Content warning: Discussion of self-harm.
Julian locked his bedroom door and closed the blinds.
He sat down in front of his birthday gift — a 32-inch 4K monitor. He’d lied and told his parents he wanted it for gaming.
He opened IRC, logged into his alt account, and checked the Altiora server. There were thirteen new posts in #photos. His mouse hovered over the channel, but he didn’t let himself click.
Don’t indulge your instincts. Use the ritual, even where it’s safe.
Julian took three long breaths: in through the nose, out through the mouth. He thought about the beta blockers under his mattress — no. Not today. For his first run with the new equipment, he’d go all-out.
Headphones on. Volume up, but not so loud he couldn’t hear a knock. Play ambient mountain sounds. Open #photos.
Credit: Kelly Repreza
Julian’s toes curled. His mouth was dry. His heart sped up. He leaned in close to the screen; on the new monitor, his peripheral vision vanished. He was on the mountain. He was sitting on that cliff. A few inches forward, and he would feel gravity take him.
He closed his eyes and imagined the valley floor rushing toward him, wind roaring, stomach flipping, no choices to make, no future, only the fall and one moment when the great crushing force of nature would swat him like a bug—
Julian released a quiet moan. No one else heard.
God made the world, and he made it full of mountains. These were the crucibles — where Satan tempted Jesus and walked away snarling, where Moses looked down from Sinai and felt the call of the void but shook it off to carry the Commandments. They were a constant reminder that God gave humans a choice — a few moments of ecstasy or eternal salvation. And they were a source of pride for all those who kept themselves close to the ground.
Heights were a test for every man, or at least 95% of them. Few had the twisted brain chemistry that allowed someone to look down from on high and walk away. A few bold science fiction writers imagined worlds where the call had been “cured”, and humans built vast cities of gleaming metal or floating platforms above the clouds, lethal drops as far as the eye could see.
Julian’s school district banned those books. He’d read through bootlegs, and they gave him a few small jolts, but without photos it just wasn’t the same. (Some people tried to generate images, but the better AIs would kick you off just for suggesting it.)
He wasn’t looking for death. If someone wanted to fall, they’d find a way. No buildings more than three stories tall, nets below every bridge — didn’t matter. There were heights everywhere for those with eyes to see; you could find a forest and climb a tree.
But that was a total waste, when God made the mountains. Why fall sixty feet onto the forest floor when you could enter the void? Enjoy eight, nine, ten seconds of ecstasy?
And why make a single jump, when you could imagine it a thousand times instead? He wasn’t an animal; he could satisfy his lizard brain and still have a great life. (On his alt account, Julian claimed not to believe in Hell — but that was one more reason to be safe.)
He knew his obsession wasn’t normal. Billions of people on Earth, and only a few million fell each year. Only a tiny fraction of those hung around in places like Altiora, feeling the thrill without following through. But even if it was a weird thing to do, it was healthier than the alternative.
Why look at a thousand photos when there were ways to get so much closer?
Julian snuck out at 3:00 am and got into the van. He’d started taking long morning runs before his lifeguard shifts; his parents were used to waking up and finding him gone. They didn’t know he’d swapped shifts today.
The van drove out of town and down I-24. Sean the driver and his two friends were callproof; at the checkpoint, they flashed the stickers on their licenses and the mountain guards waved them through. Julian hid under a blanket on the floor.
They reached the end of the road. There were no parking lots out here. Camping on Lookout Mountain required you to be in the lucky 5% or take a bunch of psych exams and wait a year for your license. Few bothered; there were plenty of nicer places to set up a tent, places without armed guards who would throw you in prison if they caught you taking drop photos.
On IRC, Sean had told Julian not to worry about prison; he knew this mountain well. No one was around this time of year. As heights went, it wasn’t high-risk enough to get attention from the rare callproof rangers who could patrol it without dying. Julian believed him; they were all in this together.
An hour into the hike, he was grateful for the morning runs. No one had ever carved a real trail here, and they weren’t even halfway up. They kept to the deep woods. Sean, Mary, and Omar led the way, headlamps shining, keeping him away from rhododendron thickets and accidental views of the valley. It wasn’t so different from his old Boy Scout walks, aside from the darkness — and the elevation, which felt like it was trying to drag him back down the mountain, making his calves and thighs and lungs burn with effort.
The others weren’t struggling; they had better shoes and more experience. They exchanged playful insults and gossiped about their classmates. They were all at UTC, part of a callproof club that hiked regularly and sometimes took money from people like Julian who wanted a glimpse of that life. He was breathing too hard to talk much, and he wouldn’t have known what to say; he didn’t want to sound like the earthbound high schooler he was.
The elevation got a little better near the top. When they stopped in a clearing, Julian pulled out his beta blockers. He thought about it for a minute, as the others unpacked the equipment.
No. You spent your entire summer salary to be here. It may be the only chance.
“Go all-out,” he murmured, stuffing the pills back into his pocket.
“What?” called Omar.
“Nothing!”
“We’re ready,” said Sean. “Come over here.”
