Day 987

Not every plane came home from the war, some never even made it to the coast before they were shot down by the enemy and left to spiral down in smoke and flames, hitting the sea with loud metallic thuds. Their comrades in arms threw mournful salutes towards the falling wrecks, assuming their pilots were already dead.

Who can say what's worse to witness - the bodies of your friends burning, lifeless and rolling about the cabin like ragdolls, or the sight of their arms frantically tugging at windows that refused to open as their screaming faces slowly fall lax as they succumb to the pain and a slow death.

As soon as a plane hits the water its crew are considered deceased. They are mourned, memorialised and left to be memories, all the while they remain alive and in control of their now ghostly planes that glide under the waves, deep down among a graveyard of broken bones and wings alike.

They occasionally surface from the depths, the light of their still-burning aircraft being mistaken for St.Elmo's Fire as they repeat their battles among the soaring ranks of the sunken pilots. Sometimes they fall in the same way they originally died, sometimes they win, but they never stop flying.