Valour

Chapter 1- Falling

DAY 1

I'm the last one on the plane.

There's only two minutes left until the plane passes the boundaries of the Arena, and if that happens the game will kill me. I stand at the edge of the open hangar of the plane motionless, the rush of air watering my eyes and my dark brown hair whips mercilessly across my face. I crane my neck down and make out the tiny specs of buildings littering the rocky terrain and then past that is the mountains where the boundary ends. It's like I'm a bird looking down at the world as I'm flying. If that bird was deafeningly loud. I tentatively rub my right wrist, where the tracker device embedded there is still sore from the incision. I need to jump off the plane right now.

One minute.

"It's now or never Sky, come on, you can do it," I say to myself but the words are drowned out by the military plane's deafening engines. "It's not like I've only jumped off a plane only once in my life." Instinctively, I rub the side of my neck. I checked the map before being strapped into the flying hunk of metal and the section of the map that lies below me is the Industrial Section. It's the last area of the map that the plane will fly over. Before I can lose my nerve, I take a running leap and vault off the edge.

For a moment between time, I'm floating, and then my stomach plummets. The rest of my body falls after and I'm screaming. I slam shut my eyes and the rush of air batters against me as I fall. I tilt forwards so my stomach is facing the earth to slow my acceleration and I slowly open my eyes by squinting. Oh. Now that's a view.

The breathtaking mountains in the background are glinting in the morning sun and as I slowly spin towards the other way, I see the rest of the Arena laid out before me, past the city and all the way to the coastline. But there's no time to stare at the scenery, there's a game I have to play. I look down at the ever rising ground coming to greet me.

I need to land somewhere. But before I can decide on which building I should gracelessly fall on top of, something whizzes past my left ear. I swivel quickly towards the source of the flying projectile and for the first time I notice I'm not the only one parachuting to the Industrial Section. There seems to be two squad groups (which consists of four people) and another solo player like me. The figure above my right tries shooting at me again, but skydiving and shooting someone at the same time seems to be beyond that guy's abilities.

"Oh come on." I groan, and my heart's racing too fast to feel anything but adrenaline. I quickly pull the handle on my parachute and I'm shot upwards. My neck snaps up violently. I look down past my dangling legs and see the figure who shot me before falling below. He quits his attempt while plunging downwards like dead weight. Now that my fall has decreased and I can think a little more clearer, I scan below and spot the concrete roof of a warehouse building on the edge of the scraggly town, beside the cliff and what seems to be a dam. The dam itself is large and spans the cliff. I can make out the water rushing past the dam, and it almost looks like a tiny trickle of a stream than a river. Looks like the dam is functional.

Perfect. I can easily hide out there without having to worry about someone ambushing me from behind. I direct my parachute towards the large building. Before I'm able to move downwards, that man who was shooting dumbly at me before, along with the rest of his squad, deftly lands there.

"Shoot me now!" I yell into the air. I'm running out of air space fast, and I can make out the smaller details of the road now.

I need a place to land. I veer towards my left hoping to steer away from the people on top of the roof who are most definitely going to kill me. Too fast. I fly past buildings as they steadily come nearer and the wind is obstructing my vision. I can't die like this, as one building finally comes into view, I don't think about anything and fall.