is it the end of it all?

Howie was dreaming.

He dreamed that he was floating and drifting in the ocean, in the darkness and on a starless night. Floating and drifting. Everything around him was peaceful and quiet. So peaceful that he thought he was in heaven. In the distance, he heard someone yelling his name. A soft yelling which became softer and softer with each second. He felt a little weird. Yellings were supposed to get louder and louder, but why was it the opposite?

He pinched himself on his cheeks and shrieked at the pain. He felt pain. This did not make any sense. 'You can't feel pain in your dream.' he thought. A cool breeze blew across the ocean and he shuddered. He moved his arms again. This time, the tinkling cold of the ocean sent an enormous cold surge through his veins.

"Holy..."

That was all he needed to become fully aware and awake to his current situation. The earlier images on the airplane replayed in his mind and next, he was aware that he was alone. 'Where are my friends...?' he thought. He looked around and all he saw was nothingness. If he were in a dream, it would probably be the worst nightmare. He tried to move his whole body but it was just too painful to do so. He figured that it must be the force of the plunging that caused it.

Then, he saw a figure surface some distance away.

Howie was glad to see someone and wanted to yell when he stopped himself for confirmation. As the figure swam nearer to him, he made out the figure to be AJ. He tried screaming for his friend and when he did, he was a little baffled. Why couldn't he hear his own voice? He placed his palm against his ear, pumped a couple of times and coughed. No sound.

AJ could feel his lower half going numb with each second as he swam furiously toward his friend. He concluded that it must be the icy-cold water acting into his skin. When he finally reached Howie, he could barely breath properly. "Howie... Are you alright?" AJ asked with concern as he gently placed a hand on Howie's shoulder. "Brian and the rest must be over these ruin metals..." his voice trailed off. He was on that same airplane on his way back to the States with the rest of his bandmates. Now, that same airplane which he admired had turned into a ton of ruin metals.

He sighed deeply. He wanted to find someone or something to blame this on. Just when their career was at soaring heights, a huge twister came and sent them back to the bottom. Was this a planned conspiracy of a huge setback for them by God or some kind of a joke that went haywire? He felt like a character in some dramatic movie or story. Except that this was for real.

If anything could help to make things worse, his faith in God was slowly draining. He had no idea why he felt in that way. Maybe God did not keep his promise that he would be looking over them and ensure a safe journey. Maybe God was too busy and looked away for a second. If it was the latter, God's timing must have been really bad.

AJ looked away as he cleared his mind of the imbelic questions. When he was facing Howie, the older man was looking back at him blankly. AJ got a little worried. "Howie? YO! It's AJ! Answer me..." he said and tried to shake him. Howie let out a small yelp of pain and AJ let go of him. "Sorry..." AJ muttered.

"AJ...? I-" Howie paused a bit and continued. "Can you speak louder? I can't hear what you've said..."

AJ raised his eyebrows in fear. He had spoken in his usual loud voice and Howie used to have to remind him to speak softer. Yet now, Howie couldn't hear him? "Howie, can you hear me now?" he tried to speak louder, creating a soft echo into the atmosphere. No answer came from Howie and solemn looks appeared on both faces.

"This is crazy," AJ softly commented and closed his eyes.


Nick felt himself sinking.

Sinking into what? Wasn't he supposed to be sleeping on the plane? It was so terribly cold here. The cold felt like threatening to kidnap all his nerves and never to return them. That was a scary feeling. His mind fought to wake up as he tried forcing his eyes to open. However, neither methods were getting him anywhere.

He felt himself holding his breath too. Why was he doing that? He needed to breathe. And he did. A breath of pure, harmless liquid was sucked into his wind pipe. He felt sick and coughed.

Something was wrong. Very wrong. When had oxygen turned into liquid?

When the first feeling of death washed over him, he could care less about the earlier question. Oxygen in his brain was depleting and he couldn't stop himself from holding his breath any longer. No living thing was able to do that for very long - even when attempting suicide - as stated from the psychological and biology perspective. He remembered reading that fact from some books. 'Fuck the facts,' he thought.

