The basket lay in pieces. Somehow the snapped ropes were still alive on the metal loops of the tarnished, destroyed blimp he'd came down in. His first honest-to-gods thought was, “Did I die?” He hadn't. Each one of his thoughts worked the gruesome pain in all portions of his body. He realized his situation in barely grasped partials. The grays in his eyes indicating again what he hoped wouldn’t be there. Slow blinks of his eyes synced with the nerves in his body coming back to haunt him as violent poltergeists. He had a nice fall. His ears had succumbed to the ringing of the gun as it went off upon hitting the ground. The bullet nearly scraped his head, that should've been spilt wide open on impact. He really should have died from that height, but he had sustained only as much injury as they wanted, because they wanted him alive.