The Eden Projects (EDITING)

Chapter 48. Rift.

- Zak -

Zak had been at it all day and now, he understood the pitch and yaw of flight. Nothing had ever made more sense than this. It trumped anything he could have done for a thrill. He was free. When he left the roof of one building and filled himself with the sky, it made him whole. 

He. Was. Free. 

Finally. 

The sound of feathers cutting through the air made his line more stable as he caught each billow and bluff. The icy wind in his lungs and the burn of his muscles as they adapted and learned new movements with each turn drew him higher. The slack of his body hanging from powerful structures. If he had a choice, he would never come down, he would live out his days above the clouds and only at his death would he return to earth. 

Everything felt so much smaller when he was just a blot in that great expanse. A single, fading pixel on a much larger image. His troubles, the group, the monotony of a day to day existence. Nothing, it was all nothing. Each spray of clouds was new and unique; he felt new. He felt rare. He was a creature made free and nothing should have held him down. Nothing should have caged him. Nothing should have forced him to be anything other than what he was. Should have, and reality, were at war within him. All because of one nagging point he couldn't bear letting go of.

That one nagging point that determined his future, possessed his present, and conquered his past with a ruthless negligence. 

Kasper.

The wind chill bit at his nose and the sun warmed the freezing tear burns on his cheeks. I have to go back. Up here, he was perfect. He was a gust being tossed lazily along. He was a mist, a drifting smoke let out of an old mans lungs. He was beautiful and he wondered why he hadn't done this sooner. He was a bird, and birds cared little about what they left when they took flight. But he was tethered. So even his meager ounce of false freedom was still a cage. If only he could have gone higher, flown closer, he wanted to feel the sun's brightness in the emptiest parts of himself. The ones so desperate to be held. The ones terrified of the "after." The one unable to rest in a nihilistic bliss. 

He regretted so much, and most of it wasn't even because of something he had done. But he held a seeded regret still. He regretted what he hadn't done even more than what he had. And maybe in an alternate timeline, he could have been loved in the way he did. He would have moved or acted different and that would have automatically course corrected his path. He wouldn't have to have settled for scraps and he would be okay. It would all be okay.

Everything would have to be.

He headed home...




Trouble met him.

Zak steadied his hand.

"Just pull it out already-" Kasper gritted. "Agh-"

"I'm trying!" He shouted, jamming his knife deeper. Zak grimaced when it pricked against Kasper's rib. "Sorry." Then he wiggled his fingers into the cut, taking hold of the disintegrating metal. "What the hell were you thinking?!?" Zak tossed the fizzing thing to the ground.

"I couldn't keep waiting for them to kill any of us. I had to-"

"You didn't have to do anything." Zak sat back on his stool. "All you had to do was stay put like Ace said."

"Ace said. I don't care what Ace said."  

They were in his room and even though it was warm, a coldness split them apart. "What do we do about him now huh-" He gestured with his blade. "He killed Fog- do you think Ace is gonna want him here?"