vella | The End

THE JOURNEY HOME

You’ve had time to say your goodbyes; Wilbur and Orville are more than happy to give you as much time as you need. After all, you’re leaving your friends and maybe those who have become something closer to family, and they understand well how important those bonds are.

For those who have decided to go home on the plane, the mood is a bit… somber. After all, you’re leaving the friends you’ve come to treasure during your two months on the island. Even if you might be glad to go home, to attend to things you’ve left behind, it has to be a bittersweet sort of thing.

But the stars are beautiful, aren’t they? As the plane climbs into the sky, beyond the world you’ve called home for the past two months, that’s what you’ll see: a million brightly shining stars.

When your particular star draws near, you'll start to see a glimpse of your home in the star itself, signifying that it is, indeed, yours. Wilbur will fly close to it and ask you to reach out to touch it; and once your hand brushes against the light, you and whoever else touched it with you will find yourselves exactly where you meant to be.

For those who’ve chosen to stay on the island, you watch the plane fly high above your heads. You watch it for a while throughout the night, and in the morning, when you wake...it’s a beautiful, sunny day on Isle Sonrisa, on your new home. The sky stretches out above you all, endlessly blue with a few fluffy clouds.

But wherever you are, wherever you might've tucked it away before everything came to a close, that star fragment somehow has found its way to your pocket. It's warm and a reminder of what you’ve accomplished and a symbol of infinite possibilities. Whenever those who've left start to think of going back to Isle Sonrisa, that star fragment will start to glow again.

And at the corner of your eye, you see a shooting star.