WARNING: Graphic Content
The railway was suspended on a high and thin platform held by long metal beams that were at least twenty meters tall. I don't know what to make of that. And the valley looked like it went on for another hundred meters. Unbelievable!
The forest was just as thick below, if not thicker. Many would want to wait to go off at the level ground about a hundred meters ahead, but that would lead to an increase in competition in those areas. Better for me to go off at this point so that by the end time, I have climbed out of the valley, and competition has been eradicated.
That sounds like a good plan, only that I am very weak and not in peak condition due to today's incident. I hope that Maelstrom gets what's coming her way—she really was going to kill me!
It pisses me off as I think about it again. I stand up from my seat and go to collect another portion of bread. And another and another.
You know what? Let's make it four. I look up to see the person at the food counter staring at me. It is not a look of surprise or disgust—just staring. I'll just make it five.
'Whatever...' I pick two bottles of water and walk to the door of the train.
The Sergeant has already taken his seat, and the other applicants were just sitting and staring down their windows in awe and fear, thinking, 'Who in their right mind would make that jump?'
Thankfully, I don't have a right mind to be in one.
I stare at the valley. It's a long jump, and I have a high chance of dying. 'Better to die this way than to die by what awaits me with these people. That's if they don't kill me first!' I think to myself. 'Now.'
It happened quickly, and I was already in the air, gliding at a very fast rate. The ground was arriving faster than I had imagined, and I could not help but brace myself for impact. This was going to be a nasty fall.
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Narrator's POV
'Why did I fall?' Allan asked himself during the fall, the force was strong enough to push his hair flying vertically above his head, stopping it from sticking to his face due to him being buried in his vomit earlier. He had forgotten to wash his face with water; he was carried away with everything that was happening around him.
The instructor had said that they were free to leave the train for Necroforce, not jump from the bridge—that was a suicide mission.
He had been falling for some time now, but he was not worried about the fall. He knew he would be mangled by the pressure of the fall, and that is if he did not end up dead.
He stared at the thick vegetation that looked closer, as if it was ever-growing, clawing closer to the boy as if it would gnaw at him alive once it grabbed him.
'Will it hurt more than the pain I am currently carrying?' he asked himself. He hoped the pain would be enough to make him forget the one that preoccupied his heart day and night.
The pain of being left alone, abandoned.
They said his parents had died in the war; that was the reason he was given to the House of Maelstrom—that is the name of the orphanage. It was named after the Entity—a type of Companion—that had bonded with the founder of the orphanage.
But there was no dead body, there was no funeral. He was eight and old enough to attend a send-off procession for the only family he knew he had.
'Were they tired of having a son? Or was he that much of a burden that they collectively decided to let go of him? It does not make any sense why they'd abandon him there!' Allan thought to himself and could not help when tears ran down his eyes.
His heart ached as he relived the experience of being dropped off at the orphanage again, completely forgetting he was falling to his death.
It turns out he had miscalculated the height of the fall as it looked closer than it actually was. It was more than five times what he had predicted. He used his legs to send himself to his death.
It was quick! He landed on the forest floor and caused a loud noise to echo throughout the valley as the pressure slammed him through the branches of the trees into the forest floor. He rumbled along the incline at a very high speed, pushing anything he could push on his path, breaking what could be broken in his path, and getting broken by what could break him in return.
His body shut down, unable to process such an intense amount of pain from all parts of his body, and he could not help being ragdolled along the slope only to come to a stop in momentum immediately, initiated by a huge boulder that was along the path of his fall.
He had fractured bones all over. One would ask themselves how many bones were not fractured during this fall.
His unconscious body lay still, breathing shallowly with obvious difficulty, his chest caved into himself due to the impact he had with the boulder.
"How would he recover from this?" you ask. I doubt he will—everything points to his evident death.
The death he escaped at the House of Maelstrom has caught up with him. There was only so much running that one can do in the face of death. When it was your time, it was your time. There is only so much one can do about it.
How many breaths would he take before he gave up the ghost? How long would he have to become prey to whatever lives in this valley? How long does he have to host the inhabitants of this valley before he dies?
All these questions, possibilities rested on one person's decision—the one who had life and was currently living it. After all, as long as you are alive, when there is a will, there is a way.
To put it in simple terms, whether Allan lived or died, his fate was in his hands.
FUN FACT
A sendforth procession, also known as a funeral cortege or simply a procession, is a group of people moving together in an orderly, often ceremonial, way, typically to mark a person's departure, such as a funeral or a religious ceremony.
From Google