Terminal velocity. Shade was falling but it felt like floating on a bed of air. Shade was always one to do what it took to get the job done but jumping out of a plane in the dead of night in a foreign country didn’t feel like the best idea at that point. It was Shade’s first time skydiving and after a thirty minute tutorial from the plane’s co-pilot, Shade was on diving solo, something they had heard was a bad idea on several levels but here was Shade at terminal velocity, breathing hard into their helmet. A shiver that would normally roll its way down one’s spine was endlessly flooding down his spine. Whenever he felt this way the shiver would usually transfer to his hands and they would go numb other than to feel the terrifying tickle of the shiver. He once felt that way when he saw a friend break their leg on the playground when he was a child. That numbness stayed in his right hand for hours and even came back when he would remember the incident. Whenever this happened he figured it was a sympathy response but he made sure to stay away from videos of people hurting themselves. Grasping anything was a near impossibility when this response kicked in.
Shade had ten seconds left before he had to pull his chute. The co-pilot promised they would be monitoring him from the plane to remind him to pull the rip chord. The heads up display in the helmet would also remind him as well as the wristband he wore. Shade didn’t want his first jump to be his last and he certainly didn’t want to die while on a delivery. He had a 100% delivery rating over his three years as a courier and becoming a mangled mess of blood and meat on the outskirts of the capital city of Argentina was not his chosen way to go. This was his first trip outside of his hometown and so far the endless lights of the city of Buenos Aires were quite possibly the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. He wished he could concentrate on them but the countdown on his HUD dominated his attention.
The countdown hit 1 and Shade reached for the chord on the right side of his backpack but it wasn’t there. He wondered if his hand was so numb that couldn’t get a good feel for the chord but the hoop at the end of the chord was nowhere to be found. Shade tried to look down for the chord but couldn’t turn his head far enough around to get a good look. His HUD was flashing yellow as the countdown had turned to negative seconds. Shade started cursing as he frantically kept checking for the rip chord. The HUD tinted red and an alarm spun in Shade’s ears and through his brain. “This is how I die,” Shade thought.
“You need to pull your chute, kid,” a voice crackled through the alarm in his helmet. It was the plane's co-pilot.
“The chord isn’t there,” he said in a strained voice.
“It has to be,” the co-pilot continued, “It’s just like I showed you. The chord is on the left. You put your finger through the-”
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“The left? The pack you demoed had it on the right,” Shade’s voice got a little higher as his throat tightened. He shifted his focus to the left side of the pack. His left hand wasn’t numb like his right hand so he had a better feel for the details of the pack. The HUD in the helmet’s visor was now quickly flashing red and the alarm grew louder. Shade’s forefinger found the hoop and he yanked the chord.
The parachute released from the pack and unraveled in the air above Shade. When it opened and caught the air, Shade was yanked away from the ground but now he had to try and slow his descent before he crashed into the ground. He knew he had less time to ride down with the parachute but diving in the middle of the night robbed him of a view of the ground below him. The co-pilot’s voice crackled into the helmet.
“You’re still descending too fast. You need to pull the-”
“I’m already doing that,” Shade interrupted.
“Can you try and mark out where you’re going to land?”
“I can’t see a damn thing because it’s dark,” Shade said, a venom building in his voice.
“You haven’t turned on the night vision?” The co-pilot asked, genuinely baffled.
“What night vision? You didn’t say anything about night vision,” Shade’s voice got deeper.
“Oh hell, let me turn that on for you,” the co-pilot said.
Shade’s HUD turned several shades of green and black. At first he couldn’t tell what he was looking at but as he had no context for his surroundings. He pulled on his control lines to maneuver and slow his descent to a fast approaching earth below him. A hundred yards to his right, he could see lights flickering, washing out the view of his HUD. That has to be the village, he thought, pulling his line to put him in line with his destination. Shade got his bearings and recognized how far away he was from the ground. Shade pulled a little harder so he would slow down but it was no use. He thought he’d be able to run out of his landing, instead when both feet hit the ground, his body crumpled into the dirt mound immediately after.
Shade’s HUD went dark and for a moment he thought he might be blind. He closed his eyes and turned from his right side onto his back. He wasn’t numb anymore. The thud from hitting the dirt made sure his body felt everything. Shade wasn’t sure if he could move. Everything hurt but his body didn’t want to move. He wasn’t sure if it was because he was already tired to being on this delivery or if he legitimately couldn’t move. His HUD flickered back to life. A warning popped up on the screen warning him that he was too close to the ground. Shade groaned.
“You ok kid? Did you make it?” The co-pilot asked.
“I’m,” Shade paused to wait for any sharp pain to make itself known, “I think I’m fine.”
“Great, thanks for flying with us. If you could get that gear back to us, that would be awesome,” the co-pilot said.
“I’ll do my best,” Shade said, pushing up from the dirt.
Shade stood up, dusting himself off from the crash landing, peeling off the parachute pack. He took off his helmet and bent every joint he could think of to try to find any potential broken bones or random pains that might hinder taking a full first step. He wasn’t looking to eat a face full of dirt after the first step. He was surprised by the lack of pain as he started to move around but in thinking about it, he knew he would feel everything in the morning. He groaned at the thought.
“At least I’m alive,” he said to himself out loud.
“Are you?” A voice said in the dark.