First Cause • Spider-Man: Homecoming [Unedited]

07

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The sounds of the roaring winds attacking her exposed ears frightens Gadea more than the knowledge that she is currently freefalling from the sky to her death. That may be due to the contributing factor that this poorly utilized parachute only inhibits her sight and not her hearing. What meets her eyes when she pries them open is rotating hazy images of a brightly lit, fast approaching city, and the milky white cloth of the parachute; beginning to resemble a provisional casket the longer she remains trapped in it.

A casket for two.

A panicked swatting from the one other person in this open casket isn't registered completely, if at all. She scarcely has and maintains the presence of mind to know what staying in the billowing folds of this sheet anchor will mean in less than a few seconds. A swipe to the face with an arm and a bump to the kidney from a rogue knee won't mean much soon. Very soon.

And then there's the screaming. It might be coming from him, from her. From them both. A cacophony of wails from two petrified children.

Along with the winds and the screams, her thumping heartbeat fills Gadea's inner ear. Thump. A corner of the parachute gets sucked into her open, shrieking mouth and sticks to her upper row of teeth like popped bubblegum. Thump. Trembling, quivering fingers pry the corner from cold lips with an angry yank that reveals more ink blue sky. Thump. The corner is truly the hem of the parachute. This yank, fed with the gasoline of a fear-stained fury, a tug that frees Gadea from the entwinement of the thick garment.

She's free and she's falling.

The swirling top of the river spreads its arms wide and large, as if it means to embrace her until the breath is plucked from her lungs in bubbles rushing to find their own freedom at the surface. If something means to be stolen tonight, it might in fact be her life.

Turning to face the water with her back like a good coward, Gadea lets her flailing arms and legs lose their tension and relax, as this might reduce the risk of broken bones. Though, she won't know if there is any truth to be had in this theory until it is too late. And so it is.

Splash! Crash! Thrash!

The sounds one's body makes at the time of connection with a body of water, especially from a substantial height, is almost always subdued by the water itself. Instead it is the flurry of bubbles, pockets of air that accompany the fall, that coagulate against the ears and fill them with the music of an approaching danger.

As with falling through the air, her eyesight is useless down in the depths of the river. But she can hear fine. Hear the fluid run hungrily into the crevices of her face, her mouth, nostrils, open unseeing eyes. Her the bubbles of breath encasing snippets of hollers flee her, rolling over her face and melting into the darkness.

Her sense of direction is askew. Ahead of her, somewhere off to her right-or left. Or up, or down, or nowhere-she faintly hears the watery sounds of another body plummet into the water. And stay in the water.