Wind whipped past my face as the plane’s doors got pulled open by Greg - despite my sweaty palms and inner sense of struggle, I smiled broadly.
“Have fun kid! I’ll see you on the ground!” Greg shouted out past the thunderous wind. I nodded in response, walking to the edge of the door.
“Thanks for running the trip again, Greg!” I replied just as loudly, and before I jumped, I gave Greg a once-over. He was by no means small - in fact he was probably the largest man I’d ever seen (and not in the fat way). He looked like an old war veteren or something - I wouldn’t actually know. I’d have to ask him to know something like that.
Compared to Greg I was small - almost miniature. Now, I’m fairly tall, not the tallest, but tall enough, and this man still towers over me. He even has brown hair not too dissimilar from my own lighter variation - his hair was a lot darker than mine. Looking to figures, it wasn’t even a fair comparison. I never did much working out or physical activity, so I was on the edge of skinny (practically lanky), whereas he was built like a tank.
I almost sighed at the complete disparity of our sizes, but ignored it in favour of actually doing what I wanted to do in the first place.
With one last deep breath as my eyes scanned over the edges of the plane, I looked downwards and leaped off. That moment right as you leave the plane and everything seems to lurch to a halt it’s, well - it’s my favourite.
“Wooohooooo!” I shouted, the splitting smile on my face almost hurt as I spread my arms out. The descents always brought a great feeling of enjoyment and fear, yet sometimes I can’t help but think about other things.
“I bloody hate you Richard, you obnoxious asshole!” My lungs screeched as I shouted at the top of them. The man I referred to is irrelevant, all that matters is the feeling of satisfaction as I curse him to the sky itself. My attention shifted to the altitude meter on my wrist, and with a slow, almost reluctant movement, I pulled the chute.
The sudden jerk caused the air to whip again, feeling like the literal weapon had slashed at me (it was all in my head, really - it didn’t actually hurt). I slowly began my descent to ground level, and as I looked around into the vast blue sky and the deep green forestry, I laughed.
This. This. Is what I live for. This thrill, this joy, and this excitement that these kinds of activities bring me.
Time halted as my eyes blinked ever-so-slowly. The day was bright and sunny, so the forests below were glistening with life and energy. In what was a fraction of a moment, everything had gone quiet, and a shadow rapidly overtook the forest, bathing it in darkness. At that very moment a blast of wind pushed me forwards, causing my chute to spin around rapidly, and in a panic I attempted to readjust myself.
A lot of good that would’ve done, judging by what was above me.
SCREECH!
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It felt like my ears were getting blown apart as a massive, no, colossal thing flew above me. ‘WhatTheHeckWhatTheHeck!’ My mind supplied as what could only be called a dragon - a fucking dragon began to dive downwards to the earth.
By definition a dragon was already massive, but this thing… it transcended that very word.
I couldn’t think straight, the pain felt like it was splitting my head apart, and the sudden dragon didn’t make it any easier.
“WHAT THE ABSOLUTE FUUUCK!?” I screamed at the top of my lungs - and honestly, that was the only reasonable response I could think of as a giant, grey, scaly dragon crashed straight into the ground. For a moment it didn’t move, and there was a brief second of silence before it let out another ear shattering roar. With a single flap of its massive leathery wings it flew straight into the sky, unfortunately the updraft was so bloody strong that my chute yanked me upwards.
“OHHHHH SHIIIIIII-” The surge of wind slammed into my body, flinging me further and further from the drop off point- ‘Why are you even thinking of the drop off point?! There’s a bloody dragon- monster- thing!’ My mind snarked unhelpfully.
It was also probably not the best time to have an inner debate with myself over what the actual hell a dragon is doing here - or that it actually exists in the first place. Especially so since the bloody thing did a twirl in the air, and a large plume of fire escaped from its maw.
It flew around randomly, and unfortunately that meant it was heading right over my head.
“Oh nononononononno…!” I muttered to myself as the sudden need to just scream my lungs out caused me to choke. Suffice to say most games could never truly evaluate the absolute feeling of despair when a dragon appears at the end of the tutorial. My body got jerked backwards as the clawed paws hooked themselves around my parachute, dragging me even further away from any semblance of civilization. Even worse was the fact that it began descending with me still on its paw - straight down to the bloody ground.
It didn’t even look like the thing noticed an insignificant ant like myself...
Pictures of my life seemed to phase into my mind as my imminent doom approached, and I just couldn’t think. My mind felt numb as the green of the trees suddenly expanded due to the instantaneous approach of the ground.
However, right at what felt was the very last moment, the beast curved upwards. My body jerked again as the ground stopped approaching, and I blinked as I realised that I wasn’t going to get obliterated by gravity, at least I thought so.
TEAR
I wonder if anyone has ever gone on the giant drop in Queensland - if you have, then you’d know the feeling that your stomach got left behind somewhere at the top of the ride.
“AHHHHHHHH!” I screamed once more as my body hurled horizontally, hurtling right into the canopy of trees. At this moment I truly couldn’t feel anything other than the splitting pain as my arm smacked into a tree with a sickening crack. Unfortunately it didn’t end there, as my body only spun even more rapidly into another tree, only this time my back went snap as abruptly stopped.
Honestly, in those last few moments I really couldn’t feel anything. The pain overthrew my senses, and in those last few moments where I was falling towards the ground, my eyes began to close.
‘Mum…’
Thud