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One Step at a Time.

The doubt was thick, it had risen into a lump in his throat as the motion of his body moved foreward. His eyes were closed and he tried with great effort to believe that there was earth beneath his leading foot; otherwise he wouldn't have the stomach to take the step.

"Come on Luc, think of something, anything but the plunge." He thought to himself as the wind brushed past him as quickly as the thoughts in his mind. He reached out and grasped one thought that hurried through, holding it in place and hoping it would be enough of a distraction. The thought was from earlier in the day, and would not distract much from the present situation as it had a great deal to do with the step he was now taking.

"Have you ever believed in something enough to risk your life? Like, something you could do that could change the world?" He asked his english teacher, Mr. Finnigan.

"Of course Lucas, I am a religious man, and I would sacrificed myself just as the saints and martyrs of Christianity have in the past."

"No, I mean something you could do. An act, that could change everything." He reiterated.

"Well, I still don't think that my previous statement should fall outside those parameters. Perhaps you mean something more along the lines of actions like those taken by Martin Luther King Jr. and his quest for equality. He was a fantastic rhetorician."

Lucas looked away, ponderously. "Something like that, yeah." He said, having given up on attempting to explain the mixture of emotions he felt within him.

The thoughts brought him straight back to what he was doing now and the shock of that failed attempt caused him to open his eyes just at the moment when his step would have normally fallen to ground.

He gasped, his weight having already pulled him too far forward to return. The fear caught in his throat escaped in the form of a scream as he fell forward, twisting his body sideways in a frantic attempt to grab on to the rocky cliff face.

His upper body slammed against the jagged edge of the drop off and he slid backward until only the tips of his fingers held on to the rocks, his arms scraped from the slide.

"What am I doing?" he thought frantically just as his grip failed him and he began to fall.

In the past, he hadn't fallen more than five or six feet; once from a tree branch and another time from the counter at home, when he attempted to outwit his parents who had hidden the snacks conveniently out of reach. This was a far greater plummet.

Beneath him was a jagged array of stones that had been carved by the elements and the ocean to form what looked like a gaping maw.

"This is it. I'm going to die." he thought to himself, his lungs still far too occupied with screaming for him to speak out loud. He ran out of breath and held his eyes shut, knowing that it was soon to be the end. He inhaled, sucking in one last gasp of air.

"This isn't happening. Stop!" He said in his mind, "Just stop!" He said out loud.

He felt the mist swirl around him and the break roaring below, he opened his eyes and was staring at a wall of rock, that wasn't moving. He laughed, looking down slowly to confirm what he thought was happening, and then laughed again. He was nearly thirty feet from the rocks below, motionless, floating still in the air.

There were too many thoughts racing through his mind at the moment to even think to himself and it took him a few seconds to recuperate from the experience, always maintaining that one particular sensation in his mind that was causing him to defy gravity. Once his mind was clear, aside from that specific sensation, he began to think of a way to get out of his current predicament.

"So you're floating, a hundred feet from solid ground and thirty feet from a watery grave. What do you do?" He said, comically to himself.

He mulled over in his mind and attempted to move upward or in any other direction, but in doing so he began to lose the current state of concentration and began to drop a bit. "Ugh!" he grunted from the shock. "Oh no you don't!" He regained the feeling, only having fallen about two feet. "Alright, so obviously this worked, but only about half way." He reached forward and grabbed on to the rock, pulling himself toward it. He found that his body was weightless, and so maintaining the sensation that kept him in such a state, he climbed the cliff face until reaching the top. At the top he pulled himself over the lip and began to float even further upward from the momentum.

"Um... this isn't exactly good." He floated further upward, but luckily also forward so that he was now once again above solid ground. "Ok, let's try this." He was now floating vertically, and decided the only way to get down was to drop himself. He let the sensation go and found that it took a very short time for gravity to grab him once again. He fell, quickly to the ground, much faster than he had anticipated, as he reached the earth he forced the sensation to stop into his mind but it didn't seem to work this time and he covered his face with his arms, shielding himself from the coming impact.

His face was twisted into a grimace of fear, huddled behind his arms, but no impact came. He moved his hand away from his face to see that he was only a few centimeters from the ground, and so once again he began to laugh at the partial success. He put his arms and legs onto the ground and let himself return to gravity's whim.

With himself back on solid ground, he sighed, relieved that he wasn't a corpse at the bottom of the cliff, but still disappointed that he hadn't been able to do what he thought he could. "One step at at a time." he said to himself, rising from the ground and taking one last glance at the cliff behind him. "Let's not take that one again."

Lucas walked away from the ocean, his confidence strengthened, but his expectations far from satisifed. It would take time and perserverance to accomplish what he thought was possible, and then... "And then what?" He thought, removing the question from his mind for the time being, eager to try and control his now proven ability.

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