The final destination

His eyelids,now sticking together from countless hours, proved difficult to split apart, when he managed to open his eyes, he was greeted with a dazzling light and an ironic question from Elsa, who asked him:"good morning, did you sleep well?"

Hearing this, his lips slowly curved and even if he was still quite sleepy he answered:"not really, my back is aching like hell, thank you for your concern though,

see, that's how you're supposed to answer"

A little bit of silence came after his response but being unable to hold his laughter he let out a chuckle that soon became a loud laughter, Elsa soon followed him and they both laughed with all the energy they had in body.

It wasn't even that funny but being able to talk to each other like that after almost dying had a strange effect on their humor, like if they were in a state of euphoria.

The next few hours of travel were way more pleasant, as they both felt like the person sitting beside them wasn't a stranger.

Truth to be told, they both had many questions they would've liked to pose to each other, but they kept quiet since starting an argument could get them questioned by the other and backfire on them, well at least she introduced herself with her real name, and to return the favour, he also revealed his.

They switched seats, and Elsa was now sleeping, leaning on her back between the door and the seat.

On the horizon line, their first destination could be seen.

When he arrived, he parked the car in a random spot and proceeded to shake Elsa shoulder, "Elsa, wake up we are here" she opened her eyes and stared at him as if he had just killed her mother, he asked: " What is it?"

She hesitated for a moment and then replied: "you just interrupted a good dream"

His face was clearly saying something like:"are you for real",

His mouth however, responded with another question: " oh really, I'm sorry, what were you dreaming about?"

She didn't answer and just left the car, slamming the door behind her back.

" See, they never answer you, that's why I left my girlfriend when I was twelve".

Outside the car, Elsa had clearly heard the remark done by his companion, but the only thing that escaped her leaps was the phrase: "what a weird dream".

She walked towards the sea where Bruno reached her after a bit.

They decided to stay at an inn for the night, unfortunately, the village was extremely little and they didn't even host an inn, at least they managed to rent a room from a local, thanks to Bruno, who knew how to speak Norwegian.

She slept on the bed while he was forced to sleep on the ground with a pillow, but at least they were under a roof, that made them feel a little bit safer.

They both slept like dormice until the next morning when the early morning rays of sun streamed through the window and woke them up.

They prepared the last things they needed and headed towards the sea with their pickup.

When they arrived at the location Andrei had planned, waiting for them was a dock with a single sailboat on it, it was quite big, big enough to live in it.

The outside of the boat was exquisite, the sides were clean and the teak that covered the cockpit was stunning, on the stern of the boat resided the writing of the boat's name: Escape.

"Well the name sure fits the situation"

scoffed Elsa.

Bruno however, remained silent from the moment he saw the boat stamp on the side, the boat model was a Grand Soleil 42, a little treasure that came from his homeland, it had been a few years since he had seen one.

Without wasting too much time, they got to work, they had to refuel the boat, since even if it was a sailboat, it could still run on fuel, actually they initially planned on going on with just fuel, however, they didn't have enough gas, responsible for that, was the attack they receive from the Otso that made them lose more than half of the tanks that would've been used afterwards to refill the boat.

They took off.

their boat ventured into the open sea growing smaller with each passing second, before disappearing from the view.

Taking the role of the captain for these few hours, he decided to start writing a logbook.

Their boat moved at the speed of seven knots per hour, and their estimated distance from the desired destination(Akureyri) was about two hundreds and fifty miles, that meant the travel would've lasted approximately thirty six hours.

The actual length of the travel was different from what expected, since due to a shortage of fuel, they were forced to rely on sailing, that slowed them down by a lot, making it a forty hours journey.

At the end, the logbook he was writing every five hours looked something like this;

Hour 5: the travel has been smooth for now, the sea isn't raged and the land is no longer visible.

Hour 10: the fuel situation is starting to worry me as we are left with twenty two litres of fuel, this boat consumes about a litre every hour, so if we continue to use it, we won't have enough to arrive at our destination.

Hour 15: we have been trying to sail for as long as possible to save fuel for later, the sea is still calm but in the distance, black clouds can be seen, I think we are in for something not so funny.

Hour 20: (this entry is scribbled as if written from someone with unsteady hands) the sea is now quite tumultuous, with waves reaching about 1.5 meters (5 feet) of height, and occasional peaks of two meters….

Hour 27: the rainstorm has died down, Elsa threw up a couple times and I also wasn't feeling very good.

Hour 34: we can finally see land on our left, Elsa has been sleeping down in the cabin, and I am left here guarding for ships and rocks.

Hour 38: We were intercepted by a patrol boat. Fortunately, it flew the Icelandic flag. During my research, I had learned Icelandic, and upon hearing my pronunciation, they likely assumed I was Icelandic and allowed us to continue. They didn't notice Elsa, so I simply told them my brother was sleeping below deck.

…