You ignored your gut instinct not to jump out of a perfectly good airplane for recreation. Now that you have pulled the ripcord a sixth time, you are finally willing to accept that your chute will not deploy and that your situation is inescapable. Acceptance triggers a cascade of endorphins to flood through your body and you are overtaken by a stillness radiating from the center of your forehead.
Time takes on a viscous, syrupy quality. The rapidly approaching target that is filling more and more of your field of vision rather abruptly slows to a crawl. The dawning realization on the spectators’ faces seem to melt into horrified expressions.
You wonder if time will continue on in slow motion, meaning that your death will be excruciatingly drawn out or if it will happen so quickly that you won’t even realize it. You hope for the latter as you are now able to see individual blades of grass within the bullseye’s alternating rings of white and red, the screams of those assembled outside of the target growing louder.
But just as dread begins to creep in from the periphery of your awareness, just before you squeeze your eyes shut, the ground resumes its rapid approach.
You smile broadly with relief, swearing that if you somehow manage to survive this, you will never ignore your gut feelings again.
Then, your consciousness is swallowed by impenetrable blackness.