I was dissapointed, too. That was always an acknowledged risk. I didn't think about it, but I knew it was there. Because otherwise it would have been certain. I'm certain of that.

Who I was is who I was. I don't even know why I talk to you. You're dead, damnit.

When that first bullet enters your back, just below your right shoulder, the first thing you think is, "Oh no." From there on out is determined by how well you keep your head (figuratively and literally) and how many more times you get hit. In my case, it was: "Oh no. Spin. Drop, drop." Then I noticed I was sitting on the ground, facing gunsmoke. "I can't believe he got me here." Though at the time I was touching the area just above my heart, I was refering to the geography. It was an astoundingly remote place to be found, much less killed. Anderson didn't bother or hazard coming in close to finish me off. I had to wait for them to reload. I thought, "Oh no," a couple more times, and mumbled "Damn it," repeatedly. I stood up long enough to take the next volley in the back. And then I was dead.

The period between hitting the forest floor and being a ghost will be, I think, the hardest part to describe.

Before my untimely and comparitively undocumented death, my name was well known in both Explorer and Adventurer circles, and my exploits made me a regular feature in the publications that catered to them. National Geographic, of course, but there were many others back then. It was a thriving industry. And I a prominent player.

Of course there are things I regret. Dying in a jugle, for one. Certain deaths I was involved in. That coup in South America. Backing of prominent investors or no, I was not qualified to Minister to anything, much less a dirt poor country where everyone hated me. But before my more-brilliant-than-not career was cut short by the same misadventure that finished me, I saw more things in this Earth than is dreamnt of in your Television.