Mable: Apologies in advance for the shorter chapter, but I'm sure you'll see by the end why it ends when it does. Enjoy!

Within Reach

Chapter 21: What Goes Up

Daggle was getting awful tired of just standing out there like a chump. He was getting tired of the drone of muffled sirens too, but he supposed that was better than one blaring at the side of his head. He paced a little, crossed his arms impatiently, and considered just returning to the blimp. If it wasn't for the possibility of that sweet, sweet booster he would've done so already.

Sure, Vesper would probably kill him for blowing his money on that, but he was going to be grateful once they had a significantly strong Slig backing them up. He couldn't afford enough to get to Big Bro status, but he was going to be looking at some thicker arms no doubt. He bent his arm and looked at his own, shaking his head and making a sympathetic noise.

When all of a sudden, the loading dock doors started to slide open again. Daggle looked over expecting to see the Intern he had been talking to. He did not. He saw a whole platoon of Interns, practically the whole lot of them that came out initially to check on the unexpected blimp docking there. He already knew something was wrong before they started to shuffle over in a semi-single file line.

"Oh boy, here we go…" Daggle muttered. "Act natural. Act natural. Act… Hey! What're all you guys doin' out here?"

The lead Intern barked something at him. Though it was hard to distinguish through stitched lips and an armored helmet.

"What?" Daggle asked.

The Intern kept commanding something. The Slig looked back between the blimp and back.

"What? We're good to dock here. I was just talking with some guy-."

Daggle pointed towards the door and the Intern promptly lost all patience and raised its gun, aiming it directly down at Daggle. His hands shot up defensively.

"WHOA! Hold up! What are you doing?!" he blurted out.

More strange humming and a gesturing with the gun. A 'move back' motion. Though when he did, the Intern stepped forward and the motion was repeated.

"You want me to go back to the blimp?" Daggle guessed.

The Intern leader shook its head. It pointed its gun at him, gestured to the rest of the group with its head, then nudged the gun forward as though telling him to go.

"You want… me to take you to the blimp?" he guessed again.

The leader nodded and Daggle's blood went cold.

"I don't know if that's a good idea. See, my boss is a real pain in the- ALRIGHT! Alright, I'm going! I'm going!" he quickly caved after the gun was aimed at him again. "Geez, guys, you treat all your inquirin' customers that way? Whatever happened to common decency? I tell ya…" He tried to sound nonchalance, but as he slowly walked back towards the blimp, he was sweating bullets.

By this point the others inside noticed what was going on and what was coming in their direction.

"Aww shit, here we go," Alf muttered. He then made a run for the supplies. "What's that recipe for that smoke spray?! Bone Powder and detergent and what?!"

"Brew and detergent!" Toby called back. He was starting to breath heavily, clearly on the road to full blown panic. Yet he had to keep his hands tight on the controls lest he lose grip of the blimp.

"I think I got that around here somewhere-!" Alf was cut off at a familiar clicking noise and looked back to see Vesper with a gun in his hands, having popped the chamber open. "What are you plannin' on doing with that?!"

"Not much with… three bullets," Vesper confessed. With a thousand-yard stare he clicked the chamber back into place. "…I have more ammo in my bag-."

"Forget that! That little peashooter ain't gonna do nothing to those guys! We gotta… here!" Alf pulled out the detergent bag and fished out a brew bottle, popping the lid off. "Toby, get ready to get this bird moving!" Toby nodded. He then pointed towards Vesper. "Put that thing away and radio Abe! Tell him to get to one of the other Loading Docks and tell us when he gets there!"

"Are you sure about this? We're going to look guilty as sin if we start running. Maybe if I go out there, I can buy us a little more time. Try to schmooze with them a little, leverage them with stock talk," Vesper suggested.

"That stuff might work on the big wigs, but these hired guns? No way. Not now that Abe's been spotted," Alf doubled down.

"But it worked on the- fine, I'll take your word for it… Even if it does make us the biggest target on the planet," Vesper huffed, ending in a mumble. He didn't want to play it that risky, but at this point he could tell there was no arguing with Alf. He had already turned back around and started working with his concoction. So, Vesper turned his focus back to the communicator. "Abe? Abe, can you hear me?"

There was nothing but crackly static coming through the speaker. Vesper sent a worried look towards Toby who was still staring dead ahead like he was trying not to panic. He breathed tightly through his teeth and continued to call in.

