Trembling in the Skies

Chapter 6: A Drone

From a height of 1,000 meters, it was nearly impossible to make out the situation on the ground with the naked eye. Even if help were on the way, there was nothing Li Teng could do right now. All he could do was wait. He had to wait for the rescue or investigation teams below to spot the stone pillar—and him perched atop it. He was confident that once rescue or investigation teams arrived, they couldn’t possibly overlook this stone pillar. He’ll just have to wait. The entire day passed, and still no helicopters or drones appeared. Li Teng lay on the broken bed, his body growing weaker by the minute. Having gone without water for so long, his lips were chapped and cracked, bleeding in places. Prolonged hunger had left him unable to stay fully lucid. Various hallucinations made him believe, from time to time, that rescuers had arrived, pulled him down from the stone pillar, and taken him back to his warm home. But the next moment, I was pulled back into the harsh reality. Night fell once again. As night fell once more and Li Teng prepared to go to sleep again, he felt that if he fell asleep this time, he might never wake up. If help didn’t arrive soon, he didn’t think he could hold on until dawn. But he still didn’t have the courage to leap from the edge of the bed. He wasn’t ready to give up his last shred of hope. This horrific plane crash had already shocked the world—with so many victims, surely they wouldn’t just be left here to fend for themselves? Help was bound to come. In a daze, Li Teng began to dream again. He dreamed of an earthquake; he was trapped in the rubble, surrounded by utter darkness. Suddenly, a beam of light shone in, so bright that he could barely keep his eyes open. A moment later, Li Teng jolted awake. There was indeed a beam of white light right in front of him! There was also a buzzing sound. Shielding his eyes from the light and letting them adjust for a moment, Li Teng finally made out what it was. It was a drone! A drone! The white light was being projected at him by the drone! There was a gimbal beneath the drone, with a camera mounted on it, its lens pointed directly at Li Teng. “Hey! Hello! Can you see me? I… I…” Once Li Teng was certain this wasn’t a dream, he was so excited he could barely form coherent sentences. The drone must be piloted by someone. The fact that a drone had flown all the way to the top of the stone pillar meant that someone had discovered it. Now the drone was transmitting images of him stranded atop the stone pillar back to the operator, and once they realized he was trapped, they might send a rescue team! His ordeal was finally coming to an end! “You must be able to see me, right? I’m trapped up here. I don’t know who brought me here, but thank you for calling the police and having them send a helicopter to rescue me! Thank you so much!” “By the way, my name is Li Teng, and my ID number is XXXXXXXX…” Li Teng tried his best to stay calm as he gave the drone a detailed account of his situation. The drone hovered motionless in the air, as if listening intently to Li Teng’s description. After Li Teng finished speaking, the drone began darting up and down in the air, only coming to a stop after quite a while. Then it hovered quietly once more, not far in front of Li Teng. “What does this mean?” “Could you help me send out the distress signal?” Li Teng made the request to the drone once more. The drone repeated its earlier acrobatic maneuvers, then hovered once more not far in front of Li Teng. “Just now… oh… could you do that again so I can see…” Li Teng seemed to have figured something out. The drone’s operator clearly heard what Li Teng said and performed the flip in the air for a third time. “I get it—you’re drawing some numbers… It must be 4359, right?” Li Teng guessed based on the drone’s flight path. The drone wobbled up and down for a moment, then flew away, quickly disappearing into the night. It seemed Li Teng had guessed correctly, so the drone’s owner used the drone to make a nodding motion. “Why did it fly away?” “4359? Why tell me that number? Does it have any special meaning?” Li Teng was a bit confused. After the drone left, Li Teng crouched by the bed and peered down at the base of the stone pillar. Beneath the stone pillar, the night was pitch black. Earlier, when night had fallen, the small town had also been pitch-black, and Li Teng had assumed it was because the town was too remote and didn’t yet have electricity. Now that a plane crash had occurred, shouldn’t there be lights on the ground if rescue workers had arrived? Why was it still pitch black? The drone’s battery life is limited, so its operator must be somewhere nearby—why isn’t there even a single light? The drone must have already sent out his distress signal, right? Rescue teams should be arriving soon, right? After sitting quietly in the dark for nearly half an hour, an utterly exhausted Li Teng collapsed back onto the bed. If the drone refused to help him send the distress signal, there was nothing he could do. If the drone had sent the distress signal and help was actually on the way, it wouldn’t really make a difference whether he lay down or sat up. He might as well sleep—save up some energy to be ready for the rescue. I’m so thirsty… I’m so hungry… I’ll sleep. In a daze, he didn’t know how much time had passed. In his sleep, Li Teng felt his legs suddenly plummet. He instinctively sat up and shifted his body forward—and his feet touched solid ground! Li Teng couldn’t help but feel overjoyed. Had he returned to his own bedroom? He forced his eyes open, and sure enough, the scene before him was indeed his own bedroom! Still half-asleep, Li Teng stood up and took a step forward. Is this… the desk by the bed? His cell phone was still sitting on it. Li Teng reached out to grab his phone, but his hand came up empty. It seemed… a little too far away, which is why he missed it. Li Teng instinctively took another step forward. But before his foot even touched the ground, he suddenly sensed that something wasn’t quite right. A sudden struggle raged within his mind, and Li Teng finally came fully to his senses. Only then did he realize he was still on top of the stone pillar. Earlier, his legs had “fallen” because the bed had been smashed by the tail of a commercial airliner; as he’d rolled around on the bed, his legs had inadvertently ended up in the broken section, and he’d stepped onto the ground at the top of the stone pillar. Now, having taken a step forward, he had reached the very edge of the stone pillar. The foot he had lifted was already extending beyond the edge of the stone pillar! If he had pushed down on the ground with that foot just now, he would inevitably have stepped into thin air, and his entire body would have plummeted from the top of the stone pillar—a thousand meters up—shattering into pieces! Once Li Teng realized what was happening, he shuddered with fear and quickly retreated back onto the bed to sit down. This hallucination is way too dangerous! Rescue was just around the corner, yet he’d nearly jumped off in a daze! If he’d fallen to his death before help arrived, that would have been such a tragic and unjust end! After returning to bed and lying down again, Li Teng was too scared to fall asleep. He worried that if he fell asleep, he might experience that same hallucination again. But in the dead of night, as exhausted as he was, Li Teng couldn’t simply choose not to sleep once he’d lain down. Soon, Li Teng drifted off to sleep once more… or perhaps into a semi-comatose state. Would his body hold out until dawn? Would he even wake up again tomorrow? Will help arrive?