INFINITE: Island of the Immortals

1. Just a Glimpse

YOU WATCH YOUR reflection in the glass as it flies up the sheer face of a building - a silhouette against the city lights, clothed all in black except for a small opening around the eyes. Focus only on your eyes and you can't tell if you're really rising, or instead falling headfirst toward the ground. Your unblinking eyes flash from pane to pane, higher and higher, until the streetlights disappear below, replaced by stars in the reflection behind you.

...

The eyes.

Always his eyes that people noticed first.

Why?

Because they made you wonder. His face was as familiar as the one in the mirror, but it was Michael's eyes you'd remember. They touched you. Made the other kids' parents think he wasn't quite right – something broken in that boy. So they kept their kids away. Those eyes caused some to fall upon him like injured prey in the playground and those same eyes caused others to protect him when they did.

Those eyes.

Dark depths, yes, but there's also a flicker. A spark. Look closer. Maybe it's just your own reflection on that pupil glass. No, there it is again – a twinkle upon the deep. And then when he smiles that darkness parts and you can't help but smile with him.

Those eyes peered from the window of a tiny aeroplane, high above the Great Barrier Reef, flying away from the Australian mainland. Lighter shades of reef marbled the deep blue as far as Michael could see. He sighed, realising how at home he felt in the air. Flying.

Halfway from here, halfway to there.

He'd spent most of his life on the move – never longer than a year or two in the same place since his parents' divorce – he'd seen the world but he no longer had a home. Except maybe in the sky, in that moment when Michael and his mother had left one place and not yet arrived at the next destination. There was some comfort up there, away from the world. Away from things best left behind or forgotten, and not yet at the next place, that again would not be home. But up in the air – that was theirs.

Michael and his mother.

Jill.

She was sitting across the aisle, still gripping the armrests like she had during the roaring take-off when the little propeller engines sounded like they would explode. But Jill had a brave face now as she chatted with the Finches in the row in front.

Amanda Finch –

Michael's friend from school in Sydney, Australia, his latest adopted home, and her parents, Wayne and Nicole. The Finches had invited them on this holiday just a few days earlier over Christmas Dinner.

As the little plane floated above nothing but ocean, Michael spotted tropical giants looming off the horizon – tall, heavy thunderheads. Coming closer the surface of the cloud began to churn and swell. The pilot eased around the fluffy mountains, which soon crowded the plane. They banked sharply between the bubbling towers, like they were soaring into a city, passing into the shadow of a vaporous skyscraper. Without the sun Michael saw lightning flash inside – blue and purple. Eventually, the tiny plane came around the far side, out into sunlight again.

What was that?

Michael saw something move against the blinding white of the closest cloud, so bright he had to blink and when he looked again it was gone.

But something had definitely been there.

He closed his eyes to see the image still burnt on his retina. As they came back into the sun, a figure had been standing on the fluffy surface and, startled by the plane, had dived into the cloud. But the figure also seemed to be made of the white vapour, as if it had simply melted back in.

Michael shook his head – just another one of his daydreams, or so his mother would say. It sounded crazy, but craziest of all was how familiar it felt – like it wasn't completely unexpected. Michael stared across the fluffy white peaks trying to hold onto the fading feeling and smiling to himself as he imagined what it would be like to fly between the clouds.