"Look, if you can hear me, we've been found out! We're leaving this dock at Alf's insistence, but we're staying nearby! Do NOT come to the loading dock we let you out on!"

"I'm telling you guys, all you're gonna do is tick him off. Honestly, I don't know what you expect to see," Daggle rambled. He slowly crept up towards the door of the blimp. Stalling as long as he could with the desperate hope that someone was planning something.

He could hear the blimp kick on into something and he broke into an even more rapid sweat.

"They're about to fly off and these suckers are gonna shoot me right in the back of the head. I'm dead. I am so dead. Maybe I should start forking over the Moolah- no! Then they'll think your guilty!... Shit, I am guilty! CRAP, IF THEY ASK FOR MY NUMBERS, I. AM. DEAD!"

The panic continued to grow as he stepped up to the blimp. He stood there for a moment before a large hand pushed at the back of his head and he staggered forward to keep from falling out of his pants.

"Oww! I'm going! I'm going! Yeesh! Treating me like a criminal- y'know, I was gonna pay good moolah under the table to you guys!" Daggle prattled as he snapped his head back and reached blindly for the door. Taking as long as possible as he did so.

Unknowing that Alf was waiting on the other side of that door. His back pressed to the wall beside it holding his breath and a Soulstorm bottle of concoction in his hand. He was very aware that all of their lives relied in this working. He only had one shot.

Finally Daggle reluctantly opened the blimp door.

In a split second, Alf swung out and threw the bottle straight into the closest Intern's face. Not the intention, the aim was to throw it at the ground but somewhere in the process this happened instead. The bottle cracked open on the Intern's helmet and spewed forth a cloud of gas. While the Interns were wearing what looked like breathers, the sudden obstruction of their vision caught them off guard- along with the clocked leader stumbling back into the others.

Alf had just enough time to grab Daggle, yank him in, slam the door, and hear the barrage of needle-bullets raining onto it. He waved down towards the cockpit. "GO! GO! GO!"

Toby threw the blimp into whatever overdrive it had and took off from the docks only slightly faster than normally. Alf dared to look out to see Interns running out of the cloud to fire on the blimp with little success. It would take something stronger to take this thing down.

"I can't believe you guys didn't leave me…" Daggle said in absolute disbelief. He sat there staring at the still open door for a moment before snapping his head to Alf. "…But what are we gonna do now?!"

"Hold out 'til Abe gets out," Alf firmly directed.

"Uh huh. And what about them shootin' at us?" Daggle asked doubtfully. He was rewarded with his gun being thrown into his arms, scrambling to catch it without accidentally discharging it.

"Then let's hope this tin can can still fly with a few holes in it," Alf remarked.

"Maybe it will make it less wind resistant," Vesper remarked cynically.

Alf was less than amused. Once he turned his attention away to head over to Toby, Vesper turned his attention back to the console he was leaning over. Keeping his finger resting on the communicator call button as he stared out at the color-stained sky.

He could only hope that Abe's silence was a result of the communicator breaking down and not something worse.

In which case, it was about fifty-fifty.

Currently, Abe was bolting as fast as he could down a hallway that never seemed to end. Heart pounding, chest heaving, running as fast as he good- which was rather fast considering the cocktail of adrenaline and caffeine pumping through his veins. Munch wasn't far behind with the wheelchair squealing so loud that it almost deafened out the alarms. Everything was just so much that Abe was practically running blind at this point. Hypersensitized to the point where the only thought that made it through was, "RUN."

They had been caught in the last leg, but they were so very close. This hall led right up to a loading dock… the key word being A loading dock. Abe knew it was very likely that this wasn't the exact loading dock and could just hope it was close. It felt close to him, but then again desperation might've pushed him to make that call a little too early. Not that he had a choice in the matter now. Get out on the loading dock, flag down the guys, get out while they still could. He couldn't think of anything else.

Abe practically ran straight into the loading dock door before turning and pounding his palm onto the button to lift it. It began to raise slowly. Too slowly for Abe, who dropped down and rolled underneath. Munch looked back and forth between him and behind them and at the raising door before throwing himself down from the wheelchair and sliding under on his belly. He smacked his hand on the button while coming off the wheelchair and after a confused clunk and pause, the door started to lower again.

