Who: Dan and Liv What: Skydiving (well, Dan skydives, Liv kind of just plummets) When: Late June Where: Local Rating/Warnings Medium for breaking bones and zombie stuff Status: Complete!
Things with Dan had been good lately. Really good. Not just with the living together either. This new brain she was on. Dan seemed to be loving it, and up for any and every adventure Liv was up for. They had already been zip lining, bungee jumping, and parasailing. And now they were going to jump out of a plane! Liv could hardly contain her excitement. Or her nerves. The closer it got to the jump the more nervous Liv got. The real parts of her seeping in. But it wasn’t enough to out weigh her excitement. They were thousands of feet in the air now. No turning back.
Liv gave Dan’s hand a little squeeze. “You ready for this?” she asked with an eager smile on her face.
Dan was an adrenaline junkie. He lived for this kind of thing and since retiring from other job, Dan had been jonesing for this type of rush and he was ecstatic that he now had the opportunity to share it with Liv.
The two of them were inching their way towards the front of the plane, where the skydiving instructor was motioning people to make their jumps. It was a relatively small crowd that morning, the perfect size as far as Dan was concerned. He’d been skydiving a few times before. He was no expert, but he certainly knew what to expect. The closer they got to the door, the more excited he became, just itching for that special sort of rush these kinds of stunts gave him.
He felt Liv’s hand squeeze his and he looked at her. “I’m ready,” he nodded and leaned over to give her a kiss. “How about you? You still want to do this?”
Liv returned the kiss smiling into it. “Hell yeah I still want to do this!” she replied confidently, even though part of her was a bundle of nerves.
There were only two people left in front of them. It was almost time for Dan and Liv to jump! “How many times have you done this before?” Liv asked needing the reminder that it would indeed be okay. There was nothing to be nervous about. She was a zombie for crying out loud.
Dan wouldn’t have been surprised if Liv hadn’t been at least a little bit nervous. Truth be told, the first time he’d ever jumped out of a plane, he’d been nervous too. But that was part of the excitement. Part of the fun.
The two of them shuffled closer to the door. There was only one couple ahead of them now. “I’ve done this three times before,” he told her. “Each times always different,” he said. “Different plan, different drop site. But it’s always fun.”
The couple ahead of them made their jump and the instructor was now waving Dan and Liv up. Dan gave Live an excited smile. “It’s our turn, darlin’!”
Liv gave Dan’s hand one last squeeze before jumping out of the plane. The second she did it was an out of body experience. Probably because she was having a vision.
”Our next jump is going to be epic!” Some brown haired guy said to ‘her.’
“Hell yeah! 20 thousand feet!” Liv heard herself reply only not in her own voice.
“Isn’t that too high?” Another guy replied looking nervous.
“Nah we’ll be fine!” The first guy said.
If there was more to her vision it was cut short. By Liv hitting the ground. She could feel her bones breaking. It felt as though her chest had collapsed. And then she was in full on zombie mode.
This wasn’t the type of excitement Dan had been looking for. Liv had jumped just second before he had. At first the exhilaration of free fall completely took over his senses. This was as close to flying as man was ever going to get and there was a sense of freedom to it. Freedom laced with a hint of danger at the back of the mind. That’s what got the heart pounding and the right amount of adrenaline pumping through the veins. It was a kind of high that Dan had always lived for.
It took a few moments for him to look for Liv so they could share the experience together and when he did see her he knew instantly something was wrong. Without thinking he tried to call out to her, but his voice was snatched out of his throat. He tried getting to her, pinning his arms to his sides to catch up and then waving frantically as though swimming in the air to get closer.
“Open your shoot!”
Dan glanced up and saw the instructor hovering above him. He and Liv had been the last couple to jump from the plane, which was now hopelessly becoming smaller and smaller above them.
“My girlfriend!” Dan shouted back. The wind whipping by his face made his voice barely inaudible to his own ears. “There’s something wrong!”
If the instructor heard him, he didn’t say anything. Instead he caught up to Dan and forced his shoot to deploy. All that freedom and sensation of flying was halted when the parachute opened and caught wind, slowing Dan’s descent to a harmless meander. All he could do was helplessly watch Liv as she plummeted to the ground.
To his credit the jump instructor tried to get to her first, but as the ground got closer he was also forced to deploy his parachute otherwise risk being smashed on the target as well. A few second later, Liv had crashed to the ground. Even though he knew Liv was nigh unkillable, the sight made him sick anyway.
”Liv!”
He was still several dozen feet in the air, but that no longer mattered. Without a moment’s hesitation, Dan released himself from his parachute harness and fell the rest of the way to the ground. Life as a police officer and then as a hired gun had taught Dan how to take a fall. When his feet hit soil, he tucked and rolled to absorb as much of the impact as possible, though from that height it was impossible to absorb all of it. His ankle twisted and his shoulder crunched, but there was way too much adrenaline and panic in his blood now to notice.
