With his legs dangling over the edge of a cliff, Logan was glad he had made the effort to go hiking. The sun was out, the birds were chirping, and the forest below his feet was like a green blanket that stretched from one horizon to the next. The walk had been tough, but now that he could rest and enjoy the view, he smiled for the first time in weeks.

He couldn’t have picked a better day to die.

Reaching into his backpack, Logan pulled out a bottle of assorted pills. All he had to do was put them in his mouth, and it would be over. The blood thinners would make it quick, the opioids would make it painless, and the sleeping pills would make it all a dream. Taking them would be so easy that it was almost criminal, which wasn’t far from the truth since he didn’t have a prescription for any of them.

It was finally over. Logan just needed to open the lid, and all his suffering would fly away in the breeze. Logan sighed at the thought of letting it all go, his body relaxing so much that he spent the next hour just rolling the bottle around his palm. He thought about opening the lid again and again in those peaceful moments, but he never seemed to have the strength to move his arm.

Why was it so heavy?

Logan had been planning this for weeks. He picked a random spot in the forest and even left a note to his family, claiming he was running away and starting a new life. That way, the police wouldn’t send out a search party, saving everyone the pointless hassle of looking for a dead man.

He had even picked a spot that didn’t have any kind of special meaning to him. It was just a place he thought would be beautiful, secluded, and dangerous enough to die in. Better yet, every step of his plan had been a success. There was no escaping what his parents did, so why couldn’t he take that last step to finding eternal peace?

Logan began to twist the lid open when a distant voice came through the tree line. It was getting closer, the realisation making him freeze as his mind attempted to understand what was happening. Why were there people here? Not only was this place in the middle of nowhere, there wasn’t even a trail leading up to these cliffs. They might’ve even been off-limits since they were prone to collapse.

“See,” a woman said, her voice finally loud enough to hear, “I told you the view would be amazing!”

Logan glanced over his shoulder. From the corner of his eye, he found a group of hikers making their way through the thick underbrush. A young woman was leading them with a glimmer of sweat on her forehead and a look of satisfaction.

Her friends, on the other hand, were absolutely miserable.

“It’s a good view, but there’s no god damned track up here.”

“I’m shocked we didn’t get lost.”

“You’re banned from choosing the next hike.”

“Make that the next three hikes. I never want to walk through such a big spiderweb again.”

The woman spun around and put her hands on her hips. “What’s with all the complaining? I told you where I wanted to go and you all agreed, didn’t you?”

One of the men in the group was about to make a retort when he paused and locked eyes with Logan. The others followed his gaze and stared at him, shocked that someone else had hiked three hours through an untamed forest.

No one spoke.

Logan awkwardly smiled at them, the silence giving him the chance to slide the pill bottle back into the side pocket of his backpack.

“Hello,” Logan said, unsure what to say when they continued staring at him.

There was a better lookout on the next mountain over. Why did this experienced hiking group decide to come and interrupt him? Logan would just have to wait for them to leave, but he didn’t think he would get the chance to finish what he had started today. After all, the woman leading the group seemed far too thrilled at the sight of him.

“Look!” She said, turning back to her companions while pointing at Logan. They ignored her and began to open their backpacks, one even unrolling a picnic blanket for them all to rest on. “My idea can’t have been that bad. After all, this guy had the same one!”

Logan ignored them and went back to enjoying the last view he would ever experience. He hoped they would eat, take pictures, and go back down. Instead, the young woman split off from her friends and approached him.

“Was it worth it?” She said, her voice coming from his right.

Logan glanced over his shoulder again. From the corner of his eye, he found a young woman in black sportswear behind him, her hand tightly wrapped around the branch of a thin sapling for balance. She stood precariously in a half-crouch, occasionally slipping on the shale-like rocks as she approached the cliff’s edge.

She finally sat down a little ways behind and to his right.

“Pardon?” Logan said, taking the chance to shift around and properly look at who he was speaking to. “What’s worth it?”

The young woman was beautiful enough that he was shocked at the sight of her. With skin the colour of honey and the trained physique of an athlete, he half-expected the following words out of her mouth to be a sales pitch. Why else would she bother to talk to some idiot who was a stiff breeze away from tumbling to his death?

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

“This view,” she said, waving her arm at the landscape. “Was it worth the effort to come all the way up here?”

Logan turned back and shrugged. “Yeah, the view is nice I guess.”

“You guess?”

“It was great for a few minutes, but now that I’ve had time to think and relax, life has started to catch back up with me.”

“Well, I hope the view can give you some perspective.”

“What do you mean?”

She smiled ruefully, the corner of her mouth quirking up. “I had an odd childhood, so coming to remote places like these gives me time to think. My therapist says it’s no different than meditating.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Logan said, turning to give her his full attention. “Does it really help you process your trauma?”

“Don’t be sorry! I wasn’t abused or anything, and it wasn’t like you were there either. But yeah, it does help. Sometimes, I’ll randomly think of something weird from my childhood that I thought was normal. It helps me process things that I usually keep locked away.”

Despite his initial reluctance, Logan found himself chatting for hours with this stranger. He was glad to meet her before he moved on to the next life. She was funny and insightful. Her perspective on life was also fascinating, their conversation helping him forget where he was or what he planned on doing.

