Freier Fall -

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

In a true free fall, you don’t feel like you’re falling. You feel like you’re being held up by a pillar of invisible air. Elias watched the wreckage of the plane descend half a mile away, a trail of black smoke marking its path. He was alone in the blue, suspended between life and the inevitable earth. Freier Fall

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

Most people fear the fall. But Elias, drifting through the sky at 120 mph, felt a strange, chilling peace. In the fall, there are no taxes, no broken hearts, and no deadlines. There is only the wind and the countdown. You feel like you’re being held up by

Elias drifted down, landing in a soft field of clover. He lay there for a long time, staring up at the empty blue sky, his heart hammering against his ribs. He had survived the fall, but he knew he’d left a piece of himself up there in the clouds—the part that was ever afraid of letting go.

With a roar of effort, he yanked the secondary handle. A snap like a gunshot echoed through his bones as the white silk bloomed above him. The violent jerk nearly knocked him unconscious, but then, the world went quiet again. The screaming wind became a gentle hiss.

He was a "Jump-Master," a man who lived for the adrenaline of the (free fall). But this wasn't a planned jump over the Swiss Alps. This was Flight 174, and the left wing had just vanished into a cloud of orange fire.