Suddenly, three guards were upon me, their hands outstretched. I twisted to avoid their grasp, turned, leaned over the airship’s rail. Still, I would never have given into the impulse for release had it not been for the child in my arms suggesting I throw myself over the side of the ship into a sea of lava hundreds of feet below. It was the ridiculousness of the situation that prompted me. The Universe had truly stunned me this time, and laughing, I leaned back so that I flipped over the rail. For a moment I felt a sense of liberation. The heat of the molten sea caressed me, and the odd sensation of falling, the weightlessness, brought me memories of being in my mother’s arms, long before everything went wrong. Then the child vanished, and I became fully aware of what was happening.
