For one surreal and slightly terrifying second, we’re completely upside down at the very top of the loop. It’s absurdreally, that man has created this thing that lets us experience a feeling we probably never should be able to, at least not in this capacity.
I force my eyes open to take in the sights below, but only see blurs, so I close them again and just feel.
It’s overwhelming to take it all in. To experience everything in that moment. The stomach floating sensation, the weightlessness, the hard metal against my back where my shirt’s ridden up, the breeze hitting my mouth, making it dry.
Beyond that, there’s this freedom. The knowledge that right now I’m suspended between the earth and sky…suspended between who I should be and who I am. Hell, I can’t even see clearly, literally and figuratively and that’s so fucking ironic, I’d laugh if I could.
But I can’t, so I just let go, let this moment of total surrender take the wheel and drive off the highway onto the back roads. I know it won’t last long, but maybe later, if I close my eyes, I can come back here, to this place where everything is out of my control and I can just be.
Crack.
The sound is like a gunshot if it were amplified one hundred times. It’s so jarring that I feel it in my teeth, in my spine, in my ribcage. I wrench my eyes open as the train shudders and jerks sideways fast enough that something pulls in my neck.
White spots dance in my field of vision. I can’t see. Can’t focus.
But the sounds. Screaming.People are screaming, and some distant part of my brain registers that it sounds different than before. It sounds wrong, but I can’t process why because we’re still upside down and my hands are going numb and Knox is saying something I can’t hear over the sound of metal shrieking.
The train lurches again, harder this time, a violent shudder that travels through the entire structure and into my body untilI can feel it in my organs. I blink a few times before my vision clears.
I almost wish it didn’t as I look straight down at the asphalt below.
Shit. Oh my God.
Then a woman in the front of our train pulls my focus. She’s maybe in her mid-thirties and she’s clawing at her restraint, screaming the same thing again and again. What is she saying? Over the metal grinding, the wind roaring, and my heart hammering, I can’t make it out.
Her hands are frantic, her screams are visceral, and I finally see why. Her restraint is failing. It’s lifting inch by inch in jerking motions while she claws at it to stay as much as she’s able to. We’re completely upside down and her restraint is failing and the only thing keeping her in that seat is getting looser with every second.
“Knox,” I manage to choke out, but I don’t know if he hears me because the metal is still making this piercing squeal like the whole structure is being torn apart from the inside.
“I see it,” he says against my ear. He sounds like he’s forcing words through a closed throat. “Sawyer, don’t look.”
But I can’t stop looking. As much as I want to, I can’t tear my eyes away from row one as the track holding them starts to bow. It’s so slow, or maybe that’s just my mind in some kind of terrible coping mechanism. It warps like it’s melting. Jesus Christ, this is not good. This isn’t normal. This is?—
The train starts to drop.
All at once, the two rows ahead of us disconnect and seem to slide along the warped metal. The woman’s restraint releases completely. It pops up and away from her chest, and she’s grabbing for anything…the sides of the car, the person next to her, empty air, and I can see their faces, every single one of them, their mouths open in screams I can hear with complete clarity.
It’s three seconds. Maybe four. But the way they slide along that failing track feels like forever. Sparks fly where metal scrapes against metal, and some of them are being thrown from their seats as more restraints give way. Bodies tumble through the air, and then the connection breaks completely and their part of the train is just...gone.
Falling.
I watch hands reach for nothing but air. Eyes wide in fear, mouths gaping. Pieces of track tumble past them, one of them knocking into a man mid-air.
My brain can’t process this. No. This isn’t happening. People aren’t supposed to fall from roller coasters. No. No. No.
I close my eyes again, not wanting to see them hit the ground. I can’t. Those people…they’re just gone.
There’s wailing coming from below now. From all the people who just watched unimaginable death.
“Oh God. Oh God, oh God, oh God—” Someone behind us repeats, over and over like a prayer.
Our section of train wrenches violently again and I’m slammed forward against the restraint hard enough that the air punches out of my lungs. The padded bar digs into my shoulders and chest with so much force, I think it might break something. This is it. We’re about to die. We’re next.
But then there’s another massive grinding sound and we lurch to a stop so abruptly, the contents of my stomach threaten to come out.
I can’t breathe. It’s crushing my shoulders and collarbone, pressing down with so much force I genuinely think something cracked, and I’m trying to pull in air but nothing’s working. My lungs won’t expand.
I don’t want to die.
