Note: Read story, then read this part.
I was gonna try to write something short about someone taking a literal leap of faith in normal circumstances, but the idea of her looking back up where she'd just been and seeing something, which turns out to be normal, but then is a twist to say 'Oh, no, it's horrible' was too much fun and actually filled me with a bit of internal horror. It's late, which may explain it, but I still liked it and think it opens the story up to more segments.
Hope you enjoy! I enjoyed writing this, even though I finished past midnight. Gotta update at eight AM, though, them's the rules I made for myself.
Clarise's End-Times I by Mackinley Clevinger, March 4, 2016
I had watched the sun rise; watched it reach its zenith and then fall from the sky. I had watched the shadows creep to prominence and fall away underneath the harsh, unforgiving light. I had woken from a troubled sleep to the shine of a newly risen sun, and now watched it just begin to disappear behind the horizon; leaving me to the cold of night, knowing it will rise again and bathe me in its light. Only, it would not be the same light, as I would not be the same person on the morrow. I had watched the sun travel far and long, from journey’s start to its temporary end, and I knew one thing to be certain from the time I had spent in thought and reflection, my only companion this traveling celestial body.
I’ve been stuck on a freaking rooftop for over a day, because that’s the kind of idiot I am. I thunked my head against the waist-high concrete wall that bordered the roof, which I’d spent most of my time sitting against while I waited for someone to open the door that the wind had slammed behind me, because my phone would seem to have… how did I put it? “Fucked right off.” That’s right. Left it on my desk or something. Like an idiot. Leaving me stranded, on the roof, “For a fucking night and day, and not one – not one – person has thought, ‘Hey, where’s Clarise?’ and come to find me. No one. At all.” For, may I repeat, over twenty-four hours.
The view was nice, at least; that was why I’d come out here in the first place, a little relief before heading back to the grindstone. I looked at the violet horizon of a sun that had just departed this Earth, filtered between scattered high-rises and a distant split in towering mountains. I put my hands on the gravel-floored roof, gently pushing myself up to a crouch before letting my legs straighten and lift me to stand tall and proud, high above the city. Or I would have, but hunger makes you a bit trembly, so I hurriedly caught myself from falling over backwards over the short wall to a painful demise.
From slightly higher up, I could see the full majesty of the view I had intended to look at contentedly; toward the sun only a few blocks lay between the city’s furthest extents before it turned to patchy grass approaching pleasant fields, the mountains rising to form the horizon that shone in a color much like the bruises I would leave the first person I could blame for being trapped up here for so long. I breathed, shutting my eyes and trying to dispel the aches, hunger, and thirst that the roof had left me with. It may suck right now, but it would get better. It had to.
I turned, eyes taking in the view opposite of an expansive city dotted with patches of high-rise buildings that managed to tower over me. I’m not saying I was high up, but one look over the edge put an end to the idea of waving my arms like a maniac only to lose my balance and fall most certainly not like a feather. There was one respite, though, from certain death in falling; a younger office building that was losing the battle to be the most impressive to prospective mates between it and my own place of work. It was pretty close, though. Only a story or two difference, and the distance between us was an alleyway as opposed to a four-lane street. I’d take at least an hour to be found if I fucked it, and who knows? Maybe I could be in the morning paper, or sold to fund someone’s drug habit. Always a silver lining to anything, even… falling to my death to avoid starving to death. I wonder who I pissed off?
I was trembling, but not from hunger or fatigue. I was seriously considering this. Logically, this should be possible. Easily. People in track jump way farther than I was going to. Yeah, they train, but I jog up the stairs from time to time. I’m not exactly light on my feet, but I can… I can probably do this. Right? “Fuck.” I looked over the waist-high wall, visualizing what I was actually considering doing. Wow. I did not know I had that much blood in me, or that the alley could run red with the blood of an idiot like that. No, positivity, I can do this. So long as I don’t slip or miss or misjudge the distance or jump right over the side or – I backed away from the wall, looking at the steady gravel beneath me, breathing heavily.
“Aah… Why?” The air didn’t respond, sadly, to my agonized groan of self-pity. Well, is it self-pity if the situation I’m in is complete bullshit? Does it matter? Not right now, but I’m going to find someone who is too compassionate to tell me to stop when all this is done. It was getting dark, the light fading out from the world and turning what shapes I could see fuzzy and without definite shape. Would I be able to do this tomorrow after another night without food or water? A thrum ran through the body at that thought. Oh, crap, I had to do this now. “Oh, fuck, I have to do this now?” I looked around myself, for anything I had somehow missed that would get me out of what I was about to do. The square rooftop with the same wall all around it, gravel on the ground, the rising mass of the door and enclosed stairway; nothing new. What did I have to do this with? I looked back at the wall, and at the opposing rooftop. I did a little hop, getting a feel for lifting myself.
