Chapter 380: True Choice
Breathing was the most difficult thing about this whole ordeal. The one thing I couldn’t do anything about. Each gulp for air was like swallowing a jarful of pins and needles, stabbing and pricking its way down my throat before eventually searing down the pit of my lungs.
Dream or not, the pain was still very real.
I felt my body give a jerk- gravity snapping at my heels, ready and relishing to pull me down in its clutches, and I forced my grip on her arms to hold even tighter, seeping out an even thicker, darker swirl of dark through the slits between my fingers.
In a weird roundabout way, it kind of helped. The blistering pain was a surge of strength flooding in me where there was none. It was probably the only thing keeping me holding on, the only thing keeping me speaking.
“You’re not going to scare me out of here, Ria,” I said, those words already leaving my lips before I could even think. “You let me fall, I’ll just come back! I think you know I will.”
My sudden burst of newfound bravado was well rewarded by her pulling away one of her arms, sending me plummeting for the briefest moment, only for the sudden stop to dissipate all that momentum in an instant.
“Yes, the stubbornness that’s ever lived,” Her face was an arm’s length away from me, but the look in her eyes made it look so much more closer than that. “But it’s too bad I’ve lived longer.”
.....
A single arm outstretched, a single grip keeping hold, a single chance given.
“Do you seriously not want to get out of here, Ria?” I asked, focusing my gaze on nowhere else but on her expression. “I know, okay? I understand. Your family’s here, you’re happy here, but – ”
“But what?” She interrupted, her eyes staring wide. “You don’t think that’s not reason enough for not wanting to wake up? For wanting to stay? If you’ve just known the shit I’ve been through...”
“I do.”
“No, you don’t!” Her hair began to glow brighter, so much so that I couldn’t see individual strands any longer. “Oh, that’s just perfect! Extra peachy! You walked a single mile in my shoes, dip pinky toes into my life, and suddenly now you think you know everything there is to know about me?”
“You’re right, fine! I don’t!” I snapped back with a shout of my own. “But I do know for a fact you don’t mean this! I know there’s a small part of you that knows that this isn’t right! I know it, I spoke to it! And she knows that you shouldn’t be here! That it’s time to wake the fuck up! Go! Tell me I’m wrong!”
“If you really are talking to some figment of me in your imagination then I’ll just tell you you’re a goddamn lunatic that’s out of his mind!”
“Then so be it!” The smoke dissipated, the searing stopped, I let both my hands stretch open on either side. “Drop me! Let me go, and I’ll know that I’m wrong! You’ve proven yourself right! I won’t come back, I’ll give up, and you’ll never see me again, this I promise you.”
“What are you – are you a fucking therapist now?” She exclaimed, the disbelief in her voice overpowering her anger. “Reverse psychology, of all things... you don’t think I know what you’re trying to do?”
“Well, you’re still not letting go of me, Ria,” I pointed out to her, keeping my arms outstretched in complete submission to her will. “What is it going to be?”
She thinned her lips, narrowed her eyes, breathing in deep. “It’s not going to work.”
“Then hurry up and prove it,” I leaned my head back, letting my eyes fall, taking in as much of the air as I could despite the scorching pins and needles. “Let me go already.”
It was a leap of faith I took, both in myself and in Ria too. I truly didn’t know what was going to happen next, what her next move would be. In the world of darkness behind closed eyelids, all I could hear was the heavy breathing of her lips, and the feel of her flames... suddenly so unusually warm.
“Fine...”
The only word I heard next. I sincerely thought they’d be more to hear, and perhaps there was... and I just didn’t get a chance to hear it, not anymore. I felt it, inside of me, it was as if everything fell, everything gave.
Ria had let go.
There was just this overwhelming feeling of weightlessness now, helplessness... that, and the distinct whistle of the wind blowing by me, intensifying with every moment’s passing.
