. It’s the summer solstice, there’s a full moon tonight and a Fibonacci planetary alignment. If this doesn’t make a portal, I don’t know what will.’ I thought as I prepared to leave the restroom.

“Flight 387 from Miami to Bermuda now boarding.” The barely audible female voice said over the loud speaker.

I made my way to the counter behind a large group of girls. They were in their early twenties and chatted loudly. The one guy in the group, a tall black hard ripped looking guy, strutted like he was king of the world. The girls joked as they handed their boarding passes to the attendant not paying attention to anything except their own jokes.

One of the girls with long auburn hair and who was clutching the guy’s arm looked back at me and gave me a vicious sneer. Like she had just seen something absolutely disgusting. I was taken aback at it and checked the shirt I wore, to make sure I did not have anything on it. Nope, it was clean.

Shaking my head, I handed my boarding pass to the attendant, “Thank you sir. Go right on ahead.” The attendant said.

I nodded and made my way down the boarding ramp. I walked slowly letting the group of girls stay well ahead of me. Their voice carried without a care in the world. There was nothing I could do to warn them about what I thought might happen on this flight. I would just sound like a crazy person.

I put my ear buds in and began listening to awesome epic orchestral music. I found my seat near the middle back of the small jet plane. As I passed the girls who were in the front most of them shot me the same disgusted looks. Sneering and whispering to each other.

I couldn’t hear them and really did not care; it was just weird. I wasn’t ugly by any stretch of the imagination, I was fit, not ripped live in the gym all day, six percent body fat ripped. I was a muscled fifteen percent body fat, with a defined chest, arms and the hint of abs.

I was not swimming in women, but the pleasures that the fairer sex had to offer were not uncommon either. I would have had a longtime girlfriend if it had not been for my personal quest. I had no idea why they kept turning around to give me frowning glances as I sat in my seat.

The plane was a small jet and it looked like the black-haired guy, the eight girls and an older woman who was with them were the only passengers for the flight.

I leaned back and closed my eyes. Listening to the crescendo awesomeness that just added that extra dramatic feel to everything. The jet roared down the run way and the flight began.

Hours later I woke from my nap to the sound of the captain, one of my ear buds had fallen out; “If you would all fasten your seat belts and stay seated, please, we are about to enter a stretch of turbulence. Thank you.”

I looked out the window and saw the black roiling clouds of a massive storm. This was it, it had to be. The weather report had been clear that morning, now it was anything but clear. I reached under my seat and strapped my carry on to my legs. The plane started to jostle and the squealing shrieks of the girls grew louder.

A bright crack of lightning lit the whole of the interior of the plane, flash freezing everything in stark white light.

Then blackness.