I entered a writing contest. This is my entry. I was given genre: action/adventure, and subject: hot air balloon.

ALL DOWNHILL FROM HERE

In your mind’s eye, you see yourself flung into a corner of a room, a rag doll tossed aside by a resentful child. Your neck is cramping in this position and several toes are asleep. You become aware of a pain like a hot knife in your shoulder and realize you are sitting on your right arm. With your left arm, you push away from the wall enough to free it.

Taking mental stock, you venture to move each extremity one by one. Everything seems to be in working order, even if it is screaming in agony. The movement has shifted you into a more human alignment, and you take a moment to breathe, filling and emptying your lungs thoroughly several times.

You open your eyes slowly to see you are lying in the bottom of what seems like a giant picnic basket. You wonder if you are somebody’s lunch. As the fog lifts from your mind, it becomes clear that you are actually toast.

There are frantic voices in the far distance. At this moment you don’t remember how you came to be in this predicament. However, you know those voices are searching for you, and they are not friendly. As if in a thunderstorm, you time their outbursts to try to calculate how far away they must be.

There is an eerie, green glow caused by the nylon ripstop draped overhead. In this light, you make an assessment of your surroundings before shifting your weight to try standing. The whole room shifts with you, and you hear the rustle of leaves just beyond. Carefully, you aright yourself, your head and shoulders colliding with the ripstop above. Apparently, you managed to turn off the burners prior to your descent, as there is no evidence of fire damage to be seen.

You pause, listening again to the voices, closer now, but by how much? How fast are they moving toward you, and how much time will it take you to get to the ground? They know exactly where I landed.

Gingerly, you lift the envelope away and look over the edge of the basket. There is no clear path down, but it doesn’t look to be very far. You contemplate just taking a leap, and instead take a step back. There are various items strewn about you, and you look for weapons, or anything that could be used as such. You slide a fire axe under your belt and a large knife into a pocket. You deem the propane tanks too cumbersome since you can’t find a back pack anywhere.

Once again, you are looking over the edge, and you begin your exit. You attempt to channel an inner dolphin to calculate the approach of your foes. You believe you have a good idea how much time you have, and you are only slightly discouraged.

You make your way out of the gondola and into the surrounding tree branches with only one or two close calls. At times you can’t hear the voices over the thud of your heartbeat. When you do, you can hear how much closer they are. You pick your way down, pausing here and there to wipe the sweat out of your eyes with your shirt sleeve.

You make it to the lowest branch and suspend yourself by your arms. You close your eyes, whispering something, anything, to give yourself strength. Along with the voices, you can now hear the forest giving way to the interlopers. This knowledge spurs you to action, or inaction as it were, for you let go of your perch and drop to the ground.

The snow is not as deep as it had seemed from the treetop and a just-covered rock causes your ankle to turn. You suck in some air to offset the pain. Reaching for the axe, you scan the foliage. A small branch looks like it could support you, and you hack at it with little progress. A stone rolls by and you are not sure if it was you or your pursuers who knocked it loose. They’re going to kill me, and I’m wasting time trying to make a walking stick. Tucking the axe away, you propel yourself in a downhill direction. Now you’re channeling your inner rabbit, pushing off from logs and small boulders in a determined burst of speed.

Despite your efforts, above the din of your ragged breathing, you can hear them closing in on you. You abandon the zig zag of the hare for a mono-directional cheetah sprint. You are blinded by necessity. The whips of branches on your face, arms, torso, don’t affect you, but one false step fells you.

You begin a series of somersaults; instinctively your arms move to cradle your head. At some point you feel the axe abandon you. There is wetness somewhere, everywhere? In the chaos it’s difficult to differentiate between snow melt, sweat, and—possibly—blood.

You feel yourself slow and reach out an arm to bring yourself to a stop. Your eyes won’t focus, partly from the spinning, partly from various impacts, but you try to stand nonetheless. You’re on your feet, and your heart pounds something fierce. Nausea floods your body, and your head feels as if it has doubled in size.

Your torso bobs left, then right, pitches forward, your feet all the while making vain attempts to stay under you. You catch yourself with your hands a couple times. You feel you’ve finally righted yourself fully, but your left foot steps rearward and finds only air. Your balance not fully regained, you have no choice but to follow.

The cliff is shear, so it is for the most part a free fall. You feel weightless, tossed again by that impetuous child. I suppose I must deserve this. It is probably your head that hits first, the back of your skull shattering instantly. Each limb acts independently, falling and refracting with the ragged river rocks. It seems whole moments pass before there is stillness, but then you are finally at rest. Now there is only the trickle of blood joining the larger cacophony of flowing water.