The Cinders of Dezu

14th: Falling (3)

"Whoa! Whoa!" he loudly whispered as the bed began to lift with his weight.

His hand edged up the side of the bed as he lifted it up toward him at a slant. He was breathing heavy from the strain now. He pulled himself down the length of the bed closer and closer to his unmentionables. His fingers were so close. He stretched them as far as possible. He was nearly there. Then he watched as the boxers fell softly from the floor up to his hand. Julian squinted.

"Wha-"

The bed dropped toward the ceiling. With a crash it burst through the top of the house and into the starlit sky with Julian and his undies hurdling after it. He tumbled through the air with large splinters of wood whirling around him. He went up past the soft glow of the lamps around the cabin, spinning as he went. He passed the tops of the trees. Every time he made a rotating visual pass of the house below, it got smaller and smaller along with the hole in its roof. The quiet night now echoed his scream.

Talia was outside looking around, both hands on fire. She couldn't see anyone. She jumped into the air with a twirl and lit fire beneath her legs. She propelled herself to the roof of the cabin and looked around. The lights were still lit all around the house. She couldn't see predators. She looked down the hole at a bewildered Cairo. He had leapt out of bed at the sound of wood cracking but was still not totally conscious as he looked up at the new hole in the ceiling. He saw the glowing girl on his roof.

"Where is he?" she asked.

"Where's who?"

"Julian!"

"What?"

He realized he hadn't fully taken in the state of his room as he looked around.

"Where's his bed?!" he said.

A loud crash was heard to the side of the house. Talia looked over to see the broken frame of Julian's bed and his mattress having burst apart. Cairo couldn't see what had happened from inside his room.

"What was that?!"

Talia gazed up into the sky. She spoke softly.

"What goes up..."

***

Julian had been hurdling for so long that he had managed to make himself stop spinning. The higher he got, the colder he was. After the bed had stopped hurdling up with him, he had narrowly moved out of the way as it fell back down. He found himself thinking, if he was going to die, he'd at least have his dignity, so he had managed to slip his underwear back on. His momentum seemed to be slowing, like he was no longer falling as much as he was just floating upwards, unable to stop.

He thought about his mom and how she would never know what happened to him. He thought about his brother in prison, about how he knew he would never try to be the son to her that he had tried to be. He closed his eyes. At that moment, he stopped feeling his momentum. Then he felt the drop.
His eyes fluttered open to see the forest get closer and closer. He remembered that he really wanted to live. A slow scream began building as he started waving his arms wildly. The cabin was nowhere in sight, and somehow he could feel himself free falling more and more to the left. By the time he was almost to the trees, he didn't know how far he had traveled from where he had been. He found himself rapidly approaching a tree top with branches that looked particularly unforgiving.

"No! No! No! Noooo!!!"

He was beginning to brace for impact just as he felt his momentum change again. He didn't feel as though he was being pulled to the tree, though he was still flying toward it. Gradually his speed grew to a still frightening but relatively manageable speed as he reached the top of the tree. He covered his face with his arms as he entered the barrage of smacking leaves and branches.

He got knocked around a bit, but somehow his descent became slow and almost gentle. It wasn't a pleasant experience when his hands, chest and cheek smacked the side of the trunk. But it wasn't an overly brutal one either. He wrapped himself around the trunk, hugging it tight. He looked down at the shadowy forest way down below. In lieu of an alternate plan, he opted for a pitiful whimper.