The Fall

Life has a way of abruptly going from bad to worse without warning. One minute you’re humming along at a steady baseline, having reached some sort of equilibrium of misery and ennui. Then the bottom falls out. The unexpected knock on your door at four in the morning. The headlights in the oncoming lane suddenly veering into yours. Or the pit you didn’t see ahead of you while you were running through the dark.

The first thing he’d felt had been confusion. He’d been counting on the ground being there, and then, suddenly, it wasn’t. In an instant, he’d tried to correct, to find his footing, but there was none to be found. Then, unbidden, his arms and hands thrust forward, bracing himself for the hit his body knew was coming. But it didn’t come. He continued to fall, his stomach seeming to do so faster than the rest of him. And then it came. The sudden stop.

A cacophony of pain erupted through him, beginning at his hip, but radiating out like a nuclear blastwave. He would have screamed, but the fall had knocked the air out of his lungs. All he could do was feel the agony. It subsumed him, white, blinding, incendiary, unendurable - pain beyond his brain’s ability to process cogently, registering instead as infinite.

He continued in this state for an incalculable length of time, unable to do anything but suffer. Gradually, his endorphins began to release and lucidity started to return. With the baleful return of conscious thought, he appraised his situation. The fall looked like it must have been about twenty feet. He supposed he was lucky to have even survived it, although whether that luck was good or bad, he couldn’t quite decide. He made to move, and a geyser of searing resurgence of molten pain erupted from beneath the barely dried crust. Looking down the length of his body, he could see his leg, bent at an angle that made his stomach turn, with a gore-soaked shard of his fibula protruding through. Even standing would be impossible. Climbing was unthinkable. He was trapped.

Scanning his surroundings, he found he wasn’t quite alone. Near his position, half buried in rubble, was a body. His nose had found it before his eyes. In the dead man’s hand was a revolver. The outstretched arm bearing the gun was only about a meter away, but, in his current state, that distance was 100 centimeters of pure, undiluted torment.

He let out a breath. Even that was painful. He closed his eyes, and let himself sink into reflection. It was not a luxury he’d had for a long, long time. Now, it seemed like it may have been the only luxury he did. Two years ago, before the bombs fell, before the fires rose and then died out, the world he lived in now would have been unthinkable. That was just as well. The world now didn’t lend itself to thinking. Thoughtful contemplation of the world and its state was like pushing on an infected tooth with your tongue. You quickly learned to avoid it, until the aversion became unconscious. But here, in this pit, his thoughts were all he had left. His thoughts, and the company of a dead man clutching a gun.

He considered his situation. He couldn’t move. It had already been three days since he’d had anything to eat. It was what had coaxed him out of his hiding spot in the first place, what had prodded him to risk venturing into Geiger territory. The Geigers had food. They also had numbers. And guns. What they didn’t have was an abundance of affection for people who weren’t Geigers. Going into Geiger territory was stupid. It was just about certain death. But going without food? That was certain death. It was one of the few certainties left in the world.

He took a moment to contemplate those few. He was at the bottom of a 20 foot crater. He had a broken leg and who knows what else. He had no food, no water, and no chance in hell of climbing out of here himself. He had a day left, maybe two, before either the shock or dehydration got him. They would be two days of unmitigated, unrelenting pain. That’s if the Geigers didn’t find him and finish him off. Or worse, maybe they would find and just leave him there. After all, why waste a bullet on someone who’s already dead?

Why indeed? Because, as it so happened, he had a gun lying just beyond arm’s reach away. He didn’t know if it would be loaded. He did know it would hurt like hell - beyond hell - every inch of the way trying to reach it. But he already hurt. Everything hurt. And it seemed apparent that, one way or the other, he was going to die hurting. The only question, at this point, was whether that would come a little sooner, or a little later.

In the end, it was the pain that decided for him. At some point, when you’ve borne the dull, monotonous, endless throb of a toothache for so long, you’re past trying to avoid the pain. You finally just want the thing out.

With an effort that felt like making snow angels in a lava bed, he rolled over. He screamed then. He screamed so loud, he felt his own throat tear and the scream rattle out into oblivion. He lay there, on his stomach, for a moment, catching his breath, letting this new wave crest. It did, finally, and he crawled forward. His leg felt like an anchor. Every nerve shrieked for him to stop. To just lie there. He didn’t listen. He screamed again, and heaved himself forward.

Finally, he was there. He paused again to catch his breath. Tremors vibrated his entire body, adrenaline working overtime to keep him conscious. With shaking, bloodied fingers, he pried apart the dead man’s grip on the gun. Then he grasped it in his own.

The metal was cool and heavy in his hand. He checked the cylinder. Five casings, their primers bearing the telltale indentation of the firing pin. One fresh, virgin round left. He didn’t bother to check if it had his name on it. It would do.

Steady now. He forced his breathing to slow, taking in the moment. He was still in agony, but something about the finality of what lay before him prompted him to stretch it out, observe it. His whole life had apparently led to this. A life of frustration and disappointment, of watching the whole world come burning down. A life of running. A life of fear. All leading to a pit with a gun and a single bullet.

It was too perfect. It had to have some sort of meaning. But hell if he could figure out what it was.

With a trembling hand, he raised the gun to his head and pulled the hammer back. He heard it click into place, waiting on him. He wondered if he would even feel himself pull the trigger.

Then he heard something. A voice. Someone calling.

“Hello? Is anyone there?”

Who was this? Whoever it was, it wasn’t Geigers. But they were near. He couldn’t scream. His throat had been shredded in his crawl here. But he did have an alternative.

Life had so few certainties. And what few it seemed to provide, it seemed to take a perverse delight in suddenly yanking away. One thing remained true: one way or the other, he was almost certainly going to die hurting. The only question, at this point, was whether that would come a little sooner, or a little later. He paused, one moment more, in consideration, before making his choice.

Then he lifted the gun in the air and pulled the trigger.