The plane had been flying over the western Pacific, and our destination, Sydney Australia, was another 4 hours away. I remember sitting next to Christian, with whom I’d been rocking out to Led Zeppelin and AC/DC for the past hour. Ryan and James were reminiscing over their High School memories, laughing periodically, and most of the girls were talking about… well, girl things at a table for six near the back. The flight attendant came back periodically, making sure we were satisfied with everything. Since we were the only ones on the plane, it was rather quiet minus our constant chant of chitter chatter.
We’d left for the airport at about 6 AM the previous day, and reached the airport around seven. It was packed, as expected, and we got to our reserved flight at about eight. We took off half an hour later, and most of us fell right to sleep once at cruising altitude. We hadn’t thought much about home, just said our goodbyes. Little did we know, that ‘goodbye’ may have been our last.