Warrior

Trust Fall

(Alex POV)

The Moment I finished speaking everyone turned back around with horror, looking at me as if I was crazy. Even Pan looked a little worried, which I found to be a little interesting.

“What? You all are too scared to jump off of a tree?” I asked, raising my eyebrow at them all.

“No, we are all just smart enough to not want to break our backs with this little game!” Will, one of the lost boys, called out. The rest of the lost boys nodded in agreement.

Then the rest of the lost boys started to slowly climb down from the trees but I was not letting them get away this easily so I made them stop.

“Pan! I thought we made a deal that I was supposed to do train this wimps. This is part of the training so make them all go back up!” I yelled at Pan as I crossed my arms and glared up at him.

“Well this does not look like training Alex, it looks more like you trying to kill all of us, which would be a funny way to do it but I have no plan on killing myself today so no, I will let them go.” Pan replied as he started down from the tree.

“Hold up. What if I demonstrated how to jump off the tree. Then would you let me make you all do it?” I asked as I walked over to Pan. He stopped climbing for a moment and thought. Then he looked right at me, as if making sure I was not lying.

“Are you saying that you would not mind breaking your own back just so the rest of us could learn how to climb on trees?” He asked with curiosity.

I opened up my arms to show that I was not lying.

“Pretty Much” I replied with a grin.

“Fine! Go kill yourself Alex, we will watch from down here.” Pan replied with a smirk as he jumped the last branch and landed right on his feet.

I turned to find the rest of the lost boys already making themselves comfortable on the ground, so I walked over to the tree and with my knife, I made a mark a foot up the tree. Then I  hoisted myself up to the first branch.

“You know, we had to climb a little higher when you wanted us to jump!” Pan called out making me want to roll my eyes at him again, but instead I ignored him and kept climbing until I was about ten feet up in the tree.

I walked as far out on the branch as I could without losing my balance and then I took a deep breath to make myself relax.

I remember the first time Papa made my brothers and I do this. I was eight at the time and I remember being terrified the first time I fell backwards. I remember begging Papa to let me fall face forward but he refused, saying that I would get seriously injured if I feel that way instead of backwards. The fact that he actually thought that falling on my back would not cause serious injuries.

“Alright Pan, I’m only going to do this once, so you better pay attention on how I land when I fall.” I called out, looking down at the boys. Pan still had his smirk on his face but he nodded. I had a feeling he thought I was bluffing the whole time and that he didn’t expect me to fall.

I turned around, so that my back was facing the lost boys. I took one more deep breath and extended my arms outward, so that my body weight was close to being evenly distributed. As I exhaled, I fell backwards.

In the first second or so, I kept my palms of my hands facing toward the sky, but then right as the first second was up, I flipped my palms of my hands to face the ground, making my elbows bent and my body no longer flat, but instead arching my back upward, and feet pointed toward the ground.