Yeah... it happened again.

His mind drifted for several moments as he slowly shrugged off the darkness of unconsciousness and opened his eyes. For a few dim moments, he saw nothing. Then he could see water all around him, so he had to conclude he had somehow gotten underwater. He glanced about to orient himself and try to figure out where he was, which didn't help very much. He noticed he had a lot of singed fur on his front which was slowly regrowing back to normal.

"Great - I must have gotten blown up again." he thought to himself. Then he blew out a little bit of breath to figure out which way was up, and slowly followed the bubbles up.

When his head finally broke the surface, he looked around. From where he was, he could see that he was some distance from the shore of a large lake, with a thundering waterfall. He swam toward the shore, trying to recall anything that happened previously, as he usually did when he found himself in this kind of situation.

He recalled a few flashes of memories: Bouncing around in a starbug then jumping out of wreckage of starbug into mid air. And in free fall for a great distance.

"Hmm, maybe that explains the explosion. Probably got shot down in the starbug, and I landed in the water..." He thought as he dragged himself out of the water and slowly staggered onto the shoreline.

He got another flash of memory, a painful impact into the trees then walking in the jungle.

"Alright, didn't land in the lake then." He concluded as he shook himself to get the remaining water off.

He then recalled Cass's mission briefing about returning to Fernando's to rescue Plisken and involuntarily let out a string of obscenities that probably would've slayed a whole contingent of sailors and maybe even Phil.

"Oh boy. I got to figure out if everyone else is okay." He thought to himself as he glanced around at the deserted shoreline a little ruefully, "But first, I got find ... well, anybody since I dunno who came along yet."

Then he caught the scent of hot metal in air.

"Well, that's as a good a start as any, I guess." He surmised, then slowly walked off into the jungle following the scent trail.

{To be Continued}

OOC: Extremely sorry about not posting for so long! RL has taken precedence causing me an awful lot of problems these last couple of months - having gotten into two car accidents causing some back problems, getting diagnosed with a very fast developing cataract in my right eye (and to a lessor extent my left eye), which I've been working to schedule surgery with my health insurance before it prevents me from seeing a damn thing anymore. Amongst much drama from the wife & friends over gaming, Larping & other mundane things which has sort of piled on like a herd of geese.

- WW