It was the middle of the night somewhere in Central Europe at the end of December 1991. A nine year old boy wakes from a nightmare. His room, lit only by moonlight coming through the window, seems smaller than usual … like a dark capsule from a different world. The boy, still thinking about his dream, was scared; crying, unable to move, he thinks anxiously that he never wants to die.
At the same time, 385 km above, on a low Earth orbit, Sergei Krikalev receives a message. The Soviet Union has collapsed and, due to the new geopolitical situation, he and his colleague Aleksandr Volkov will be forced to stay in the MIR space station. Sergei. At this point, after almost eight months in space, he felt trapped in the dark capsule. He knew for sure that in just a few minutes there would be another sunrise for him and ninety- two minutes after that another, and another. What he did not know was that he would have to stay there for the next three months.
