6 HOURS... 

'You ready to go, Nathan?' Shouted Nathan's mother, Helen, from the bottom of the wooden stairs, her hand gripping on the railing as she tried to look up into his room. 

'Yeah! Almost done, just give me a minute.' Nathan shouted back. He was going on a school vacation for summer. He had been waiting for it since his professor announced it in the class a month ago. He acted like a excited child, like opening all of their presents on Christmas-day or on their birthday. He didn't care about what other people thought about him. He was an outgoing third year in university. Focusing on becoming an architect major. 

He packed the last thing in his overpacked suitcase, and checked it off the long list he had made a week back when he started packing.     

                                                  

'OK... I think that's it.' He looked at everying on top, all his clothes and belongings neatly organised, he zipped it shut and then lifted the bag off of his bed.                     

                             

'Nathan! Come on now, you're going to miss your flight!' Helen shouted, sounding suprisingly angry, which was not normal for a sweet woman like her.                          

                                       

'I'm coming, don't worry!' Nathan shouted from his room on the second floor. He didn't know a lot about his classmates in his class. Only his best friend, Josh, which was often picked on for his height. But Nathan always stood up for him. Nathan picked up his suitcase and swung his backpack around one of his shoulders. He skipped a few steps while racing down the stairs.         

             

'Bye Mom, I'll see you after summer.' Nathan said goodbye to his mother, and hugged her. He showed his mom a warm smile, he had missed the hugs from her. Since he was just here for the trip and was going back to Iowa after, he hadn't seen Helen in almost a year.                 

                                                             

'Bye my boy, enjoy it. I love you... ' Helen replied, looking like she wanted to say more but decided against it, and squeezed him harder, giving him  tiny taps on the shoulder after they separated. Helen walked to the front door, watching as Nathan ran down the porch steps to the car. Nathan ran across their well trimmed yard and climbed into the white SUV his dad had bought him recently for his birthday. 

Jack, his father, sat in the passenger seat to take the car home after Nathan was at the airport. He buckled himself in and started the car, reversing out of the drive-way and onto the road. The ride to the airport wasn't long, about twenty minutes.

When they got there, Nathan and his father went to the place where his class was supposed to meet up. He saw a person holding up a sign that said “Caroling University” and walked up to the person holding it. It was his english professor, whom had planned the whole vacation for his students, who could go, after final exams. Nathan greeted him with a handshake and a smile, then turned away and said goodbye to his dad, giving him a tight hug. 

'Please be safe, okay?' Jack said with a nervous tone in his voice and a concerned look as he looked at Nathan with scrunched up eyebrows and pursed lips.                

                                           

'Yes, don't worry, dad. I won't get hurt. I promise.' Nathan replied, feeling sad that he needed to leave when he was supposed to be with his family. 

 'Okay... I'll be on my way then, love you!' Jack said as he started to walk backwards with a sad frown, a bit teary-eyed knowing that his only son was going away for such a long time period.                    

'Love you! See you after summer.' Nathan shouted to his father who had already walked away. Nathan turned around to see the people in his class eyeing him, suprised about how affectionate him and his father were, Nathan put his head down and got a empty waiting seat to sit on next to Josh, whom he later found out had arrived fifteen minutes before him.                             

'Hey, did I miss anything good?' Nathan asked turning more to Josh over the sounds of people talking around them.                

'Not really. Just the typical Elizabeth and Joshua being stupid, he shoved her away when she got excited and tried to hug him. Mr. Smith shouted at him for shoving her then went to talk with Elizabeth. The usual, you know.' Josh responded, smiling at Nathan. Nathan hadn't really paid any attention to the people in his class, but he recognised Elizabeth as the short girl with curly red hair. She had recently dyed her hair and wouldn't shut up about it. He didn't know Joshua though, but he had heard his name multiple times before. 

Nathan zipped open his backpack and took out his inhaler, breathing in when he pushed it so that he wouldn't stress to much and start to hyperventilate since it was his first time ever traveling on a plane in his entire 21 years of life.                   

'We're just waiting on two more students and then we can board, and what happened to that fun attitude that you all had a couple of minutes ago?' Mr. Smith smirked and checked his list of students as he made a mark at Nathan's name to show he was there, then making tiny jass-hands to get them more excited. The class groaned in frustration as a few of them slumped their shoulders even further down. They had been sitting there for almost more than an hour, making sure that they weren't late, resulting into being to early. Nathan laughed a bit and smiled, he was happy. Mr. Smith smiled and started to count all of them silently. 

'Please don't go running away now, we're almost going to board.' Mr. Smith begged the teens and turned back around to check his folders. When everyone was there, they gave in their tickets and luggage and then boarded the plane one by one. Everyone was super excited, they finally had been able to relax after the second semester. The university was really spoiling them with a vacation to a tropical paradise in Saudi Arabia for an entire summer vacation. 

Nathan looked out the window of the hall and the plane was massive, he had thought it would be tinier. He looked at the inside when he entered through the little door, he was a bit to tall to fit inside and had to duck his head down to be able to walk to his seat. The flight attendant that looked at the tickets inside widened his eyes when he realized that Nathan was to tall to fit inside. Nathan hadn't thought a plane would be this small on the inside since it looked so big on the outside. 

He searched for his seat which was obviously next to Josh. He kept his backpack on his lap and tried to fasten himself, but a few minutes after he failed, the flight attendant went to the front and showed everyone everything while the captain explained, saying all sorts of things Nathan didn't understand at first, but then realised what he was saying. It was actually very easy to understand, he was just dumb. The plane took off at half past seven in the morning ... fifteen more hours to go, since this had been his first ever time flying in a plane, he was extremely excited. 

After the flight attendants had went through the halls and checked that everyone was fastened, they themselves went to their rooms and prepared to lift off. And with that, the plane slowly started moving and soon took off.