Break Free & Be Broken by Eros Winter Page A

pushing me slightly forward, giving me a clear view of Death's broken smile. It terrifies me to the core.
    I can't do this. I can't jump...
    I back one foot away from the ledge, and then slowly: cautiously, I bring back the other. A shuddersome feeling, more vile and black than any other, squirms up my spine. Have I not failed enough? Am I really going to fail now? This is my chance! This is my chance to be free! If I continue to live, I'll just keep being a slave, but right now, nothing holds me. No laws I must obey, suppressing the far reaches of my spirit. No bills that must be paid, forcing me to work. No fitness to maintain, keeping me strapped to regimen, diet, and exercise. And no fucking drug demanding my attention. In this moment, I am free, and if I can just follow through, I'll never have to be a slave again.
    I wasn't able to live on my own terms, but god damnit, I will choose how I die. I dip down into a crouch, coil tight, and ready myself to spring. My streak of failure ends now.
    I'm jumping.
    My muscles release: take off. With as much power as my legs can produce, I leap into the air. But it's a trick. I'm not moving forward, only up. While in flight, I get an elevated view of the rocks below. The thought of actually going down there, bouncing and breaking along the steep cliff wall before splatting into a fleshy grave... it's too much. But at least now I can say II reconnect with the ground sooner than expected. Tilted forward as I was to look down, my balance decides to go that way as well, and I find myself teetering towards a free fall. My foot shoots forward in an effort to correct the tilt, but I was on the edge, and there is no more ground to hold me. A grunted animal squeal regurgitates from my soul.
    Oh no.
    The first instant of the fall, nothing is real-the sights, the sounds, the tremendous skipping of my heart or the twisted hold on my gut and lungs-none of it. All I can think is that I am a man, not a cloud, so I shouldn't be floating hundreds of feet above the ground.
    But then it all makes sense. I am indeed a man, for I am not floating.
    I'm falling.
    In the next instant, the mountain takes his first bite of me. My leg connects with an outcropping ledge, right below the knee. My shin doesn't merely shatter on impact: it explodes. The force of the hit causes the rest of my body to swing down and around like a pendulum. I take a nasty bounce off rough stone and out into space. The ground is nearly upon me.
    I thought I'd have more time to think.

Chapter the Fifth
    The world comes back to me in a violent gasp. I stumble backward, and once a safe distance from the ledge, allow myself to fall. Good god... My mind is flailing, trying valiantly to hold itself above the waves of confusion pulling me under. It takes me a good minute to sort out which parts of that hallucination were real and which were merely imagined. I did move toward and then away from the edge. I did jump, and I did stumble, but the ground was there to save me when I stepped, and because of that, I'm alive... and I’m going to live.
    Shit.
    I couldn't do it... I can’t do it. The edge is right there... two steps and a hop away. So close, yet it might as well be on the distant shores of some remote island, cause I'll never fucking reach it.
    How have I not seen this before? Death was never to be my reward for accumulating so much grief. The reward is life... more life... MORE FUCKING LIFE! I'm trapped. Escape isn’t possible. It never was. I'm here-stuck- with options as limited as my mind, and I’m going to have to endure this life until it is done with me .
    A sob bubbles up from my lungs; I catch it in my throat. Get it together Chales! I've cried quite enough for one day... but ye gods how I am sad! Do I enjoy suffering? Has that been the issue all along-something hidden that I've been unable to face? Sabotage after sabotage fill my mind and memories. It seems I've been against myself from the start.
    And now... what have I