They say that a fall of twenty feet can kill a man, in the worst case scenario. But what about a fall of two thousand feet? I should think that that man who fell that distance would have died long before he reached the ground, either of the shock and trauma of the fall, or the crashing through tree limbs on his way down.

In fact, it is impossible in this world for a man to fall that distance without dying. Impossible.

So how is it then that I, Takato Matsuda, at the age of 15, did not die when I fell over two thousand feet, crashed through more than a few trees, and landed in a creek?

The answer: I didn't know. I simply woke up. Except…it wasn't that simple.

My first sensation was that of immense cold rippling through my entire being, from my head to the tips of my fingers and my toes. It felt incredibly like the very blood inside me was turning to ice. After that came a white-hot pain like that of a burning fire. It felt like the ice in my veins was melting into blood again, and then boiling as sugar would boil. And anyone who has cooked with sugar should know that it has to be hotter than boiling oil in order to boil, and that sugar burns are the worst you can get. Well, one of the worst. The fiery pain was such that I couldn't ignore it, that steadily grew and grew until I couldn't stay unconscious any longer. Slowly and painfully, my eyes fluttered open.

The first thing I saw was the sun, blaring in my eyes. It stung, and I knew that I probably had a major concussion. "Great. I guess I'm not in heaven." I took a shallow breath for fear of hurting myself, and tried to assess the situation. And that was when I noticed the strangeness to the pain I was feeling.

Only my right side of my body was hurting. My left side felt cold, very cold, but perfectly fine. With lazy surprise, I lifted my left hand up to my face and looked at it, blocking the sun from my eyes. All I could see were a million blaring lights in my face, and closing my eyes again didn't help. The blinking lights still remained.

Yep. Major concussion all right. I groaned and dropped my hand, then yanked it back up again in surprise. I had dropped it into something cold and wet. Water! Curious, I turned my head to get a better look. With all the stars in my eyes, I couldn't see anything but a vague brilliance, as if I was looking into nothing but pure light. It hurt my eyes, and I figured that the water was reflecting the bright sun. Funny, I didn't remember bright sun when I fell. Before it had been slightly cloudy. But now, the sun was so bright that I couldn't stand it. Perhaps it was just the concussion. I decided to go with that theory, and stay laying there. I couldn't move because of the pain, and I couldn't see because of my concussion. But I knew I had to stay awake to stay alive.

It was only a few seconds after I came to that conclusion that my eyes closed and I lost consciousness. In fact, it was as I was falling asleep that I wished I could just die so that the pain would end, and I could go to heaven. But it was not to be that way. Destiny had another plan for me.

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Voices. I was sure it was voices. They were indistinct, and too soft for me to hear very well, but I knew they were voices. I wondered if the quiet voices over my head were what had woken me, or if it was the boiling fire spreading through my veins on the right side of my body. Either way, I was slowly waking up. At least my head felt somewhat clearer. Or did it? Maybe not clearer, but at least it wasn't ringing.

I opened my eyes slowly, softly, but not very wide. I peered through the barely open eyelids and eyelashes to where the voices were coming from.

I was dreaming. This wasn't real. Quickly I pulled my eyelids closed and tried to wake up. But I was sure that I was already awake. The pain was too real, and so were the sounds and smells around me. The water rushing through my clothes and freezing my whole left side of my body was perfect for waking me up. So I wasn't dreaming. Hoping that what I had just seen would vanish when I opened my eyes, I peered through barely open eyes at the figures that were floating above me.

Two figures hovered above me, talking to each other. They were both girls, and both of them had wings. Wings? I must be dreaming! No. I wasn't. The reality of what I was feeling was enough to tell me I was awake. One of the two figures was hovering over the land, on my right side, and the other was on my left, over the creek. They were arguing.

I turned my attention to the one on the right, and studied her carefully. Her face was round and delicate, and she had large fiery eyes that held passion and defiance in them. Her hair was a golden red, and was shaggy and hanging loose about her head. It was short, and came only just past her long pointed ears. From her back sprung four wings, two larger ones on top, and two smaller ones on bottom, a large and small one to each side of her body. They were thin and delicate, and looked like fire to my eyes. There was gold mixed with the red and orange in her wings, and they looked so beautiful it was all I could not to stare at them. She was clothed in golden robes with crimson edging, and her feet were bare. Her skin was a light pink, and she had a gold tattoo of some symbol I didn't recognize on her shoulder, and another one on her left cheek. She was beautiful. But she was also angry.

Slowly, so as not to disturb her, I turned my eyes over to the left to look at the other figure. She, like the other creature, had two sets of wings. Only instead of gold and crimson, she looked like ice and water. Blues and whites mixed with silver were her colors, and it took me a long time to really define what she looked like.

