Sam Fisher- Oil Rig Dive

As he reached the edge of the gan­try, he bound­ed up and used the safe­ty rail as his jump point. Boots slap­ping against the wet steel, Fish­er pushed off and away from the rig in a pow­er­ful leap.

He re­sisted the mo­men­tum pull­ing him into a head-over-heels tum­ble, and con­trolled his fall with the skill of an Olym­pic high-board div­er. Fish­er turned his body into a dag­ger – legs straight and feet point­ed, head up and back. The drop seemed to go on for­ev­er, the wind scream­ing in his ears, the black of the night swal­low­ing him whole.

Then he hit the freez­ing waves and the breath­tak­ing im­pact ham­mered up through his bones and joints as he went un­der. Fish­er spread his arms and legs to slow his de­scent and looked up. He could see the lights of the rig and the fires above him on the roil­ing sur­face, twin­kling and dis­tant.

He had noth­ing in his lungs. His chest burned. His mus­cles felt lead­en, the stun­ning cold leech­ing the en­er­gy from them.

Nev­er fight the wa­ter. The voice in his head ad­mon­ished him, push­ing out of the past and into the mo­ment. Be­come part of it.

Fish­er reached up with his good arm and carved his way through the sea, ris­ing up and up, kick­ing against the un­der­tow. The half-col­lapsed rig caused rip­tides and un­pre­dict­a­ble cur­rents that threat­ened to pull him back, but he defied them, struggling on.

Then he burst into the air and sucked down a wheez­ing gasp. The waves slapped him violently, and he fought to keep steady.

- Firewall, Chapter 25