We continued our travel from Iceland on an aircraft owned by Abaddon Travels. It’s an ordinary Airbus, painted black. This is the first time you mingle with other participants on the tour, but not everyone is traveling to the same location, and not everyone continues their journey at the same time. I was in the Askatoth package; my ticket destined me for the ancient mountains and caves of Askatoth, but several travelers were en route to the dreamlands of Kal-Kadath or the lost cities of An’samhar Dei. Reykjavík is the only European hub, while other destinations can be reached via different routes from Asia, the Americas, or Antarctica. The Al’r-Dagon diving tour is completely separate from those listed above and requires special diving licenses for safety reasons.

The airplane window shades are kept down throughout the entire flight, so you can’t see the landscapes or the clouds. Supposedly it’s done on purpose, in order to ensure a successful crossing. The service is somewhat impersonal. The stewardesses never smile. They are pretty, but tired-looking, stern, impatient. They’re in desperate need of sleep, judging from the dark rings under their eyes. I assume that this was part of getting us in the mood for the tour, so I don’t consider it a drawback. The flight is about four or five hours long, with one meal served, the usual warmed-up airplane food, and one round of salty or sweet snacks. I’d recommend bringing your own sandwich. The consumption of alcohol purchased at the airport is allowed. Smoking is prohibited.

The flight was uneventful, apart from one exception. The language of communication on the plane is English, but all announcements are made in French, German, and some sort of Arabic dialect which I couldn’t properly identify and which might not have even had anything to do with any Arabic language.

We must have been a couple of hours into our flight. I had drunk most of the tiny bottles of vodka hiding in my pockets. My head became leaden, my eyelids locked up, the monotonous noise of the airplane engines swamped my consciousness. Luckily I was sitting by the window, so I planned to sleep the rest of the journey, using my sweater as a pillow. That’s why I can’t be entirely sure whether the following event happened or was only part of a dream.

My heart sank and I clenched the armrest. My body panicked because I was sure that the engines had failed and we were going down. It took me a couple of seconds to identify the sensation. It was not falling; just the opposite. It felt as if we were not flying anymore, as if we had become transfixed in the sky, unmoving, pinned to the clouds. The delicate movement that makes the body aware of having no firm soil under its feet ceased. The plane had become still in mid-air.