Chapter 295

The huge airliner cruised steadily through an ink-dark, murky sky. Its bright white lights cut the blackness like a long blade, while the blinking red navigation lights glowed in the gloom of the clouds like lighthouses on a midnight sea. Faintly—almost as if imagined—you could hear the ocean’s tides rising and falling below.

Looking out through the window, all he could see was a layered ocean of clouds, stacked like stone battlements. Everywhere his eyes reached was darkness, and the only light was the aircraft’s own.

It drifted alone through the cloud sea, wandering like a traveler.