Page 115 of White Lights
She’s scared, but if she doesn’t go back to the abyss below the platform, if she doesn’t learn how to get herself out of it on her own, she’ll never feel fully safe immersing herself in her work.
“Three rules,” Rafe says. “First, if you fall, you’re already screwed. Falling increases velocity. That’s one reason you dropped so fast last time.”
“What’s the other reason?”
“Don’t get ahead of yourself. What’s important is never to fall. If you ever feel yourself slipping over the edge again,jump.”
Dez looks beyond the edge of the platform into the bottomless black depth. She swallows. “Okay. Jump.”
“Second rule,” Rafe continues. “The lights down there are called halos. Each one contains a current mortal life. Grab them to climb back up. But handle them lightly.”
“There’s a halo down there for every living person in the world?”
“Encased in bands of electromagnetic radiation.”
Tenth-grade science homework flashes through Dez’s mind. “Like stellar flares. The flames that shoot from stars?”
“Very good.” Rafe smiles.
“Aren’t those incredibly hot?”
“Yes. You’ll only be able to handle each one briefly.”
Dez tries to fathom this, the immensity of what she’s standing on.
“Ismylife down there?” Dez asks. “In a halo?”
“No,” Rafe says. “Moriah keeps the first-years’ halos elsewhere. Now, the third rule is the hardest. You must completely clear your mind. Of everything outside the climb back up. You must be absolutely focused.”
“Like meditating?” She’s never been good at that.
“More like a video game,” Rafe says. “You’re trying to accomplish a task, and there’s nothing beyond that. If you get distracted, you’re going to fall farther, deeper. So forget everything but making it back to the platform.”
She stands with her toes at the edge of the platform. She looks down at the infinity of darkness, dotted with pinpricks of light. She used to think they looked like stars. She lets her gaze soften, so she stops seeing it in its dizzying, specific vastness. So that she’s looking at it more like the way she looks up at the night sky.
Rafe turns around so his back’s at the edge of the platform. “Now all that’s left to do is decide on your approach.”
He bends his knees, then springs backward, arms arched over his head. Then he tucks into a tight back flip before straightening his body into a long and lovely plank. He falls.
And falls.
Dez’s chest tightens until—at a distance of fifty feet down—Rafe reaches out and grabs one of the halos.
And Dez sees what she hadn’t noticed last time. How it’s actually a ring.
It bobs under his weight, but it catches him, stops him from falling. He grabs another halo, then another, and so on, treading air with the fiery manifestations of every mortal life.
“Get down here,” he calls. “Dive in.”
Dez’s palms are slick with sweat as she edges closer to the platform’s end. This feels crazy, what she’s about to do.
She tries to clear her mind. Be like Mo playingHalo, Dez tells herself. No court date or part-time job ever disturbed her brother’s Xbox focus.
“This millennia, Dez,” Rafe calls.
She raises her arms over her head.
And dives.