I tried opening my eyes, but I couldn’t. The passing breeze was like a sharp stabbing blade. Maybe it was a blessing in disguise. Do I really wanna see myself fall, know exactly when I’ll hit the ground, or when death will come?
It’s strange... falling... thought I’d be more panicky about the whole thing, flailing, screaming... I wasn’t. All I felt was this sinking feeling in my gut that had nothing to do with my plummet to the earth.
This was it, wasn’t it? I gave her a choice, and she chose. She had let go, and I let her let go. After everything, for nothing. She’s given her answer plenty of times before, but it was only through the rustle of wind, and the feel of the breeze grazing my face, that I finally heard her loud and clear.
No more chances. No more holding on.
I stopped falling.
There was no pain when I felt myself hit the dirt, there was simply no feeling to feel at all in the first place. Not even a sound, a thud in the earth... I guess that’s just how death from freefall felt like, that quick, that instant.
In that same instance, the wind died away too... and that’s when I knew I was finally awake again. With how my body felt sore and aching, the gentle breeze blowing, and the warmth of the sun shining down my face – indeed, I had awakened.
Indeed, I have failed.
I slowly fluttered open my eyes, ready to greet a morning I wish hadn’t come just yet.
“WOAH!”
Okay, I won’t deny I shouted like a wimp right then and there, I will hold myself fully accountable, hand on my heart, for my wimpiness and lack of spine, because in my defense, it was a very well-founded shout I shouted.
I mean how would you like waking up thousands of feet above the ground? Seeing your legs flail limply in the open air, over winding rivers, over open plains, and even over the summit of grassy hills? Yeah, not exactly the best alarm call to wake up to, right?
Spare me your judgments.
Something was digging into my shoulders, something that felt like pincers pinching, like hooks clutching... or talons pulling.
I heard a loud flap of wings from above me, and I snapped my head upwards – immediately regretting my decision.
In her phoenix form, I completely forgot just how bright and harsh Ria’s light could get especially in such close proximity. At once, I was forced back once more behind closed eyelids.
Another flutter of feathers, and I felt us soar even higher. I felt the rustle of wind again, that sensation of utter weightlessness too, but now that sinking feeling was gone.
She didn’t let go...
I didn’t dare say anything yet, and neither did she. I waited until we were back on solid ground again before anything else happens... and it didn’t take long until we were scaling back up the cliff edge, and it took an even shorter amount of time before she was tossing me back onto solid ground like I was lifeless ragdoll that didn’t have a sense of pain.
Well, I was alive, I did have a sense of pain, and I think I poked my hips on a stray pebble trying to break the fall... so ouch, Ria, that hurt.
Upon getting up and dusting myself off from the dirt, I was immediately rendered blind again by another explosion of light – and Ria emerged marching vehemently out from the dissipating swirl of fire and smoke.
This time, before she reached me, I made firmly sure I wasn’t standing behind another fucking thousand-foot bungee jump. At least, I can cross that venture off my bucket list now.
“You don’t make sense, I don’t get you. I don’t understand you,” Ria halted a short distance away, her hands clutched in a trembling fist. “Why? That’s what I don’t get – why?! Why all this effort, all these headaches, all for me?! Why are you putting yourself through all this for someone whom you’ve only known for weeks! You have no reason, no incentive, no motivation at all – so why?! Why go so far?”
“I could ask you the same thing, Ria,” I muttered out, finally getting a semblance of a calmness within me for the first time. “You’ve known me weeks, yet you brought me here anyway, why?”
“No, no! Enough of your psychiatric hocus-pocus evaluation bullshit! I want an answer, damn it!” She sliced her arm through the air, and a streak of fire followed, disappearing in smoke, and unveiling glowing crimson eyes that had lost all composure. “If you’re not a lunatic after all, then what are you really?”
“You already answered that question yourself, didn’t you?” I said, taking a breath, and raising empty hands again into the air. “I’m just a guy who just simply can’t help himself.
“Fuck off, Hero.”
“And more than that,” I continued on. “I’m your friend.”
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