At 4,000 feet, the ground stopped being a map and started being a destination. Trees became individual sparks of green. He reached for the rip cord. He pulled.

The alarm clock didn’t wake Elias; the silence did. At thirty thousand feet, silence is a terrifying sound.

The "Freier Fall" was no longer a sport; it was a sentence. He reached for his reserve, his fingers fumbling against the freezing nylon. He looked down at the rushing green and thought of a phrase he’d heard once: “It’s not the fall that kills you; it’s the sudden stop at the end.”

For the first ten seconds, it was chaos. He tumbled, the world a blurring kaleidoscope of gray clouds and screaming blue sky. Then, he arched his back, spread his arms, and found his "box" position. The chaos turned into a cushion.