Abe came out and had his hopes dashed in a heartbeat. No sign of the blimp and running over to the edge to peer into the distance at the next dock over showed no blimp there either. He didn't even think it was worth looking in the other direction but did., and was right.

"They're not here?!" Munch cried out. "What're we supposed to do now?!"

Abe's hands tightened on the railing. He had to think fast. He looked back at the still opening door and spotted the seven on the outside of it, far from the number he thought it was. Not to mention that now that the door was open, there was no way to shut it from this side. The Interns were going to catch up fast and he only had two minutes at best to work with what he had.

So, he lifted his transmitter to his mouth and pressed the button. "We're on Dock 7. Get here now, you won't miss it," he rushed out. Then he got to work.

He yanked off his backpack and all but spilled the contents onto the dock, along with sending the fire extinguisher clattering to the ground. He grabbed it back up and began to work, using duct tape to shove and attach what was all but a random assortment of items as Munch watched in disbelief at what he was doing. Yet he didn't interrupt, because Abe looked like a Mud on a mission. He must've been doing something.

That was when they heard the footsteps on the other side of the door. By now both were panicking even though Abe seemed to be focused on his work. This was a last-ditch effort and if it didn't hold them off long enough for the blimp to get here, they were doomed.

That is… if they got that message at all. Abe decided he didn't want to think about what was going to happen if they didn't.

The door started to raise. Munch made a little squeak and raised his hands to his mouth while slightly hopping on his foot. "Abe, ya gonna do somethin'…?" he dared to ask.

Abe proceeded to snatch up a Soulstorm Brew bottle and throw it to the ground in front of the opening door. A puddle of green, sticky brew was left in its wake.

"Other than that!" Munch said with exasperation. "If they get me- if they take me back- I'll… I… I'll jump first!" he pointed towards the railing.

"I got it. Just… One more… One more second…"

Abe was racing to finish the last of it against the door opening and Munch panicking and footsteps and suffocated voices yelling through hums and then, in the midst of all that, the last piece was fitted, and he stood.

The fire extinguisher belched out a gust of fire that immediately alit the puddle of brew into an enormous blaze. He could hear panicked screams on the other side.

"WHAT?!" Munch yelled in shock. He looked to Abe slack jawed as the Mudokon grabbed up his bag and whatever he could. "WHY DIDN'T YOU DO THIS EARLIER?!"

"Because we were in a giant metal blimp about a couple hundred feet off the ground!" Abe called back. He threw another bottle into the fire, and it grew twofold.

"…GOOD POINT!"

But this wasn't the end. Abe was very aware that the fire wouldn't hold them back forever, not when the Intern's armor was possibly flame resistant. He needed more of a plan than this but sacrificing brew bottles to feed a fire was all he had.

Until the Interns began to fire back. A barrage of needles flew out through the fire towards them. Munch yelped and ducked to the side and Abe followed suit, running down the dock as far as he could to escape. He turned while reaching into his bag and grabbed one of his last rubber band wrapped hard candies and threw it towards the blaze, only for it to bounce off something, then something else, and then come flying back, careening between him and Munch and off into the sky.

They looked back and watched the blaze, and then watched as an Intern squeezing by around the fire. Abe inhaled sharply and hesitated, and then ran forward. He shot a gust of fire at the Intern's feet, but the flames leapt past and onto it. Abe had no choice. The Intern yelled out and started to shed its armor, staggering back into the hallway. No choice, no choice, no choice.

Something pierced his shoulder and Abe knew he was definitely screwed now. He aimed his fire in that direction as he began to back away, but he could feel that syringe dumping its contents into his bloodstream. He had only a couple of minutes at max before it kicked in and when it did, he didn't know what was going to happen.

Yes, he did. He was going to die. That lack of coordination would be an immediate death sentence. He was out of Expresso, out of adrenaline, and rapidly approaching out of time.

And just when he was sure it was the end, Munch shouted a noise more than a statement and pointed off into the sky. Abe looked back at him and then out into the distance.

There was a group of aircrafts flying towards them. About a half-dozen of small security crafts, like the ones that had stopped them before they arrived at Vykker's Labs, being led by a single blimp. Or more correctly, pursuing a single blimp.

Abe had never felt so happy and terrified at the same time.

"That's them!" he said. He turned his head back to the blazing fire before looking back to Munch. "We're gonna have to jump!"

