Hurriedly she opens the hatch with much struggle as the air is sucking shut the door. Once the hatch is open, Elouise sees the opening she needs, it’s a straight shot out.

FOUR SECONDS LEFT TO DETONATION!

No thoughts left she jumps feet first and out the pod she goes, hearing a loud explosion above her…but now it’s beneath her? “No, wait, I’m turning head over heel!” Thinking to herself. She needs to find the water and focus her attention on that, she’s trained for this, but it was in a controlled environment. “No, Rosie, you can’t think like that!” Elouise forces herself to regain her focus in the cold chilled air.

Luckily there is still several thousand feet before landing, she’s able to right herself in the air. She finally spreads her arms and legs finally gliding and not falling. The wingsuit has lightweight, ripstop nylon sheets from the undersides of her arms to her feet and between her legs. Air inlets on the wing's leading edge allows it to inflate and stay rigidly pressurized for the much-needed flight. However, as she tries to turn, the damage to her suit on her back is causing issues with positioning her flight path. She remembers from her flight class the glide ratios of two feet forward for every one foot down so she needs to be careful with angling and changing direction so sharply. The flight path accuracy is critical. However, the ‘trajectory control system’ in her helmet isn’t working so she is flying blind and on pure luck.

She tries her best to search for a deep spot in the water, but she’s running out of time. Land is fast approaching. Turning isn’t easy and she’s worn out. One hundred meters to go she guesses; she braces for impact by removing her helmet before going in the trained pencil dive position. She remembers her training for a pencil dive, you strive to make your body as slim and straight as a pencil. Jump feet first with your arms held tightly to your sides and your feet pressed together and pointed downward. This minimizes the surface area that strikes the water, reducing the force of impact. Only thing left to do is hope. Elouise takes a deep breath and crosses her fingers in her mind.

Without much wait, she enters the water, and to her amazement, she hasn’t broken her legs yet or died, so the water isn’t shallow. But she then feels it, “Damn it’s freezing! And the salt water on my scorched back burns!” she thinks. Once Elouise feels her speed has been reduced, she starts to kick and swing her arms to swim towards the top. Not daring to open her eyes, she hopes she’s going in the right direction. Faster and faster, she kicks and pulls at the water. Her lungs are burning and aching for air. She’s getting dizzy and light headed. Finally, the surface! Her face breaks the water’s surface tension. She inhales so deeply it hurts. Elouise is still light headed, shivering against the choppy waters. She feels weighed down from her suit full of water. She manages to take the suit off to keep herself from drowning.

Shaking her head to keep the adrenaline running she starts to swim for the shore, “If only there was some debris from the pod explosion I could hold on and surf to the shore, but the pod debris is at least a mile away.” Ellie thinks to herself struggling to stay afloat in the crashing waves as she approaches the shore. Feeling sand beneath her, she starts to stand, but continues to struggle from being knocked over against the surfs. Crawling on her hands and knees she pulls herself ashore and collapses, still within reach of the water’s edge. She lays her head on the sand. Her eyes are heavy, she has a rapid heartbeat and she seems to feel confused as she swears, she sees through her blurry eyes approaching riders on horseback in the distance racing towards her. That’s when she starts to understand it, she’s losing consciousness, “No, not like this…” she thinks, “…not like this.”

Without another thought, her body goes limp and she starts to turn face down in the water. Her subconscious feels a hand on her cheek, holding her head above water, and a voice in a hurried tone ask her to “Hang in there! I got you!” she succumbs to the darkness that’s been calling her.

When Elouise comes to, she hears the crackle of fire. She moves her fingers and feels soft linen wrapped around her hands. The warm embrace of a blanket lays heavily on her body, her back aches, her body aches. She hears muffled voices as if from behind a partially open door, and water being poured. Her throat now feeling parched from hearing the water. She slowly opens her eyes. It appears to be morning, with a slight chill in the air. She scans the room without moving her head. A young girl on the opposite side of the small room. She turns and sees Elouise watching her.

Ellie speaks hoarsely, “What’s your name sweetheart?”

The girl quickly leaves the room, running down the corridor yelling, “She’s awake! She’s awake! Someone, fetch the doctor, she’s awake and talking!”

As the girl’s voice is still heard echoing distinctly, two other girls pop their heads around the door and one meekly says “Hello. How are you feeling?”

“I’m quite thirsty, may I have some water please?” Ellie croakily says bringing her right hand up to her throat, but from the movement of her arm, the burned area of skin on her back feels as if it tore open. Ellie cries out in pain.