They put a harness on him and tied a rope around it. Julian recognized the harness — it was for rock climbing. (The sport was only legal in a few states, but he’d seen videos on Altiora.) Then they gave him a stiff helmet to wear. And finally, handcuffs, which would keep his arms locked in front so he couldn’t untie the rope.
“Tell me what’s going to happen next,” said Sean.
“Right before we crest the ridge, you’ll tell me to stop.”
“Good. And then?”
“You guys will hold me while Mary sets the anchor and loops me in.”
“Right. And you will do what?”
“Nothing. I’ll stay still. You can trust me.”
“If you do anything surprising, what will we do?”
“Drag me down the mountain until I calm down.”
“Right. Greg vouched for you, so I don’t expect any of this to happen, but we are deadly serious.”
“Yes sir.”
Sean’s brow furrowed. Omar chuckled. Why did I say “sir”?
“I mean, yes. I’m also serious.”
“Good.”
They walked another hundred yards or so. Sean and Omar helped Julian keep his footing, since he couldn’t use his arms to balance. Mary was already at the top with the anchor.
The trees were sparser up here, and the sky had been lightening over the last hour. Just as Sean and Omar pulled him to a stop, Julian saw clouds glowing orange on the horizon. He felt his heart racing, and it was more than just the hike. He took deep breaths, nose in, mouth out.
Mary returned, took the rope, and carried it up to one of the last big trees. Julian saw metal glinting as she tied the rope to the anchor. It took her a long time to finish the knot.
“Ready!” she shouted, finally.
“Okay!” Sean shouted back.
He turned to Julian. “Ready?”
“Yes.”
Omar and Sean let go. Julian took his last few steps up the hill, and then.
Credit: Matthew Jungling
His feet found bare rock. He could see the valley and the city. They were below him. Everything was below him. He had never seen so much below. And ahead. Ahead the rock ran out and there was air. Void.
He tried to stop, take in the view, but his feet were moving beneath him. He took one more breath and then he was screaming, screaming, sprinting with his hands behind his back, somehow keeping upright and taking a shallow breath and screaming, the rope was running out and he should slow down but instead he kept running until YANK the rope ran out and he jerked to a stop. The harness dug into his skin. His feet slipped out from under him and he fell hard. Pain shot through his left shoulder.
“Ow!” Julian’s scream cut off. He lost the view for a moment — he could only see rock. He got his feet under him and rose, unsteadily.
Sean and Omar and Mary jogged over, saying something or other that he no longer heard because he was at the edge now, he could see the forest and every house in the city and he was two thousand feet off the ground, ten seconds of ecstasy away from God’s green earth.
Someone clapped hands around his eyes. “No!” he shouted. “No!”
“Julian!” Mary shouted, directly into his ear. He flinched. The howling of the void was quieter now, but he couldn’t unhear it.
Omar grabbed his arm. “You good, buddy?”
“Untie me, please, untie me—”
“Nope.”
“We’re all here, Julian,” said Sean. “We’re not going to let you jump. We’ll let you look, but you have to stop talking. Okay?”
Julian took a few seconds to breathe. He felt… he didn’t know how to describe it, nothing else compared. Like a grizzly bear was chasing him, and he had to run over that cliff to escape. Like Samantha Williams from his biology class was disrobing in midair a few feet out past the ledge, calling him over to kiss her thighs. Like God himself was waiting on the ground to bring him home.
But it was dark, and quiet now, and the void was almost like a dream. His heart began to slow.
“You sure he’s ready?”
“They say the first pull is the hardest. If you get past that, people calm down.”
“I guess he’s secure. I just don’t want him to fight us all the way back.”
“Julian?” Mary again. “Are you ready to see again? Are you going to fight us?”
“No,” he said. “I think I’m okay now. That was… really intense. But I— I think I can take it. If I go crazy again, just cover my eyes and pull me away. Once I can’t see it, I know I’ll be fine.”
“We will definitely pull you away,” said Sean. “Last warning. Okay, let him see.”
Sunlight returned. Julian stood three feet from the edge and saw infinity. He fought back another scream — and it worked. He hugged his hands to his chest, while Sean and Omar held onto his biceps. His shoulder ached, but like everything connected to his body, it didn’t really matter.
There were birds below him. The clouds were still above, but so much closer now. Dawn was breaking. Row after row of houses lit up gold. The forest and the city were like a model train set; he could reach out and pick them up.
This is how God feels.
He’d heard it many times in church, but now he understood. This was the lesson of the void — humans weren’t built to look through God’s eyes. (And good callproofs kept it to themselves.)
Julian could still feel the call, almost gentle now. It wanted him, body and soul. Two steps forward, one flex of the knee, and he would feel the mercy of the universe.
“Like what you see?” said Omar.
“Ssssh!” said Mary.
“We should bring shoulder pads next time,” said Sean.
“Ssssh!” said Mary.
Julian couldn’t speak. But in a few minutes, he’d let himself be led away, back to the ground where he didn’t belong.