He simply lived within the moment for those short hours until reality set back in. As the sun began to dip beneath the coastline, the shadows of the skyscrapers casting lines across the forest, he quietly began to prepare himself for what was to come next.

The nameless woman and her group were finally preparing to leave. They rolled up their picnic blanket and packed their bags. Soon, night would fall and it would all be over.

The thought made Logan relax but also put some tension on his shoulders.

“Hey,” The woman said, fidgeting with her hands. “I’m going indoor rock climbing next week at this new place that just opened. Did you maybe want to come and check it out with me?”

Logan stared at her, unsure how to explain that he would soon be occupied for the rest of eternity.

“If you’re not busy, of course!” She said, waving her hands. “I know we haven’t even introduced ourselves yet, but I feel like we’ve become fast friends.”

Logan knew what had to be said for things to go as planned. All he needed to do was shake his head, laugh in her face, and tell her to go away. At the same time, he couldn’t do something cruel like that. Not to mention that he actually did want to see her again.

Perhaps this was fate. How else was he supposed to explain hitting it off with a stranger in the middle of the forest? If there was ever a sign that he was meant to live, this would be it.

“Sorry for not saying anything,” Logan said, smiling. “I was just so shocked that I didn’t know how to respond. And it’s Logan, by the way.”

Her nervousness disappeared in a flash, and replacing it was a smile so radiant that it was almost blinding. “My name is Amelia. Are you happy to go rock climbing? Because if you’re not interested, we can do something else.”

“No, I’m easy. And rock climbing sounds like fun. When were you thinking of going?” Logan said, glancing at her friends. A man with tattoos on his arm glared at them, but the others were chatting while they waited. “Also, who else is coming?”

“Ah, well... it’s just the two of us so far,” Amelia said, chuckling. “We can go whenever you’re free. We’ll just have to make plans closer to the time.”

“That sounds good.”

She held out her hand to help him stand up. “It’s getting late. I also don’t have my phone on me so you’ll have to follow me back to my car, if that’s alright?”

Logan hesitated for a moment before eventually taking her hand, all but giving up on his plans for today. He didn’t mind this outcome. But as he stood up, the ground began to crumble apart beneath his feet. He immediately lost his balance and tried to grab onto a nearby branch. His hand swiftly wrapped around the wood, only for him to realise that it didn’t stop him from falling.

Looking around as he plummeted, Logan soon realised that the entire cliff had collapsed beneath his feet, trees and all. His heart flew up into his throat, and fear overwhelmed him. Rocks and trees were tumbling around him as he bounced around the air.

They were going to die. Terror and regret overwhelmed him, leaving only a small part of Logan’s mind to process the shock. Was he really planning to die in such an awful way? When compared to the fear of plummeting to his death, all of his problems became trivial. They felt so overwhelming and impossible to deal with when he was safe on that ledge, but this… there really was no solution.

Death was the only end.

Thankfully, his hand still gripped Amelia’s, giving him some semblance of stability in the air. She was screaming along with him, but they both slowly calmed down as the seconds ticked by. Why weren’t they dead yet? The cliff was less than fifty metres tall, meaning they should’ve crashed into the earth about ten seconds ago.

He tried to get an idea of what was going on but they were spinning around like crazy. Logan spread out his arms to try and glide down, Amelia catching on and copying him a few moments later. Just like that, she spread her limbs and they managed to right themselves, getting pushed by the wind into a slower glide.

That also gave them the chance to look down at why they were still alive.

Initially, the base of the cliff housed a small stream that fed into a nearby river. Now the divot was endlessly splitting open, quickly widening into an enormous ravine that only became deeper and deeper with each passing second. This went on for what felt like minutes before something changed.

The earth finally stopped opening up a few kilometres beneath them, the reason being the massive cavern it had exposed. The hole in the ceiling revealed a body of dark water, the liquid nestled into a bowl-shaped cave. The lake was easily kilometres wide, but the incredible sight no longer mattered. They were going to die in less than a minute since water became harder than concrete at the speeds they were falling.

The scenery changed as they fell through the roof of the cavern. Logan had to hold back a shiver as the warm summer air became frigid. Despite his discomfort, the cavern was a remarkable sight. The walls were covered in thick layers of crystal. Bioluminescent algae filled the ocean, the cold blue light being swallowed up by the shadows within the lake. What remained shone through the crystal-laden walls, making it appear as if they were filled with glowing blue clouds and fractals.

As they fell towards the lake, smaller pieces of rubble began to splash into the ocean. They disturbed the surface, making it blurry and uneven. Suddenly, the falling debris reminded Logan of the last time he watched a diving event, a sprinkler being used to break up the surface tension of the pool so that the diver wouldn’t get hurt.

If it worked for them, why couldn’t it save his life? Ripping his hand free, Logan began to straighten his body out. Amelia stared at him with wide eyes, her hand closing on nothing as they began to glide away from each other. She tried to swim towards him, but he only drifted further away.

Hopefully, she would understand.

A few seconds before slamming into the water, Logan pressed his hands together to a point. His fingers moved down as they began to pierce the wind, and just like that, he entered a full dive right before stabbing into the glowing sea.