I backed up, my heart thumping, eyes fixed on the short wall I was going to have to get over before launching myself across empty air that wouldn’t support me like the gravel would. My skin flushed, heat and little patches of itchiness erupting all over, legs trembling. I felt like shit. I thought I was supposed to enter some kind of above-it-all state when doing this kind of thing, not want to throw up and curl into a ball. “Fuck.” My back pressed against the opposite wall. “Fuck.” I bent over slightly, palms pressed against the concrete and legs tightened. “Fuck.” I took a step, scared as hell. “Fuck.” My voice rose a bit. I took another step. “Fuck.” I started running, the opposite side of the roof coming too quickly. “Fuck.” I was already breathing deeply, but some of the weakness in my limbs was gone as I made them move. My eyes were tearing up.
“Fuck.” How the hell was I even going to – “Fuck!” I leapt, landing with one foot on the concrete wall, an immense distance between me and the ground, and bent that leg slightly, starting to tilt forward. Behind me something made a loud banging sound, but y’know what? In for a penny, in for a pound, and if I stopped now I was going to fall to my death. I focused on the roof I was aiming for, objectively near and impossibly far away. “Fuck!” I extended my leg, kicking off as hard as I could and pin wheeling in the air as I fell quicker than I moved across the divide. I was moving so fast, I thought I was supposed to just hang – I landed, collapsing and rolling across coarse gravel that tore at me and my clothes. I came to a rest, cut up a bit and bruised, limbs feeling empty, and my everything on fire and tense. “Holy. Fuck.” I was gasping, after, like, fifteen seconds of effort. I looked over at the building I’d jumped off of, the darkness of night turning it to a rough shape that I could barely make out details of.
I noticed one thing, though. Someone was up there, where I had just been. Along the wall, there was something bobbing up and down as it ran along the edge back and forth, like a dog sniffing the fence of a neighbor that owns too many cats. I lay still, scared to hell, trying to quiet my breathing despite being unable to stop gasping for every breath. Why did I have to be wearing a freaking t-shirt and some stupidly thin pants that my roll through the gravel completely ignored to scratch the fuck out of my skin? What if it smelled blood? What if it made the jump? Why am I so quickly assuming it’s something that wants to – “Are you okay?”
A man’s voice. Okay, not a monster, someone worried about the crazy lady who leapt off of a roof and probably almost killed herself doing so. That’s normal. Nothing weird going on. I rolled over onto my hands and knees, pushing myself up slowly and wincing as I stretched the cuts and bruises that covered me all over. I stood, stumbling slightly, and looked at the roof I’d just been on, spotting the bobbing shape of the guy who’d just spoken. “Yes. I am totally, most assuredly, fine, and in fact do not urgently need a fuck-ton of help. How are you?” I shouldn’t be rude, I know, but… No, that’s about it. “Who are you talking to?” Was this guy an idiot? “I’m talking to you, up there on the roof that… that your voice isn’t… isn’t…” I turned my head to the left, at a roof at the same level as the one I stood, aching, on. There was someone over there, I was pretty sure. It was dark as all hell, but I could see him waving his arms quite excitedly and worriedly. I looked back at the roof I’d been on.
There was more than one bobbing shape moving along the edge of the roof, an appearance I could only liken to at least a dozen people running quite excitedly along the edge of the roof I’d just leapt off of. “Hey, over here!” I back-stepped, eyes locked on the roiling mass. “The fuck is – “ I twisted my head back to the guy, seeing him extending something across the divide, luckily another alleyway instead of a street. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw something flash by on a path aimed for the ground. I twisted my head to watch the higher rooftop, catching a second shape fall between the buildings, and then a third hit itself off of the roof I was standing on before tumbling to its death. I didn’t need to watch any more to want to get the fuck out of there right now. I turned and sprinted towards the other roof, prepared to jump across the roofs if I had to. My leg twinged, injured from the fall, but I made a very sound decision there: Fuck that leg, it’s a shit for bringing up a little something like pain right now.
I reached the edge of the roof, hearing another sound of something slapping against concrete and careening off. “Are they getting closer?” I didn’t want to turn around. “Just hang on!” So, yes. Something thunked against the concrete in front of me, impossible to see without any light. “Climb across!” Well… “With what? I can’t see anything. It’s dark.” Did… did that one hit and stick? Light bloomed in the night out of nowhere, blinding me while also revealing a board stretched between my roof of death and the other one of not-immediate death. I like to think I’m the kind of person that can adapt quickly to new and interestingly life-threatening conditions, so I scurried onto that thing and walked across like I’d been in the circus – That’s a lie. Half way across I almost fell off, and had to jump the rest of the way and be pulled up by a man with very few muscles. I think we went to the same gym.
We pulled the board onto our side, and looked across the void at a rooftop filling with vague forms now that he’d turned the light back off. They gathered around where I had landed and lain for a short moment before booking it for not-death. I looked at the man who had saved me, barely able to make out his appearance in the dark. “I have one question for you. Oh, wait, no. Thanks for saving me, first.” I try to be polite. “Secondly, and be honest with me, no sugar-coating. Is this an apocalypse?” He looked at me for a moment, and I couldn’t quite read the expression on his face. “Hey, stay with me here, are we in end-times?” He seemed to be thinking about that question quite a bit. “Well…” He started, voice incredibly uncertain. “It’s a bit more complicated than that.”