INFINITE: Island of the Immortals

4. Falling

When Michael woke, it was to the warmth of day and the gentle lapping of water below. He could smell the sea, fresh and alive. Michael usually fell back to sleep but today he was easily awake.

Especially since . . . What was that sound?

"AhhOooHuhOooHaah . . . MYYYYY KELLLLL." A tortured bellow, a deranged Tarzan yell, came through the wall. "Mick-EL GET-UP." There were two walls between him and Amanda but he could still hear her clearly.

"I'm up, fool. What is it?"

But Amanda did not reply, only Tarzan again, except this time Tarzan was being strangled over there. Amanda's yawn eventually yodelled to an end.

"You're an idiot Amanda."

"Get in the water. Race ya? First one in wins."

Michael didn't wait for her to finish. He sprang from the bed, brushing the back door aside. Amanda was giggling convulsively as she climbed the railing of her own balcony. Michael didn't even pause to look as he threw himself over, falling through the air in a tangle of limbs, slapping into the water with his back.

"Backy-flop," Amanda cheered and jumped too.

"First time I beat you at anything." Michael checked he hadn't lost his shorts in the fall.

"Best way to start the day."

It really was. The sea glittered under the low sun as they hung there on the edge of the lagoon, rising and falling in the little surges.

"It's something everyone has to do once in their life." Wayne had spent all of breakfast trying to convince Michael and Jill to go skydiving. Michael had thought his mother would definitely refuse and therefore also save him from this fate. But to his horror she agreed.

"Are you sure Mum?" Michael pleaded.

"Yeah I'll do it. If you do?"

Oh no. He couldn't back down now. There was a reckless glint in her eye. This was very unlike his mother. "What's gotten into you Mum?"

Jill just shrugged. It was infuriating.

How could she be so calm? She's never calm.

"I guess I'm in too then," Michael muttered grudgingly.

Straight after breakfast, they took carts up to the airfield where Troy and Nikolila taught them how to tandem skydive. Michael's heart was racing the whole time, his breakfast sitting like a brick in his stomach. Seeing the flimsy aeroplane and the thin silk of the parachutes made it worse. These were the things saving them against the inevitability of gravity? But it was all happening whether he liked it or not and before he could think of a way out, Michael had been dressed in a jumpsuit, strapped into a harness and was sitting on the floor of the rattling aeroplane as it skipped sickeningly into the air.

To make matters worse he was positioned between Troy's legs, literally fastened by way of the harness to his crotch. Terrified and embarrassed, the ultimate combination. His mother was in a similar position in front of Uncle Michael, but she seemed to be enjoying it, a manic smile glued to her face. Amanda, Wayne and Nicole were all qualified skydivers so had the luxury of their own parachute. Between that and the look in his mother's eye, Michael was feeling sheepish and helpless, and the worst was yet to come. Nikolila levelled the plane off and Wayne slid open the door beside Michael.

Oh shit.

He tried to ignore the impending doom by enjoying the view. Just outside the open door were fluffy white clouds, passing close enough to touch. Then he saw it – right there on the closest cloud. The shape, standing up, a figure, like a person made of cloud, darting away through the wisps, so fantastic but also somehow not at all unexpected. Before Michael could stop it, his excitement got the better of him.