Her face was thin and delicate, with a prominent chin and high cheekbones. Her skin was pale blue, almost pure white, and her eyes were a mix of clear, icy blue like that of a freezing winter day with no clouds, and pure silver. In them was not passion like the fiery one, but a peaceful steadiness of one who listens before speaking, and says little when she actually does speak. In her eyes was wisdom, but they were also cold. I couldn't tell whether she was kind or cruel, but I could tell that she was wise.

Her hair, unlike her companion's, was flowing and long, almost as long as she was tall. It was bluish colored, with white streaks in it, and was very straight and smooth. It floated on the air around her as if gravity did not exist. Her ears were long and thin, and pointed like her companion's, and she wore silver earrings that looked like droplets of water. For her clothes she wore a simple robe of ice blue and silver that did not cover her shoulders. It hung from her figure gracefully, and a slit in the skirt revealed one leg from her mid thigh down. She also was bare-footed, and bore strange silver markings on her shoulder and under her left eye.

But it was her wings that caught my attention the most. They were long, longer than the fiery creature's wings, and looked like they were made of glass. Sliver and blue shards formed together to create a crystal-like appearance, and when the sun shone through them it left little rainbows on the air around her. They looked so fragile that I thought if I simply touched them, they might shatter. So I lay very still and tried to listen to what these two creatures were saying.

"No," the fiery one said firmly, her small voice echoing on the wind as if it were not entirely there at all. "He cannot be yours. He has landed on my side, and so he must remain with me."

"And yet he has fallen into the stream," the icy one replied, her voice calm and even, like her eyes. "And anyone who falls into the stream must come with me."

"Only half of him is in the stream. The other half belongs to me!" The floating female landed next to me and placed her hands on her hips. "And so I will take him."

"You cannot take half of him! That is ridiculous!" The icy one landed as well, only she landed in the stream. I could feel the water growing colder while she was in it, if that was at all possible. And I shivered.

"He's cold. I'll take him and warm him up. You'll only make him sick."

"My stream healed him. And what have you done?"

I wondered what was going on, until suddenly it hit me, just as hard as when I had fallen all that way. They were arguing over what they were going to do with me! In my surprise, I opened my eyes and lifted my head, and both of them turned to stare at me with surprise. For a long time we stared at each other, until finally, the blue one let out the breath she had been holding.

"Child you have fallen far, and should be dead. And so you would be if you had not landed into our realm." The icy creature bowed her head slightly, and a faint smile lit her lips. "But I fear you will not survive much longer."

I stared at her silently, blinking, not sure what to say. Finally, the fiery one spoke instead. "If we do not decide what to do with you, you will die."

I thought about that for a minute, and then remembered my field trip. "Can't you take me up to where the bus is?" I asked. My voice was dry, and I sounded awful. "They could get help…"

The icy one shook her head sadly. "I'm sorry dear child. But to them, you are already dead. And have been for a very long time."

"What do you mean?" I was growing anxious. "How long?"

"In our time, it has only been three days. But from the mountain from which you fell, it has been three months."

I stared at her in horror, my mouth hanging open. This couldn't be real! What kind of dream was I having? When would I wake up in my bed? "But…" I lifted my left hand wearily, trying to get up, but dropped it into the freezing cold water again. I couldn't do anything. "But what…how am I still alive?"

"My stream has kept you alive."

"And so has my garden." The fiery one frowned at her companion, slightly annoyed.

"Be that as it may, you have been kept alive here for only a certain amount of time, until we can decide what to do with you."

"How are you going to do that?" I asked anxiously.

"Since you're awake, you are the one to make the choice." The golden and crimson creature sat down next to me, staring into my face with a serious expression. Her eyes were so large, and alive…they held mind entranced. "Either you can die, or you can live. That is your choice."

If you were faced with the choice of living or dying, what would you choose? Would you choose to live? Would you be afraid of death? Or would you choose to die, because to the world you were dead already? Faced with the choice of my own life or death, I didn't know what to say. For one, I knew that I was already dead. Where would I live? What would I do? What if I never saw anyone ever again? Then what? But if I died, then I would never have a chance to do anything else ever again. I would have missed my chance for life. I would never get to see Jeri again. Or Kazu and Kenta. Or my parents. Or anyone else. And I couldn't die with that on my mind.

"Where there is life, there is hope," I said, swallowing the dry lump in my throat. "I want to live. I want to see my friends and my family again."

She looked so sad when she smiled down at me with her large, bright, passionate eyes. And I wondered why. "Then," she sighed. "We must decide who shall take you. The Fire, or the Ice."

I looked at both of them, and felt myself suddenly beginning to fade away to blackness. I knew that death was upon me, because I could feel my body dying even as I opened my mouth to speak. "Fire and Ice?" I asked, confused. But that was all I could say before everything vanished into darkness and death.

At that moment, my body died.

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