Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton was fed up with his expedition. He had already wasted too much time on the first one, only to be attacked by savages. Now about halfway through his second, he had contracted Malaria to the point where he could barely walk. To put it shortly, he was sick of everything. His partner, John Hanning Speke, was faring just as well. He too was ill, but they had no idea what with, other than the fact that he was completely and totally blind. These two explorers and their group of soldiers had traveled inward from Zanzibar, an island near the East coast of Africa. They had encountered almost every hardship that Africa had to offer on their expedition to find the source of the River Nile, and they were so frustrated that they had turned around to leave, but what stopped them was a noise.
The flash of light momentarily blinded Matt, the curiosity that he had felt earlier turned directly to panic. If he had been able to see, it’s likely that he would have gone mad. He was split to the basics of all human life, atoms of different elements: Oxygen, Carbon, Hydrogen, Nitrogen, Calcium, Phosphorus, Potassium, Sulfur, Sodium, Chlorine, and Magnesium. While he was reduced to this form, his molecules were reduced in size and fit in between the spaces between the atoms, the wormholes of the time-space continuum. He flitted over the event horizon, just an idea in a stream of thoughts, speeding through every recorded and off the record event in history before finally arriving where he had unknowingly sent himself.
His atoms snapped back together three miles over a fuzzy patch of blue, the scream that Matt had heard before being snatched away by the sudden wind. The thing was… Matt was falling from 15,840 feet with nothing to save himself. The wind felt like it was pushing up on him, holding him in the cold sky. When his eyes adjusted to the light… Matt wished that they hadn’t. He could clearly see a huge lake surrounded by jungle, but as he turned his head to take in the scenery (as much as he could with his eyes watering anyway) he saw another huge lake to the Northeast. Matt was surprised that in this moment, he was completely calm, suspended above the Earth as he was. It was if he knew that everything would turn out alright, although even the merest possibility of that was absurd. As the lake continued to come into focus, an Easterly wind began to blow slightly, bringing a flock of birds with it straight toward Matt. Several of them collided with him, the stability that he had reached before vanishing like a wisp of smoke. He spun wildly, his arms seeming to tangle with themselves and many of the small birds. He descended incredibly quickly with this loss of stability, and hit the water spinning rapidly, and he experienced a sickening feeling as he bounced...once...twice...three times, before slamming into the trees on the side of the lake with a loud THUNK!, and dropping down to the forest floor below.
When the expedition heard the noise, it terrified them. Three incredibly loud and strange SMACK!!!! noises, then a THUNK! Like a cartoon character being solidly hit on the head with a coconut. However, the thing that startled them most was when a soaking wet, half drowned, but incredibly thirsty, knocked out cold fourteen-year-old dropped straight on top of them. Remarkably enough, he was perfectly fine except for some bruises, scratches, and a grapefruit-sized lump on his head. He came to slowly, the expedition could tell that he was waking because he sat up, moaned, rubbed his head, and laid back down. He gasped for water, and the expedition had plenty, thanks to Matt. After he had fallen from the trees, the Captain of the expedition asked to be carried in that direction. Their soldiers obliged, leading their Captain to take all of the credit for discovering the second-largest freshwater lake in the world. Although the Captain was still very ill, he spoke with Matt, thanking him for helping him find the source of the Nile. Unbeknownst to the Captain, Matt was suffering from a disposition that would later be called Particularly Unknown to Everything, or P.U.K.E.. Basically, everything was so different from where Matt had lived before that he was in a state of shock almost like a coma, but when he wakes up from this “coma” something very disturbing happens. The Captain, who had no idea about this disorder leaned in closer to properly congratulate Matt. Let’s just say that it took the Captain hours to clean the taste of bile from his mouth.
Night fell quickly and unexpectedly, like a sudden storm. Matt was used to the darkness in Arizona, but here, the darkness seemed to have a greater substance, and it almost felt like he were completely blindfolded. Just to test it out, Matt held his hand no more than two inches in front of his face. Nothing changed. Noises came from everywhere, insects chirping at the lake, in the trees, on the ground, and basically everywhere. Occasionally, however, everything would be quiet as death, and it seemed as if the soldiers knew what was happening, because every time that this happened, you would hear the heavy breathing of the men, who at the time clutched their rifles, and looked all around them, as if an attack could come from nowhere and everywhere at once. Which it could. In the silence, Matt could hear the moaning of the explorers, which was worse than the constant ringing in his ears from the insects. Matt got no sleep, the sudden change from Arid to Humid and from simply difficult to incredibly terrifying ensured that Matt did not sleep even for one second. He lived through the pain of the night, and the longing but loss of sleep. It was the worst kind of torture. The expedition had little food, and were reluctant to feed an extra mouth, so Matt laid there in the darkness, consumed by the hunger pangs that sent crushing jolts of pain through his body. Then everything went silent, and the feverish eyes of John Hanning Speke shot open, and he began the painful process of constructing a plan in his feverish mind, driven by anger, rage, and a consuming sense of insecurity. If Matt had fallen from the sky, what else had he seen?
