[hider=May 25th, nearly midnight.]

"Oh god." breathed the young woman as she fumbled for the keys for that opened the large gates that stood guard outside her house. While manicured and pretty like all its neighbours in the daytime, the night was a different story. Everyone's lights were on but hers. Since it was summer, it meant her parents had gone to visit her elder brother back in India, and left the house all to herself. Basically, the right to do whatever she wanted, whenever she wanted. And as much as she tried to convince herself that it would be fine, clearly getting home at that time of night left her a little disorientated. Especially since she'd never been particularly good at holding her alcohol, and her friends had convinced her to go out with them, with the notion of "Come on, Lynn! It'll be one of the laaaast times before we all go..."
And Evelynn couldn't have refused even if she'd tried. 

Finally finding the keys and leaving the gate rattling behind her as she locked it twice, she made her way carefully up the stairs at the front of the little villa. Times like this she was thankful she wasn't a heavy drinker, else she'd be falling all over herself. With even the guard sent on vacation (in Lynn''s opinion, at the worst damned possible time) she was jumpy to say the least. Scary rapists? Muggers? Or worse...

So the sight of the briefcase innocently, forebodingly staring her down from where it was neatly placed just after the doorway, when she had used another key on the ring she'd fetched from her purse to unlock the front door and turn on the lights inside at last, made her almost sob in hysteria. "It's a blackmail letter, I just know it." She mused in her state, eyeballing the thing. She took her shoes off inside, and proceeded to stare the briefcase down despite the gaping open door plain in sight. "Even so..." she sighed and went back in her comfier slippers to get it, drag it with her, and lock the door again from the inside for the evening. 

[i]Wait, how did this get...inside the house? Oh my god. Oh my god.[/i]
A chill crept up her spine and made her teeth chatter for a handful of seconds.
This was insane.

She threw it on the dinner table, not caring a damn what her mother always told her about what did and what did not go on the dinner table. Her parents were the cautious kind, and in good sense, after downing about two glasses of water or so, she grabbed her laptop from where it was charging on the couch and set it up on the table. Turning it on, and giving the case another ugly stare, she trudged to the nearest bathroom and back, face dripping water and contacts replaced with her glasses. 

[i]That's so much better.[/i]

It didn't take a look at the screen to know that she had a couple thousand missed skype calls from her parents. 
[i]Oh Christ.[/i]

She decided to voice-call them instead. It was only an hour and a half of a time difference anyway. They'd be awake. They hardly slept there. Besides, they'd best not have seen her state.

Taking off her jacket and hanging it from the back of one of the chairs, she hit the call button, simultaneously moving over to examine the suitcase.

"Hello?"
"Evelynn Lavanya Joshi, the amount of explaining you're going to have to do..."
"...err. Hi, mom. Hi, dad. Nice night, right?"
And from there, the conversation took off into Hindi. Key points of which being her parents reprimanding her for being an irresponsible adult, blah blah blah. The usual.
Lynn wasn't paying much attention though. She was much more interested in the suitcase. So it wasn't about her parents...what about Royce?
She asked them. They said he was fine. And then continued to say how he had always been the better child, blah blah blah.
[i]Whatever.[/i]

The case clicked open without much difficulty, another sound adding to the "yeah"s and the "uh-huh"s and the "alright, got it"s on her end. Absently, she lifted the lid, and her eyebrow quirked immediately.
There was stuff in here that didn't really seem...like it belonged with her.
Yet there it was, in her house, and...
She read the letter.
Very surely meant just for her.

She went through the other stuff, jaw progressively dropping as she found item after item. The party popper was barely appropriate, yet it gave her shivers.
"Are you even listening to us?"
"Yeah, maa."
Really? Not so much, no.
"Suno." back to that bizarre mixture of throwing in Hindi words amongst the English. "I gotta go. Love you too. Tell Royce I miss him. Yeah, I know. Bye!"

She hung up.
She looked at the case.
She frothed at the mouth at the cash.
She glared at her passport. How did it even get out of the house...
She read the letter a second time, and then a third.
She noticed the boarding passes.
She decided.

Quickly leaving a text message on Skype to her parents, she said something along the lines of:

[color=skyblue] Mom, Dad. :) I just got a message from Ria. You know Ria! The friend who moved? Like, one of my best friends? I'll be staying with her for the next week or two. Don't worry I'll make sure everything in the house is kept in check. And don't worry, if you have to, you can ground me when you guys get back, lol. [/color]

She didn't even give the little "typing" icon a second glance before shutting off the computer and sorting out the contents of the case.
She pulled the party popper in a hysterical fit of laughter.

