A Defeat And A Half

"Never!"

In a momentary peak of courage, I jumped downhill. It was true, I was probably going to land about only 20, maybe 30 meters below at most, but get injured pretty badly; breaking a few bones, snapping a few muscles and tendons out of their place, destroying some blood vessels, ripping some membranes, getting half of my body paralyzed, having my lungs explode... Nothing short of death, to simply put it - even if I wouldn't die, I would wish I did instead of surviving such a fall.

But more importantly than all of this, I didn't do it because I thought I could escape by doing so; I knew she was too powerful. I have done it only for it's symbolism of determination I had failed to show so far, and as a miserable compensation for all the mistakes I've done. All those selfish choices I've made during hard times, sometimes out of fear, and, to hell with it, COWARDICE! Yes, that was the correct term for it, I was a coward.

And now, flying to my inevitable end, I wasn't feeling any sort of regret. After all, I knew it was my fault. The loss of powerful tools and crystals, my inability to follow simple instructions and the sacrifice of Ms. Saka... and even perhaps what happened to Mr. Idris! This was my attempt to redeem the good person who I once thought I was.

So, there was a bittersweet defeat. Once I hit the ground, I was going to be set free of everything.

I closed my eyes in the air to meet my end. I wanted it to be a peaceful one, seeing the world upside down and coming at me at high speed was not going to help anyway. Besides, it was only going to take several seconds, so I could just try to enjoy the last moments.

Those last moments didn't end.

The ground didn't come at me at high speed, and I didn't meet my end. It took way too long, yet I was scared to open my eyes. Because I knew there was nothing under me, and I didn't want fear to overcome my sudden determination and confidence. I was, in the most basic sense, afraid of being afraid.

Perhaps time was slowing down to delay my meeting with the ground, or perhaps I was already dead and I just didn't know it.

I took my time. Eventually, something was going to happen without my interference. Something had to, unless I had fallen into a black void of absolute nothingness with my death - which, as a matter of fact, was within the possibilities. Either way, I was much better off keeping my eyes shut.

Except until I wasn't.

My body finally let go of the (obviously) false sense of semi-immortality, and anxiety rushed to fill in the emptiness left after it. This was what it took for me to open my eyes once again.

Below me, there were lots of clouds and a clear blue sky. There was no reference point to measure distances, but it's beauty was the only thing I cared about anyway.

"Maybe I really am dead." I said before looking up.

Above me were lots of rocks, and there it was... The village, Yuvakaya! I couldn't see the bookstore because of the trees in front of it, but the rest of the west wing was clearly visible. Yet there were some odd details in the scenery I had never noticed before; the buildings had different shapes than I remembered, and the trees were growing upside down.

No, of course they were not.

Everything was right, but I was standing upside down, that is, if you could call that 'standing' in the first place. I just wasn't getting any feeling of being held upside down, as if gravity didn't exist. That was also the primary reason why it had taken me so long to figure out my orientation.

Things became somewhat more clear when I saw a couple of legs. I looked down, or rather up, to see the face they belonged to. And quite fitting to my expectations, she was there. The woman in black, the witch!

She looked into my eyes, playing with a black gemstone in her hand. It was exactly the one I was trying to get to the mountain enclosure, and one of the two I was supposed to look after. There was no way I could get that back, but it wasn't that much important now. For a gemstone to have any importance, I had to be free as a prerequisite.

I was pulled down, or lifted up, until our eyes were at the same level. She wasn't holding me, nothing solid was. Some magic, or curse, or whatever was making my body defy gravity.

"Where is the other stone?" she asked me.

"What other stone?" I asked.

"You know exactly what I am talking about. Where is the green gemstone!?"

"I do not know!"

Her face was the angriest I've ever seen in my life. At least it was a beautiful one, or I would really think that she was an alien creature.

"WHERE IS IT!?"

"I told you, I don't know!" I said. I was telling the truth. "I lost it!"

She reached out to me with her free hand, and covered my forehead. I had a short, vague visual flashback to the green gemstone of Ms. Saka's wand. Those few seconds were mentally draining; it sucked up all the energy I had.

Her angry face slowly turned into a disappointed one, a sad one, and she let me go. Suddenly, I started feeling the gravity again. I fell up -actually down- on my head, although not dangerously. I got back on my feet, and she let me.

"You were not lying." she said.

"Of course I wasn't." I said.

But she was gone before even hearing my reply.

Now, having lost both gemstones and two precious lives, I was going to get back the mountain enclosure. There was nothing more I could lose, maybe except for my life - which would most likely not happen because the woman in black had let me go already.

I just could not imagine the shame I had to face on my return home.