"Sure, but I can't exactly jump without water!" Munch forewarned.

"Just stay over by the edge!"

Munch nodded and hopped over, diving down when another barrage of needles flew betwixt them. Flying right at where they had been talking. Abe jumped back and against the railing, feeling a spike of panic up his spine as he looked down and saw the drop below.

A familiar puffing noise caught his attention, and he snapped his head up again to see a white cloud huffing out from the hallway and starting to engulf the fire. Extinguishers, they were putting it out. He braced the fire extinguisher and sent one more surge of flames in their direction, fighting against the mist, pushing them back only momentarily but doing nothing more than stalling. Even that didn't last as the fire started to get snuffed out straight from the nozzle.

"Abe!"

The loud hum of the overworked blimp became audible, and Abe turned back again to see Munch calling him, pointing, and signaling that the blimp was just closing in. They only had a few seconds to do this and no time to waste.

Abe hooked the fire extinguisher on his backpack as he ran over to Munch. He could see Alf and Vesper standing out on the railing outside of the blimp and yelled to them through cupped hands. "Guys! Alf!"

"I'm here!" Alf yelled back while waving his arms.

"Get close!" Abe replied. He then turned to Munch and swooped behind him, grabbing him from behind.

"What are you doing?!" Munch yelped. Then he was suddenly lifted from the ground, foot curled in midair as he was tilted back on Abe, who was trying to leverage his weight. "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?! ARE YOU THROWING ME?!"

"Alf, catch!"

Using all the coordination he could muster, Abe tossed Munch across the gap right as the blimp arrived in front of the dock. Pretty much no one had time to prepare, let alone Alf who suddenly had the sea creature flop over the failing and directly onto him. He fell back against the side of the blimp and thumped down onto his backside.

Not wasting a second, Abe took a half step and jumped after him. He knew he wasn't going to make it over the railing, he was going to be lucky if he grabbed the railing period. Yet in the last second Vesper reached out his hands for him and, not trusting his own grip, Abe grabbed for them. Their hands interlocking a moment before Abe dropped. The sudden addition of his weight yanking Vesper over the railing and him just managing to hook his legs before he could go fully over.

They made eye contact in that moment and shared a look of mutual terror. Vesper snapped out of it quickly enough with a rapid blink before beginning to pull Abe, and himself, onto the blimp. Abe assisting by pushing up on the blimp with his feet.

Abe had gotten onto the railing by time Alf pushed Munch off and helped hoist him over the rest of the way. Then he fell uncoordinatedly onto his face on the other side before Vesper scrambled to pull him up by the arms.

A resonating slew of loud pops signaled that they were taking fire even before the syringes started flying by. That got Abe on his feet as he all but pushed Vesper into the blimp before turning to grab for the others, only to have Alf push him in and drag Munch in behind him, and then slam and seal the blimp door behind them.

"Abe?!" Toby called from the cockpit.

"I'm here! Start flying as fast as you can!" Abe called back breathlessly.

Toby didn't need to be told twice and continued on ahead at full speed. Unfortunately, full speed wasn't nearly as fast as Abe would've preferred.

"Oh crap."

Abe winced at a pinch in his shoulder and turned back to see that Alf had pulled out yet another syringe and was holding it up. A look of alarm on his face.

"Yeah, that's not good," Abe agreed. More tiredly than shocked at this point. "We don't have much time. We need to… Here." He pulled the flamethrower off his back and handed it to Alf. "Flamethrower. Still has a little juice left."

"Sweet… Wait, this ain't gonna blow us up, is it?" he called over to Toby.

"On-Only if you use it on the blimp. Err, on the balloon part of the blimp, but- but it could spread really fast… so don't use it in here?" Toby explained. He sounded extremely stressed, likely because he was flying a blimp currently being chased.

"Alf, this is serious!" Abe interjected desperately. It got Alf's full attention back on him, surprised by the outburst. Abe pointed at the syringe in his hand. "I got hit by one of those things and I barely stayed awake, but I just got hit by two more. So, once they kick in… I don't think I'm going to be much help…" he warned cryptically.

Alf gave a both concerned and sympathetic hiss as he closed his fingers around the needle. Then he patted Abe on the shoulder.

"Don't you worry about it. We've gotcha covered," he assured. Abe barely relaxed and nodded, and Alf turned to go look out the window.