He ran to where Liv was laying on the ground, sliding on his knees at her side. “Liv!” He reached out for her. “Can you hear me?”
Liv looked at Dan, eyes red, veins pronounced on her face. She grunted in response to his question, slowly standing up as her bones popped back in to place. Once she was healed enough she ran off, not wanting anyone to see her like this. Even in her state, she knew other humans couldn’t see what she was. Not anyone that wasn’t Dan at least.
The sound of bones crunching and popping back to where they should be sent a cold chill through Dan’s body. Bones should never sound like that. But at least she was ok -- that is until Dan got a good look at her face and eyes. He had only seen her full on zombie once before, but it was a look he would never forget. Just as he had before, Dan could only a stare a moment and in that moment Liv had taken off, making a line for cover and out of sight.
It took half a second for Dan to recover his senses. He glanced over his shoulder and saw the jump instructor, along with a couple of the other divers, running towards him. Just like Liv, Dan knew no one could see her in the state she was in. Much less that she was up and moving around when she should have a shattered body. It could have been considered a freak thing -- the kinds of things you hear about on the internet, but Dan didn’t want to chance it. So long as Liv stayed out of sight the whole thing would eventually pass out of their memories much like all the other weird things that happened in Orange County on a routine basis.
Before anyone could arrive at the landing site, Dan had taken off after Liv. They’d stay hidden while he talked her down and hopefully everyone else would just forget about them.
It didn’t take long for Liv to return to herself. Dan’s presence was calming. “I had a vision,” Liv finally said keeping her voice low so no one would find them. “And then I was on the ground.” She knew Dan was probably waiting for an explanation. And honestly, he deserved one.
But they had bigger problems at the moment. “What are we going to do?” she asked suddenly sounding worried, scared even. “They are going to notice we are missing.” “They might,” Dan said. “But I’ve noticed something when it comes to the Dream Weirdness. Unless it’s all up in their faces, most people tend t’ forget about seeing something ‘weird’ pretty quick. I think that’s how the county’s able to keep from spiraling down into anarchy. I also think that’s how the cover-ups go pretty much unquestioned. I think….I think if we wait a little bit an’ then join back up with the group we can tell’em something like...I dunno...your chute opened late, or ye had a rough landin’, and they’ll probably believe it.”
But that really was the least of Dan’s concerns at the moment. He was more worried about the vision Liv’d had. The visions were important with a capital I, they were the driving reason why Liv still ate actual brains and why Dan was perfectly ok with that. “What didja see, Darlin’?” He asked her.
“Okay,” Liv nodded. Dan’s explanation made sense. Not to mention just being around Dan made her feel better. Safe. They could handle this. It would be okay. They had been through a lot worse after all. This was nothing.
As for her vision. “Jason was skydiving.” The victim. “With some of his friends. Or maybe they weren’t his friends. It was two other guys and one didn’t think it was safe.” That was the basics of it. “Then I hit the ground and the vision ended.”
Dan frowned slightly. It almost sounded as though the guy had died while skydiving. Had he been murdered, Dan wondered. It was possible. Stranger things had happened, after all. He pretty much figured this would be the last skydiving adventure for the two of them. For a while at least. “Alright, Darlin’,” he said gently and then pulled her closer to him for an embrace. He was just thankful she was alright and back to herself. The vision would be worth looking into -- especially the part about one of them not thinking it was safe -- once they were back home and had put this particularly eventful day behind them. “How’re you feeling? You alright?”
“I’m okay,” Liv assured him. What happened had been pretty rattling. But she was okay. She couldn’t die after all. Well unless she was shot in the head. “I’m sorry I ruined skydiving.” She knew how excited Dan had been about it. How much he was loving this brain. Hopefully once it ran out she could still keep the desire to go on adventures with her boyfriend.
Even though the fall would never have killed her, Dan would still be haunted by the image of Liv slamming into the ground at practically terminal velocity for a while. He shook his head. “Ye didn’t ruin it,” he said. “It may be a while before I go jumpin’ out of any planes, but--” he shrugged, “--there are plenty of other death defying feats I can do to get the blood pumping.” He cast a glance in the direction the two of them had come. It didn’t appear as though anyone from their group had tried following them. “You up to rejoining the others?” He smirked a little devilishly, “or should we hide out in the woods a little longer?”
Liv frowned slightly. She didn’t want to be the reason Dan took a break from jumping out of planes. Not that she was a fan of her boyfriend jumping out of planes on a regular basis. But still, she knew it was a part of him. She wanted him to be happy. “I hope so,” Liv replied. “I know how much you love the rush,” she added. A smirk of her own formed at Dan’s last question. “Well, we could always stay in the woods… I know another way to get your blood pumping.”