Falling

A grunt ripped from my throat, cutting through the air, thick with anxiety. My arms burned with strain and exhaustion. Stinging pain plagued my fingers as I desperately clung to the rocky cliff ledge. My head felt numb. Wisps of panicked thoughts raced through my brain like electrical pulses, fading before I could logic my way through any of them. I couldn’t see a way out of this.

Maybe if I had gone to the gym, I would be strong enough.

But now was not the time for regrets. Now was the time for action.

What action was possible, though?

Cold sliced through my body as a deluge of adrenaline pumped through my veins. My chest tightened impossibly more when my hands started to grow sweaty.

No! I have to save him.

I couldn’t let this be his end.

He has so much life left to live.

Somehow, even as my chest constricted, my heart raced ever faster, as if attempting to rip through my rib cage to save itself from my inevitable demise.

Tingles manifested in my fingertips, tongue, and chest, and began to radiate outwards. This was it. I had failed. I failed him, my precious little brother. I failed my parents, taking both of their sons from them at the same time. I failed myself. I wasn’t strong enough to save the person I loved most in this world.

Hope died as realization set in and acceptance took over. I swallowed the lump in my throat, blinked away the tears that were obscuring my vision, and looked down at my brother’s lifeless body dangling from my slipping grip. I could still see the panic in his little eyes as I caught his arm. I remembered the strain in his hand, his arm, his shoulder as he clung desperately to me—right up until he looked below us and passed out.

“I’m so sorry I wasn’t enough. I wish with everything I have that I could save you,” I whispered. I gulped in a deep breath. The air stung my lungs as if it knew I was about to die and felt betrayed by the knowledge. My fingers on the ledge slipped further, causing my brother’s body to jerk, and his wrist slipped just a bit more from my grip. His big blue eyes popped open in panic as he woke and looked up at me.

Unable to stand the fear on his face, I smiled down at him. “It is okay. You’re okay. We’re okay.” I tried to console him the best I could with my own fear fogging my mind. As I felt my fingertips give way, I dug deep within myself and pulled him up to hug his little body to mine. Despite the violent shaking that overtook his body, he clung to me as we descended to our doom. He squeezed his eyes shut against the horror that was our reality. For a moment, we were weightless. If I closed my eyes, it could almost be peaceful—the burden of life lifted, the wind rushing past us as we fell. So, that is what I did. I closed my eyes and imagined I was a bird, free-falling until I spread my wings at the last moment and soared toward the horizon unscathed.

“I love you.” I hoped he would hear these last words and find comfort in them. It was the least I could do. As if sensing we were about to land, my heart skipped a beat painfully in my chest.

My body jolted. I gasped and opened my eyes to darkness. I was alive. Instead of the rock basin I was just plummeting toward, I was lying on something soft and warm. A bed. I was in a bed at the inn near the dungeon. My body was slick with cold sweat, and my heart raced as if it, too, remembered falling. I sucked in deep breaths, trying to slow it all down. I looked around the room to ground myself.

A dream. Again.

Except it hadn't been a dream the first time.

I had died on that cliff.

Then I'd opened my eyes in a new body, in a new house, in an entirely different realm.

So many things were foreign, but I retained my memories even as I learned to assimilate into this new world. From time to time, the memory of my Earth death terrorized my dreams. My new parents thought it strange that I learned faster than was normal. That is, until I was old enough and trusted them enough to properly convey my circumstances. I waited until I was old enough to survive on my own in case they decided I was insane, defective, or otherwise something that needed to be thrown out. To my surprise and wonder, they not only believed me, but they accepted me. Turns out, reincarnation wasn't exactly common here, but it wasn't unheard of either.

The moment I understood what that meant, my brother stopped being dead and started being lost.

When I was ten, I began searching for him.

We died together.

I was here.

So where the hell was he?

Nearly twenty years later, I still didn't have an answer.

While my brother was not with me, she was. Sifira was curled into the fetal position beside me, facing the door. Always the door. Always the door. It was one of the habits she'd carried over from her old life.

She trusted me more than she trusted most people.

That wasn't the same thing as trusting me completely.

I took a deep breath and rolled toward her, running my hand along her side. The soft warmth of her skin was a welcome contrast to the memory of cold stone biting into my fingers. She blinked her hazel eyes open as I rubbed one of her fiery red fox ears between my thumb and index finger. A smirk stretched across her mouth as her eyes found mine. Not even questioning my motives, she rolled onto her back and pulled me against the soft warmth of her body. Her embrace was the warm connection my soul needed. For a moment, it anchored me firmly in this life. I brought my lips to hers and chased the distraction I desperately craved.

I found Sifira shortly after becoming an adventurer. She was newly licensed herself, hovering around the guild and clearly wanting a party while being far too shy to actually ask anyone to join one.

So I asked her.

Somewhere between finding other party members, surviving dungeons together, and discovering we'd both lived entire lives on Earth before ending up here, she became my best friend.

A best friend I occasionally slept with, granted.

Hence the shared bed.

It worked for us.

Adventuring gave me two things I needed: a living and an excuse to keep searching.

Sifira and I traveled with our party from dungeon to dungeon across the Kingdom of Nyxaria. Wherever we went, I kept an ear out for other reincarnates. People from Earth tended to find one another eventually, and every new person meant another chance.

Have you ever met him?

Different name. Different face. Different body. I didn't care.

I just needed someone, somewhere, to have met my brother.

Nearly twenty years of asking, and the answer was always the same.

No.