Pilot Of The Skies Part 1 The world around me was still. Too still. Not a movement, not a sound. In a way I found this peaceful and calm, but I knew this was wrong. When was anywhere on Earth ever like this? The ground which I lay up on was soft and warm, but also grainy and uncomfortable. What was it? Sand? I suspected so. It had been ages since I had felt the soft, summery touch of the sand - but I had seen plenty of it. Mounds and mounds of it flying over continental deserts in military jets. But why was I lying on the sand instead of soaring above it? Evidence came easily to me. I lifted my head and peered behind me. What I saw horrified me. Something had happened which I had never thought would happen. Sonething which I couldn't stand to believe. Flaming in a heap of remains on the sand was the Tornado. My beautifully crafted and engineered plane which only moments earlier I had to had been flying. But not only was I hit with the burning wreckage of the beautiful Tornado, I was also hit badly with something I had only just considered. How was I still alive? How wasn't I badly injured? There was no cut or bruise on my body to say what had happened. No pain or ache anywhere on my body to prove my crash. How was this possible? I hoped against all hope that it was my imagination. Just a bad dream. But that's all I had in the end: hope. Hope was the key to everything - as long as you hoped everything else came relatively easy. But easy was not working right now. Panicked, my mind raced. It was searching for an answer, a key. But nothing is what it found. The want to scream was overwhelming. My insides wanted to bust, my brain wanted to escape and run somewhere else. Just a bad dream. Why couldn't I wake up? I was stuck. The world was spinning. Just a bad dream. It wasn't though! It wasn't! It couldn't be! Why dis this have to happen to me? Why wasn't I waking up? Internally I was battling against myself. Trying to wake up, trying to ignore the present situation. None of this was helping. I was a trained fast jet pilot. I was supposed to remain calm in tricky situations like this. But why couldn't I now? It might be because I was silently mourning the loss of the wonderful Typhoon. It might be because I was worried about how I wasn't injured or dead. It might be... no, that was a stupid idea. Now my hopeful imagination was getting the better of me. But it could be true... but it wouldn't be. That's all fantasy rubbish, isn't it? How could I be a ghost? Ghosts don't exhist. Pushing all fantasy thoughts out my head, I slowly clambered to my feet. I thought I had already had the worst shock today. But I was wrong. I was always wrong, wasn't I? What I saw next hit me like a fist. It shook my head about and dizzied me. It curled my insides and made me feel sick. In short, my little hope had been shattered into a thousand pieces.