As he turned away, Vesper laid a hand on Abe's shoulder and turned him around and towards him.

"How are you feeling now?" he asked with concern.

"Not so good, but I don't think the darts kicked in yet. It took a few minutes the first time," Abe said. Just the thought of that drugged feeling getting worse made him anxious.

"Tell me about that first time. What did you feel?" Vesper asked. Abe looked slightly questioning, to which he readily answered. "So we know what we're getting into with these. Any confusion? Trouble breathing? Rapid heartbeat?"

"Sort of. Keeping my heart racing was the only thing that kept me awake. Munch taught me that," Abe explained, pointing a thump back at Munch. He then suddenly remembered the sea creature in the room. "Oh! Vesper, guys, this is Munch. He saved me from drowning and then we escaped together."

"Hello," Munch greeted. He seemed a little wary of this new group.

"Whaddup?" Daggle seemed much warier of the events outside. If him hugging his gun was any indication, only releasing it to raise a hand in greeting.

"Almost died. Got thrown off a flying thingy. That sorta stuff."

"Get used to it. I've been here for a day and it don't get better," the Slig added. Munch gave him a funny look.

"Pleasure to meet you, Munch. Vesper Ryce, friend of Abe's," Vesper greeted. He offered his hand. Munch squinted at the claws but then went ahead and shook it. "Thank you for helping him. I hate to think of what might've happened if you weren't there."

"It's no big deal. We helped each other," Munch insisted, sending Abe a nod. He smiled back.

"Well, thank you for that. I owe you one," Vesper assured him. He then turned to Abe with a sigh and dropped his hand back onto his shoulder, giving him a light shake and a weary look. "By the way… You scared the daylights out of me. Again."

Abe smiled again, a small and apologetic smile. Vesper grinned back, both relieved and strained.

"Alf, they're catching up!"

At Toby's yelp Abe's eyes widened, Vesper's ears flinched back, and both smiles dropped in unison. The blimp gave them a false sense of security, because they were very much still stuck in the dead center of a slew of crosshairs.

Something even more apparent when Alf watched a security craft come into view at the corner of the windshield. He caught a glimpse of a mounted turret turning in his direction before spinning around and diving. Grabbing Toby by the overalls as he did and dragging him out of the seat. A barrage of bullets rained down on the glass, piercing through it until the bulletproof panes couldn't take it anymore and started to shatter.

Daggle sprinted awkwardly across the blimp and up on the edge of the glass. He waited until the firing stopped, recognizing them reloading, and poked his gun out to return fire. The bullets deflected easily off of the craft, and he ducked back inside.

"My gun ain't doin' nothin'! What are we gonna do now?!" he cried in a panic. A panic that only increased when the floor started to tilt. "Oh, OH, OH WE'RE SCREWED!"

Toby crawled around the pilot's seat and reached up to handle the wheel and just barely managed to stabilize the blimp. Though he was expecting the gunfire to continue, it didn't.

"It sounds like they're falling back?" Vesper asked in confusion. He paced alongside the wall between him and the security craft. "They're falling back. They might've run out of ammo."

"That fast?! No way!" Daggle disagreed.

Suddenly there was an enormous booming noise from right above them and the entire blimp shuddered so hard that everyone who wasn't holding onto something was thrown to the floor.

And immediately afterwards the blimp's nose turned down and it started to plummet.

"NO, NO, NO, NO!" Toby cried as he got to his feet and struggled with the controls. He looked around frantically at the dials and gauges and everything said they were losing altitude fast. "WE'RE FALLING! WE'RE GOING DOWN!"

Everyone was in a panic, and nobody knew what to do. Abe and Alf shared a look like they were both about to ask the other what to do and realized in that moment that they had no idea what to do.

Abe was only brought out of it by Vesper babbling beside him. Swearing and panicking in a frenzy until he suddenly yelled out, "-ANY emergency supplies?! Parachutes?! Do we have parachutes?!"

"Parachutes?!" Abe asked.

"PARA- YES! YES, CLOSET! THERE!" Toby whipped an arm back and nearly fell forward into the console from the tilt of the blimp. He pointed at a supply cabinet off to the right. "CHECK THERE! QUICK! HURRY!"

Vesper and Abe ran over and tore open the cabinet together and found what looked to be a random assortment of junk. Abe's hopes were dashed, but Vesper spotted something and reached into the back, falling onto his knees as the blimp suddenly shifted- Abe having to hold onto the edges of the cabinet to stay upright- and pulled out what looked like a backpack. His face alighting with hope.

