Falling Reflections
KnM


The glass shatters around me, sharps shards biting into my ears and cheeks
and tearing angrily at my hair as I fly through the sudden, glittering cloud.
More tiny glitters lodge in my clothing, tearing through shirt and pants and
skin, until I am a thousand little cuts and scratches; every one of them stings
in the suddenly too cold air.

It doesn't matter, though, I'm falling. I can feel gravity take firm hold of me
and pull me through a second cloud of silvery glass, faster and faster toward
the ground. Strangely enough, the faster I fall, the slower the world
becomes, each movement flowing like molasses into the next.

I've never felt so free in my entire life.

It's odd how only the scratches hurt. My middle is only a dull ache, nothing
compared to the sharp little pains that my nerves are broadcasting from the
glass. I'm leaving a trail of blood in the air, droplets of it dripping regularly
away from me as I continue to fall, faster. There's a gunshot wound in my
gut, I know. I heard the sound, smelled the powder right before the world
shattered around me.

I want to bring my hands in to clutch my stomach, to stop the red blood that
I'm leaving behind me, sprayed out across the china blue and white of the
sky. It doesn't seem right, red on the perfect sky like that...but my hands
won't move. I'm frozen, spread eagled like I'm about to do an enormous
back flop into a swimming pool. I can see an endless glass wall that is the
skyscraper rushing up and up, under my feet; no, it can't be a wall, because
then I would be on my back, so it's the floor, and it's one big moving
sidewalk speeding along beneath me.

I can't be falling; I've made it through the war, I've made it through the
peace and back into life. Eighteen year olds don't take swan dives out of
skyscrapers with gut wounds. This isn't the movies. This is life. My life.

So the wall is the floor and the sky is the wall and up is front and down is
back, and I'm stationary; the world is just moving past me.

The air is rushing past me, faster, faster. It feels like a cold cushion; my
arms and legs are numb, I can't feel anything. My braid suddenly frees itself
from my collar and whips up past my face, hanging out in the sky with the
blood and the clouds and the deep blue. So pretty...I'm momentarily blinded
by the glass around me as it catches the beautiful white sun, splintering its
light into my eyes. Then I can see myself, broken into a cloud of tiny, tiny
pieces, all wide purple eyes and streaming hair and blood. Blood...a lot of
blood, red and thick all over everything, face and hands and soaking my
clothing. It's funny, because I feel fine, even though I'm shattered like the
shards and broken apart so that anyone can look at me and see my insides.

When I hit the ground, everyone's definitely going to see my insides, then,
but I don't think I'll care at that point. You only get to choose who your
show yourself to when you're alive, but when you're dead it doesn't matter
anyway.

I wonder what they'll say, when I'm spread out all over the concrete of the
sidewalk. "Yuck" probably. I'll just be so much meaningless meat, once I'm
no longer covered by my outer shell. It's funny, when you're alive, it's the
opposite way around; it's the outer shell that's meaningless and useless, and
the insides where all the secrets and life lies.

If I ever hit the ground. I'm still falling and falling...

The wind rushing past me feels like hands on my skin, tingling up my spine
and caressing my neck. Hands...hands... It feels nice, like fantasy and reality
and a wish all rolled up into one. It numbs the pain of the cuts and makes
me forget about the bullet lodged in my gut. The top of the skyscraper is
almost completely gone, off in the distance where I'll never be able to reach
it.

I don't understand. Why? What's happening?

I said "I love you." And now I'm falling. I'm falling, forever...I don't think
I'll ever hit the ground.

I can see my hands in my peripheral vision, stretched out like wings against
the dark ground encroaching on my shining, china blue--eye blue sky. My
fingers are long and thin and delicate, chilled white with the rushing air like
feathers. Wings, then, so I should be flying. But I'm falling and falling and
falling...

I remember the picture of death I saw in a book once, the angel with a
wicked, promising smile and black, black wings. So I should be flying,
now, shouldn't I? I am death, after all. Even in peace, I'm still here, because
I'm always with people, no matter where they hide. But I'm falling with my
blood and my hair and the thousands of glittering shards around me.

It will never end. Never...never...never...

Look into his eyes and smile... "I love you."

Heero, why?

The ground reaches up and catches me.