THE CHOSEN · BATTLE WITH A CERBEROSIAN PRINCE
28 29
The Chosen: Battle with a Cerberosian Prince
way, but now it was becoming real. Overwhelmed by his
thoughts, he tried to give his mind a break.
Unfortunately, he couldn’t get much sleep on the flight.
The only exception was the 20 minutes he did get during
the flight’s ascent, and that was because of his body’s
exhaustion from the previous flight. As much as he wanted
to sleep during this flight, to give his mind a brief rest, the
influx of thoughts denied him that luxury. His brain was in
overdrive. Overdrive that was driven by speculation rather
than fact and knowledge.
He kept thinking about being in a foreign land for the
first time. Being in a strange environment. How different
will it be? To what extent will I stand out as a non-native?
Who will I be able to trust, and how will he know whom to
trust? Once again he asked himself about the legitimacy of
this whole thing. He remembered reading up on one site
that many locals knew how to speak English. He wasn’t
sure if it was specifically in Kathmandu, or other parts of
Nepal. He thought about all the movies he had seen where
tourists were taken advantage of by locals, particularly
Americans. Food was another stress point. What do they
eat in Kathmandu? How will my stomach react to the local
cuisine? What if I fall ill while I am in Kathmandu? Medical
services. Do I have coverage? What is the quality of the health
professionals? These questions would continue until the
plane touched the ground.
Chapter 2
Journey to
Sagarmatha
Five hours of persistent questioning and concern. He
didn’t have a single moment of brain inactivity. Amidst
his distractedness, TJ had missed all the in-flight announcements. They had landed in Kathmandu, and it was time
to exit the plane. The passengers had been handed arrival
papers to complete, which TJ had forgotten about. He took
a few minutes to fill them out, but missed the business class
exits. This resulted in him being caught in the masses of
people who were headed to baggage collection. Fortunately
for him, he didn’t have any checked luggage, so he avoided
the pushing and shoving by the luggage conveyor belt. It
was crowded and chaotic.
Once he was done with the immigration queues and
currency exchange, he had to figure out how to get to
Original preview spread 11