[I]This is going to be awesome. All expenses paid? I'll be damned if it's not some spa treatment from some secret admirer or someone who's really been praising me from somewhere.
I don't even know this Aust, or the Wolfs, but I must have done something damn well. [/I]

[/hider]

[b]11th June[/b]

Lynn was in a much better state when she arrived at the local airport on the day of departure. Her hair was combed and straightened and neat, and she wore light make-up, and a formal dress in black and beige, with frilly sleeves and a high waist, beige on top, black on the bottom and the skirt hugging close. Her mother had gone and gotten her the dress not too long ago, and she was amazed she still fit into it. They had asked for formal wear, and shopping was never a problem if you had the cash, so the outfit was one of many. That, and a certain miss Evelynn was notorious for overpacking and fretting she'd forget something or the other. She usually never did - courtesy of bringing more than half the house with her in the one check-in bag she was allowed, and about a quarter more in her carry-on trolley.
Spoilt?
[i]Hardly.[/i]

Her parents and her had been on vacation before, and Europe definitely commanded a delightful splash. And she was going great, until at the airport, the process of departure was easier and simpler than she'd ever imagined. Eeriely so. The sound of her more casual black mocassins lending her 5'5 no real height advantage as she followed through express with bated breath...but heels were tough, but she'd stowed a pair in the carry-on trolley in case of emergency. It could have been that her and the 'lucky others' were being invited for an extensive job interview or something. The same trolley which they took from her to stow on the plane. Along with the suitcase, leaving her quite helpless, only a handbag to keep her company. Despite the friendly staff, of course. They all dressed so differently to the traditional [i]Emirates[/i] staff you'd see doting on people with large, faked smiles. They were a lot more...genuine.
Also a lot more quiet. Lynn had no idea where they even flew to and from.

And her doubts weren't any clearer when she was led onto the private runway. Cautious to the new experience, she studied the face of the delightfully polite woman who had helped her along so far, and the plane. Hesitating for just a second and climbing on and up to it, expecting to meet these lucky others, it almost slipped the back of her mind that there was no logo on the plane. Not a single one.

Holding her breath when she stepped in, she readied herself to introduce herself in her most professional tone of voice but shrunk when met with nothing but the spacious interior of the cabin, and a blue eyed steward who gave her the same smile as the lady from earlier.

"There...there's nobody on this flight..." she started.
"We're delighted to fly with you, ma'am." He responded, cool under the question and completely avoiding it, "We intend on making it a definite experience."

Lynn debated interrogating him - she hated when people didn't give her answers straight up, but shook the thought off. Something about his gaze, the foreign way he carried himself, the lilt of an accent, lulled her into a sense of security. And she settled herself down in her seat and allowed herself to enjoy the idea of being doted on hand and foot, like the man clearly displayed he would even before they took off, and she prepared herself for the next seven hours...coke in hand, head tilted back, nodding off already despite it being a comfortable 11 am Local time.

She only woke once or twice in between for snippets and to be offered lunch. A hot meal set her stomach just right, and certainly helped the lurching feeling she got whenever she looked at her phone. More messages on Skype and missed calls. Previous things she had made a mental note to herself not to check, or return, and instead swiped the notification away, lost into the abyss that was the memory of the smartphone. She wouldn't be harassed any more wherever she was going.
Well...not by her parents, anyway.
But she didn't have to worry. The house was good, and Tiger was at the kennels, and everything was just dandy.

4 pm, local time. The afternoon summer sun streamed in through the windows and woke Lynn up with a little yawn and a stretch that followed. Or perhaps it was the announcement that landing would take place soon.

[hr]

Evelynn walked with a calculated step behind the steward, whom she had come to call Hans through the little snippets of conversation they'd had during the meal and any other point where she'd requested a drink. The thought that her bags were already taken care of soothed her, and she seemed a lot more cheerful when finally on German soil. The experience made her a little giddy, she had to admit. She hadn't had a chance to change into her heels but prayed the flats weren't too horrendous...
The waiting room came into sight, and she was deposited there by the man, a quick bow of the head and smile in farewell, and accompanied by a shaky one of her own. The waiting room...

She stepped in. And Though she expected to see businesspeople, the people inside looked oddly...lost in their own worlds. At least she wasn't the only one. There were two men, one had an interesting beard she internally remarked, and another woman. Reassuring.

"So..." she found herself saying, voice quite small in this room of strangers all occupying themselves with drinks. It came out as a tiny, pitiful croak and made her zip her lip again. She moved over to grab herself another coke, pulled the tab and sat herself down not far from the other woman, though nowhere near enough to dare to start proper conversation.

[i]Lucky others.[/i]