Liquid was sucked in for the second time and it felt like a million ice daggers invading his brain. His lungs were preparing to go into an insane third world war and he felt like being pricked several times over with a sewing needle everywhere on his whole body. For once in his life, he would give anything to get himself out of this place. Wherever he was.

He tried coughing and struggling.

Coughing. And. Struggling. Repeat.

None of the methods worked. He gave up.

Silence.

He gave up. Completely.

And he didn't feel that strong arm pulling him back to the surface of the living.


When Kevin resurfaced with Nick, Brian was busy thanking God in his heart. However, Kevin was doing the opposite. He just wished that he would die on the spot right then. He had promised not to let go of Nick, but he had. In addition, he had forgotten to buckle the belts of the life jacket on Nick properly. They almost lost Nick as a result.

"I let him go..." he mindlessly murmured as they tried to push Nick up onto a floating door. This time, he kept his grip tight on Nick. So tight that he would never forget it.

"It's not your fault-" Brian comforted. "Don't blame yourself." He let his tired glances rest on Nick's chest. It was then that he noticed something was wrong. Nick's chest was not heaving with any rhythm of breathing. "Oh my lord... NICK!" Brian exclaimed as he tried to shake Nick. "He's not breathing, Kev! DAMN! He's not freaking breathing!"

This was probably the greatest shock that came over Kevin. Without any hesitation, he stopped his cousin from shaking Nick and gave the latter an immediate resuscitation. He knew that this skill would come in handy one day and he had to thank Kristin for teaching him. However, the thought that he had to use it to save a friend's life never crossed his mind. In his perfect world, his friends would never meet with any mishap or come close to the gates of hell. Even when his cousin had his heart surgery years ago, he believed that he would pull through. And he did.

However, right now, Nick had proved him wrong and the current situation slapped him in the face for having that perfect thought.

When forever seemed to have passed, Nick finally let out rewarding coughs of seawater. Even though he did not regain full consciousness, Brian and Kevin were still overjoyed. Especially Kevin. For the fact that he had just pulled his friend away from the hands of the angels.

Looking solemnly at his surroundings, Brian let his gaze drift into the darkness. He was despaired. He felt like an oar, which had fallen from the canoe. In the back of his mind, everything was going downhill. Rewinding. Rewind. He allowed his mind to ran back to the times when they were on top of the world. Where they were the kings of the pop region. Where they were selling millions of records. Where they were still going through the tough times. Where they were still struggling to get to their deserved status.

Perhaps the man above thought they needed a break or a precious lesson. All of them. And he decided that they need to have a setback of such to, once again, truly learn the meaning of treasuring what they have.

'Is this an overdue April Fool's joke?' Brian suggested in his mind. Slowly, he realized that his breathing was becoming irregular. A bad thought loomed passed and he closed his eyes, briefly resting his head on top of Nick's stomach. Brian did not want to alarm his cousin. Their current situation was already tearing the strong willed Kevin into tiny shreds. Brian swallowed hard and prayed that this nightmare would be over soon.


After what seemed like hours, helicopters and several ships rushed over to the area. White spotlights were showered from above the sky and ships were lowering the small boats into the ocean. The area looked no different from a busy cluttered port.

When one of the rescue teams wanted to airlift them individually to the hospital, Kevin was the one who had the strong opposition against that idea. "I wanted to be by his side," he said, referring to the blond haired boy. "Please?" The rescue team did not give a second thought and agreed to his request.

As Brian was still conscious of what was going around, he attempted to ask the rescue team about AJ and Howie. "They are over on the other side. Don't worry, they'll be okay." was the reply. Brian wondered. Why do they always sound so confident about things that they are unsure of? He was very certain, that they were unsure, because of the brisk and casual reply. Sleep seemed to be taking over him and he did not want to think about that anymore. He only wanted his friends to be safe and that thought followed along into his sleep.

On the other side of the ruined plane, AJ kept reminding the rescue team to keep a close watch on Howie. The latter had gone into an extreme hysterical state just a few moments ago and the older man caught AJ off guard. Just before the both of them were being airlifted to the hospital, AJ could only comfort the older man by hugging him as he grunted at the sizzling pain on his lower back. He would give his friend a thousand reassurance that he would be all right. However, he wouldn't be able to hear them. For now. "Only for now, Howie. Only now..."

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