#Chapter 57 - Crash Landing

Ethan Jane is huddled in one corner of the basket as we plummet towards the ground, her eyes clamped tightly shut as she holds on for dear life. At a certain point I had to cut the propane off completely, the storm arrived too fast, and a gradual fall was too risky. Now we’re being batted around like a ping-pong ball trapped in some macabre game played by the gods of thunder and lightning, and it’s only getting worse. When the nylon balloon tears, true fear slices through me for the first time. Up until then I was worried but optimistic: as long as the balloon was intact and we stayed in the basket, eventually we’d have to land. However one of those factors just got shredded, and the other was about to go right out the window with it. Still, I had to take the risk – for Jane’s sake if not my own. Wrapping one of the dangling ballast ropes around my wrist, I begin climbing onto the edge of the basket, edging around to the side of the balloon that tore. Just then a terrified but