"YES! Toby, you are an Oddsend! We might make it out of this!" Vesper cried. He hooked the bag on one arm before continuing to search the cabinet.

"How's that bag supposed to help us?" Alf called over. He got to his feet behind the pilot seat and was holding on tightly to keep his balance.

"It's a parachute! Put them on, jump out, pull the cord, and float down. That's all you need to know!" Vesper said. "…Well, obviously there's more than that, but in this case we just-."

Another loud crash hit the side of the blimp and it spiraled briefly before careening down in the opposite direction. Toby managed to pull it up to buy them some time, but they were quickly losing altitude. In a last-ditch effort, he pulled a level under the console before pressing a red button off to the side.

A gurgling groan rumbled through the bottom of the blimp before an alarm went off in the upper corner.

"What did you just do?!" Alf shouted.

"I-I just dumped- dumped the fuel," Toby sputtered.

"What?! Why in the heck did you do that?!" Alf cried.

Toby looked up with wide-eyes and a thousand-yard stare.

"…So we don't blow up when we crash?"

Alf stared back for a long moment before turning back around.

"…Abe, you better get those parachutes out here quick!"

"On it!" Abe called back.

Vesper managed to find three of them so far and shoved them into Abe's arms, who turned around and carefully made his way down the slope. He tossed two to Alf, who fell over letting go of the seat to catch them. In that moment Abe could see the disorienting shift of the sky as Toby struggled to fight to keep them in the air. They were beginning to spiral.

He turned to Daggle when another bang rocked the blimp. Knocking it out of its spiral but blowing something open as there was a deafening whistling wind noise coming from somewhere. Abe fell to the ground but pushed up quickly and reached out the parachute to Daggle, who caught the strap with the butt of his rifle and pulled it in.

Now the only ones left were him, Vesper… and Munch.

Abe looked around and up and found Munch up by the open door that led into the hallway, and his eyes widened in horror.

The door out of the blimp had been blown clean off, along with a good section of roof above it. With how the blimp was tilted he could see the trees beneath them, much closer than they should've been. They didn't have any time. Any second they would hit those trees.

Abe turned his attention to Munch who was clutching onto a pipe alongside the door with his eyes screwed shut. He seemed to have a tight hold, but he was right beside that gaping opening. Abe cupped his mouth with one hand and called against the roar of the wind.

"Munch!"

Munch opened his eyes a sliver. Then blinked them open wide as he stared out of that hole.

There was a wide river running underneath them. They were close enough to the ground that he could even see the sparkles of the sunlight off the water. He was transfixed on that sight. So close to the water. Coming down fast, but so close to freedom.

He let go of the pipe and started to crawl forward, much to Abe's horror.

"Munch, wait! You need- You need-!" Finding his voice falling on deaf ears, he got up on his feet into an unsteady crouch and hurried after him. His heart pounding in panic as he watched Munch get closer to that gaping door.

Munch belly crawled to the doorway and grabbed tightly onto the edge of the floor as he stared out. They felt so high up, but he could see it clearly, clearly enough that maybe there was a chance, maybe if he was careful, if he hit the water right, maybe, maybe…

Maybe he could make it.

"Munch!"

Munch heard Abe's cry and turned back to look at him. The Mudokon was now crouched in the doorway, having to hold on as the blimp started tilting forward again. Munch stole a look back to the river and knew it wouldn't be long before they weren't above it any longer. The trajectory was perfect, but only for right now. This was his only window.

He looked back at Abe with wide eyes full of desperation and panic.

And then he jumped.

Abe gasped and dove forward for him and didn't come anywhere close to grabbing his foot before the short creature was diving through the air and down towards the river below. Abe reached to the doorframe to stop himself.

It wasn't there. He grabbed nothing but air and suddenly there was nothing but air.

Before he could realize the full repercussions of what just happened, he turned over in the motion and caught a glimpse of the blimp as he tumbled out. He was falling.

He was FALLING!

Abe screamed for a moment, but his lungs were almost compressed by the air as his body spun. He saw the sky and the trees and the water coming close and in the back of his mind he remembered something about landing with his feet together and he couldn't swim.

And then he hit the water. There was a second of pain and then nothing at all.