Now, if I were to stand up, I'd fall upwards.
I pushed myself up.
The motion didn't translate the way it should've. My palms pressed into the sand, my arm straightened, but instead of rising the world simply slid past me.
As if I were stationary and the world was moving away from me.
I was convinced I had failed again.
Then my feet touched the ground.
No, they passed through it.
The sensation was wrong.
My soles felt pressure without contact.
Balance without gravity.
When I fully straightened, my head swam from the sensation of being upright but in a direction that didn't exist.
I was falling.
Not down.
Up.
The beach stretched beneath me like a ceiling that had pretended to be a floor.
My spine tingled, an icy sensation from the base of my skull to my heart.
I took a step, I think.
My leg moved forward, but my body lagged behind, as though there were an invisible delay between my intentions and movements.
When my foot settled, the rest of me snapped into place a fraction of a second later.
I gagged, clutching at my coat.
The sea roared louder now, or my heart had gone quieter.
A once looming horizon now felt close enough to touch yet infinitely far away at the same time.
I laughed once more.
Get a grip.
I focused on my breath and the scrape of fabric against my scales.
The lamp next to me, still glowing, not enough time had passed for it to turn off on its own.
I fixed my eyes on it like an anchor does to a boat.
Another step.
A sharp pull just beneath my ribs, like a hook.
The pressure in my chest tightened, as if I was being held by something on the inside.
I froze.
Slowly, and carefully, I looked down at myself.
There was nothing.
No rope or visible mark.
And yet, every instinct in my brain screamed that if I went too far, whatever was holding me would tear me apart.
My mother's voice called my name from the endless ocean.
My father's breathing echoed across the beach.
My siblings' laughter felt sharp in my ears.
For a split second, the pressure vanished.
I pitched forward, clinging onto the lamp like a lifeline.
The world flipped.
Stars rushed past my vision as the beach lurched.
The hook had snapped.
I stopped mid-fall.
My body jerked violently, breath punched out of my lungs as if I'd hit an invisible wall.
I hung there, feet barely brushing the sand, my heart hammering against the thing lodged behind it.
Something still had a grip on me, despite snapping.
Back in the millitary we'd hang in monkey bars like this for hours during training.
Nothing I wasn't used to.
Gravity was pulling at me towards the sky.
But the lamp was set in place, and I would let go.
I tightened both hands around whatever grip I could get.
Raising my legs up, that invisible hook was still holding my heart in place.
Every swing I gave only tightened it.
But I wouldn't let it stop me.
Something I had previously done had made it snap for just a moment.
If I did it again, that hook would go away.
First, I should take a look at my surroundings.
I was hanging, that was clear.
Whatever was there, three forces were in play.
Something pulling me upward, something anchoring me downward, and me.
The upward pull was constant.
However, that hook was reactive, as I struggled, it tightened, and every time I trashed, it punished me with pain.
So this wasn't an invisible rope.
I loosened my grip on the lamp just a little.
Immediately, the pressure in my chest shifted.
The hook slid deeper.
Panic is resistance, resistance is tension, and tension is pain.
When somebody froze on the climb, our instructors always said the same thing.
"The body only locks up when the mind refuses to commit."
I muttered, below my breath.
I closed my eyes.
Behing my eyelids, I could see it.
Not visually.
A shape lodged behind my sternum.
Every thought I'd had pressed against it.
Guilt. Fear.
I wasn't being held up, instead I was being kept in place.
When it had snapped earlier, for just a moment, it wasn't because I struggled harder.
I simply took my mind off the deal for a moment.
I had reached for the lamp without thinking, my mind was focused on the memories of my family and nothing else.
This hook was a judgement of sorts.
I adjusted my grip again.
Instead of pulling myself down, I let my body go slack.
The feeling was immediate.
The upward pull intensified.
The hook was still scraping at my heart.
But the pain had changed.
Something inside me was unfolding, stretching into shape.
I slightly opened my eyes. the moon was large and bright before me.
I was at the center of it.
Falling upwards.
Or was this a new downwards.
It felt as if the world slowed down as I fell.
My house was above me, the sea and the beach alongside it.
The moon was the equivalent of what lied above the ground.
This meant, the stars were my new ground.
I flipped myself over in the air, looking back at my town.
The river that was the wind passed through my body, adapting to it.
And with a click, the hook was now gone.
My heart was freed, I couldn't feel anything around it anymore.
I closed my eyes, letting myself enjoy the moment.
Then gravity slammed back into place.
I collapsed onto the sand, hard enough to knock the air from my lungs.
Pain spread across my ribs, spine, and skull.
But it was normal pain.
I laughed, coughing, staring up at the stars now properly above me.
Something warmed pulsed through my veins, not adrenaline, something else I couldn't describe.
The lamp clattered beside me.
I lay there shaking, hand pressed to my chest, feeling a slow, steady rhythm.
I wasn't hanging or falling anymore.
Back to the ground.