The flash of light momentarily blinded Matt, the curiosity that he had felt earlier turned directly to panic. If he had been able to see, it’s likely that he would have gone mad. He was split to the basics of all human life, atoms of different elements: Oxygen, Carbon, Hydrogen, Nitrogen, Calcium, Phosphorus, Potassium, Sulfur, Sodium, Chlorine, and Magnesium. While he was reduced to this form, his molecules were reduced in size and fit in between the spaces between the atoms, the wormholes of the time-space continuum. He flitted over the event horizon, just an idea in a stream of thoughts, speeding through every recorded and off the record event in history before finally arriving where he had unknowingly sent himself.
His atoms snapped back together three miles over a fuzzy patch of blue, the scream that Matt had heard before being snatched away by the sudden wind. The thing was… Matt was falling from 15,840 feet with nothing to save himself. The wind felt like it was pushing up on him, holding him in the cold sky. When his eyes adjusted to the light… Matt wished that they hadn’t. He could clearly see a huge lake surrounded by jungle, but as he turned his head to take in the scenery (as much as he could with his eyes watering anyway) he saw another huge lake to the Northeast. Matt was surprised that in this moment, he was completely calm, suspended above the Earth as he was. It was if he knew that everything would turn out alright, although even the merest possibility of that was absurd. As the lake continued to come into focus, an Easterly wind began to blow slightly, bringing a flock of birds with it straight toward Matt. Several of them collided with him, the stability that he had reached before vanishing like a wisp of smoke. He spun wildly, his arms seeming to tangle with themselves and many of the small birds. He descended incredibly quickly with this loss of stability, and hit the water spinning rapidly, and he experienced a sickening feeling as he bounced...once...twice...three times, before slamming into the trees on the side of the lake with a loud THUNK!, and dropping down to the forest floor below.
When the expedition heard the noise, it terrified them. Three incredibly loud and strange SMACK!!!! noises, then a THUNK! Like a cartoon character being solidly hit on the head with a coconut. However, the thing that startled them most was when a soaking wet, half drowned, but incredibly thirsty, knocked out cold fourteen-year-old dropped straight on top of them. Remarkably enough, he was perfectly fine except for some bruises, scratches, and a grapefruit-sized lump on his head. He came to slowly, the expedition could tell that he was waking because he sat up, moaned, rubbed his head, and laid back down. He gasped for water, and the expedition had plenty, thanks to Matt. After he had fallen from the trees, the Captain of the expedition asked to be carried in that direction. Their soldiers obliged, leading their Captain to take all of the credit for discovering the second-largest freshwater lake in the world. Although the Captain was still very ill, he spoke with Matt, thanking him for helping him find the source of the Nile. Unbeknownst to the Captain, Matt was suffering from a disposition that would later be called Particularly Unknown to Everything, or P.U.K.E.. Basically, everything was so different from where Matt had lived before that he was in a state of shock almost like a coma, but when he wakes up from this “coma” something very disturbing happens. The Captain, who had no idea about this disorder leaned in closer to properly congratulate Matt. Let’s just say that it took the Captain hours to clean the taste of bile from his mouth.
Night fell quickly and unexpectedly, like a sudden storm. Matt was used to the darkness in Arizona, but here, the darkness seemed to have a greater substance, and it almost felt like he were completely blindfolded. Just to test it out, Matt held his hand no more than two inches in front of his face. Nothing changed. Noises came from everywhere, insects chirping at the lake, in the trees, on the ground, and basically everywhere. Occasionally, however, everything would be quiet as death, and it seemed as if the soldiers knew what was happening, because every time that this happened, you would hear the heavy breathing of the men, who at the time clutched their rifles, and looked all around them, as if an attack could come from nowhere and everywhere at once. Which it could. In the silence, Matt could hear the moaning of the explorers, which was worse than the constant ringing in his ears from the insects. Matt got no sleep, the sudden change from Arid to Humid and from simply difficult to incredibly terrifying ensured that Matt did not sleep even for one second. He lived through the pain of the night, and the longing but loss of sleep. It was the worst kind of torture. The expedition had little food, and were reluctant to feed an extra mouth, so Matt laid there in the darkness, consumed by the hunger pangs that sent crushing jolts of pain through his body. Then everything went silent, and the feverish eyes of John Hanning Speke shot open, and he began the painful process of constructing a plan in his feverish mind, driven by anger, rage, and a consuming sense of insecurity. If Matt had fallen from the sky, what else had he seen?