Freefall

“We’re going to crash,” he whispered.

The shuttle groaned like ghosts that never left him and his stomach on sleepless nights. Emergency lights flickered, alarms rang, and Sora’s voice pierced the chaos.

“Hold tight.”

“What about you?” he asked.

Darkness consumed the cabin. Suddenly, he couldn't recognize an inch of the decrepit box that had been his only home for years. In the vastness of that moment, his journey seemed merely seconds. He squinted through the spiderwebbed crack in his helmet. The only illumination guiding them was the blaze blanketing the hull as they tore through the atmosphere. System alerts screamed, and he threw his trembling body into the ejection bay.

“I’ll be fine.”

He knew it was a lie.

“I don’t want to leave you,” he finally admitted.

“I’ll always be here.”

Sometimes, the hardest part of letting go was realizing how desperately he held on. This time, he couldn’t let Sora distract him. He stared ahead at the blue haze cutting through the orange and let all the weight of this last resort pour into his hand. His survival, as it always had, depended on seconds. Sea sprayed the viewport glass, and his fist slammed the ejection button.

His world was suddenly quiet. The rush that came was blinding. His battered torso jolted as wind tugged on the deployed chute. When he could finally see through the chaos of debris and pillars of steam, he discovered the shape of a tower just on the shoreline.

We finally made it.

Water. He questioned everything about reality as he gazed down at the sea. For so long, his people had scavenged for an abundance like this, and now it was right there, ready to swallow him whole. He faced a similar depth his entire life, staring at it through glass, waiting for it to take him. At least now he knew which way was up.

He couldn’t wait for his chute to hit the water; It would turn a tangled mess below the surface. He let loose the hooks tethering him to the chute. Freefall. When his boots and suit hit the water, he thought of Reed.

After all these years, everything he’d lost, Reed’s terrified eyes when he was claimed by the void of space still haunted him the most. Was it as heavy as it seemed, as heavy as his own measly weight suddenly felt in this historic descent? So many others deserved to be there, plunging into the sea, just on the edge of salvation. But this story wasn’t about what was fair. It just was.

He hadn’t swam since he was a boy, before their river dried. But the memory of those soaked days beneath the forged sun in the once undying garden never left his body. A spout poured through the crack in his helmet, filling the crevices between suit and skin. The waves propelled him toward the shore, and he fought to stay afloat.

When he finally reached land, the wet sand was barely disturbed beneath his boots. Shrapnel littered the beach. He trudged through the shallow waves toward the tower in the distance. His waterlogged suit grew heavy, and he was too weak. He fell helplessly and without strength to stand again. He could barely breathe, so he did what absolutely terrified him.

Sprawled on the strange shore, he pulled off his helmet. When he took a deep breath of the island air, he always imagined it would bring him relief. Instead, pains like razors sliced his throat and lungs. He clawed at his neck desperately searching for salvation, struggling to replace his helmet. But his arms and body grew slack. His vision blurred as he saw someone running toward him in the distance.

“Sora?” he asked.

She wrapped her arms around him, and he melted into her grasp.