Chapter 2: Mysterious Clouds

Waking up to a horrible pain, Lindiwe finds herself endlessly falling in the middle of nowhere. She can't tell which way is east or west, but she is certainly falling. If she is in space, she expects to be floating like a paper bag with no gravity, but everything seems different from how the books explained space and the concept of gravity.

She was expecting the space to be a dark place with a lot of floating rocks, but where she is right now, it has an illuminated atmosphere even in the absence of the sun.

"Am I still alive? Where am I? Where's everyone? How long have I been out for? How long have I been falling?" With an exhausted voice, Lindiwe spoke inside her breathing space suit as she looked around the atmosphere.

"Ouch!"

Lindiwe felt unbearable pain all over her fragile body. She felt like her limbs were being tortured with a grinder, and her entire body felt like being bitten and consumed by tiny ants.

"My... my arm. My leg... my leg is gone! I became amputated!" With a panicky tone, Lindiwe bellowed with fear when she realised that her limbs were missing and her body was almost burnt.

Her entire left arm is missing, and half of her right leg is chopped off. Her right leg is missing from the knee below. She has become a cripple.

It is a miracle that she is still alive. Half of her breathing space suit is charred from the waist below to the legs, but fortunately, the small oxygen-generating tanks on her back are still left untouched by the fire. Even after that terrifying earth explosion, the tanks are still undamaged.

She is very lucky to have survived the earth's explosion, and her ruined breathing space suit can still supply her with oxygen. Or she might not have been alive to this point. But unfortunately, the machines that help the space suit fly are damaged.

"Brother… Mom…" Afraid of the unknown, Lindiwe called out with fear, and she still couldn't figure out the situation she was in right now, as she was still falling into the void.

Beep!

Hearing the warning beep sound from her breathing space suit, Lindiwe's eyes widened with fear as she knew what the sound meant.

The breathing space suit is about to run out of oxygen.

"So, I am still going to die after all, even after surviving that impossible situation. Where am I? How did I survive? How long am I going to keep falling? Is my corpse going to fall for eternity?"

As she kept falling, Lindiwe noticed that she could feel a slight cold wind on the part of her exposed foot that was not crippled. Doesn't this mean that she could still breathe without her suit if there's a light wind in the space?

Her space suit is running out of oxygen, and by any second, she will choke and suffocate from the breathing space suit that is covering her entire head.

With her right dominant arm, which is her only available arm, Lindiwe struggled to take off the hood part of the space suit, and she succeeded. This was the worst decision she ever made in her entire life because the moment she took off the space suit from her head, she could no longer breathe. She began to suffocate from the lack of oxygen in a matter of seconds.

With her eyes wide open, she suffocated like a child being choked by space cookies. Her lungs forced her to cough, but there was no air to exhale from within. She was dying.

'After all, this is how my life ends.' Lindiwe thought this was her final thought before her consciousness faded away. But suddenly, in her fall, she bumped into a soft, wet sponge.

Lindiwe thought she was experiencing weird things in her final moment, but when her face fell on the creamy white sponge, she could feel air infiltrating her nostrils.

Gasp!

With a long, loud gasp, Lindiwe breathed in the oxygen from the strange sponge, and her violently beating heart relaxed as vitality slowly returned to her body.

'Miracle, this is a miracle. How can a sponge in the middle of nowhere provide oxygen?' Lindiwe thought as her exhausted body revitalised.

Lindiwe lifted her head to see if she could still breathe with her face away from the weird sponge, and she found out that she could breathe for a while before she ran out of oxygen again. She came to the realisation that the weird sponge can magically provide oxygen for a few seconds when her face is away from it.

With her only available right hand, she picked up a handful of sponges. The sponge is moist and soft, like a cake. Putting the sponge in her nose, she could breathe again.

"What is this weird sponge-like thing? Am I hallucinating before my death?" Speaking for the first time without her breathing space hood, Lindiwe was shocked by the sponge.

Lindiwe looked carefully to know exactly what she fell on, and she was shocked by the beauty of the sponge she fell on. It is like a white, glowing cloud the size of a car, and it has golden spots that radiate with beauty.

"Is this... a cloud?" Lindiwe was amused and shocked by the cloud before her eyes. In her knowledge, a cloud is supposed to be a smoke-like mist, but this beautiful cloud is solid like a sponge, and she could not fall through it.

The cloud is small—about the size of a car—and it is the only cloud in her surroundings. Lindiwe could not believe this was real, as she is an educated person who does not believe in miracles. Today, her entire belief system and her knowledge are turned around as she is experiencing an unexplainable miracle for the first time.

Lindiwe was lost in her thoughts for a long time, and she did not realise that the cloud was emitting a weird sound like music. The sound was slightly audible, and one could not hear it if they could slightly block their ears. It looks to her like the cloud could be a living creature.

"What is happening? What is going on? Is this a dream?" Smelling a cloud on her nose, Lindiwe could not believe this could be a dream, as her awareness was fully awakened and her rationality and consciousness were fully present in the scene.

The white cloud on her nose smelled like fresh milk and cheese, and with that enticing smell, she could feel her stomach growling from terrible hunger.

Removing a piece of the cloud from her nose, Lindiwe ate it. "It does taste like milk and cheese. This is food."

Looking where she picked the piece of a cloud from the whole, the part where she picked the cloud grew back. It looks like the cloud regenerates itself.

"Hahaha! This is truly a miracle. There's no way! There's no way!" Lindiwe bellowed with excitement to experience such a miracle first-hand.

"This cloud is filled with oxygen, milk-like food, and perfect humidity, as it provides the moisture that quenches the thirst within. On top of that, it regenerates itself where it is picked. This cloud is magical; it provides a living condition for a human. I could survive on top of it for a long time."

"How is this possible? I can breathe for a long time after consuming it without placing it on my nose now. How miraculous!"

Lindiwe was out of words about this miraculous event; it looked like the universe was against her death. She has been provided with a cloud in the middle of nowhere that can sustain her life. With just one bite, the cloud quenched her hunger and thirst, and it provided oxygen that lasted for a long time.

"I wonder what that gold spot tastes like." Without caring about her disability and the pain, she stretched her hand to pick up the gold spot on the moist sponge-like cloud.

Without hesitation, she grabbed a bite and felt the solid sponge melt on her tongue.

"Yummy! It tastes like vanilla mixed with coconut, honey, icing sugar, and condensed milk. So sweet, so yummy!"