Fall.
Wind against his fingers and wind at his neck, roaring and howling like wild beasts in the wake of a hunt. Its raging fury thrummed like drums inside his ears, and raindrops whipped against the skin on his back.
The world was stretching apart at its seams, and there was no glue at the center. His eyes felt sharp and wet, and his teeth bared as wind forced their way through his lips. Each breath weighed a thousand tons. He could not remember breathing.
But his heart. His heart was beating as though it had never been more aware. His heart was pounding and beating and blood rushed into his head where the loudness in his mind warred against the fury of the wind. It was beating and beating and the inside of his cheeks tasted like the coppery tang of blood.
And his heart.
He could hear it, and it was pounding and adrenaline was speeding down his veins and boiling in his blood. He could hear it, could feel it, could taste it, could just almost reach in and touch it, and it felt like reality.
There was no room for fear and no room for thoughts, and all was forgotten and all he could do was feel. So he felt. He felt the endless gray of the cliffs speeding beside him. He felt the streak of green and brown of an occasional tree flitting past him. He felt the blue recesses beckoning below like a mother’s arms. He felt gravity cradled him, craving blood and flesh and a million simple pieces of vivid red splatters. And then —
Then his world exploded in silence and the landing sent all air out of his lungs. Water caved up in an arched wave, droplets sparkling in the sun. He sunk, swallowed by the abscesses of the aquamarine blue. His limbs were not his own. His eyes were not his own. His mind was not his own.
Even as the river swallowed him, the water buoyed him up. Soon, he was lying on his back, half surfaced, and he could breath in the aftermath of an exhilaration induced daze. There were no broken bones and no missing limbs, no gaping wounds in the center of his chest, and each breath sent goosebumps up his arms and down his legs, sent shivering hysteria through his veins and into his heart.
Then he laughed. For a moment the world was funny, strangely hysterical, completely nonsensical, and the laughter bubbled out of him in a harrowing flood, and he shook and he trembled in the humourless laughter, until his lungs were empty and then the laughter died.
Thoughts came back softly, slowly on tipped toes, light as thieves in the middle of the night.