It's True, I Promised.

Part two of "A Europe Post" tells about our very own Delta Academy--to which I was gone to for a month. Stay tuned!
This here is a sneak preview. I got to read this in front of everyone during the talent section of one of the nights. You see, that's not something I'm used to at all. I might have blushed.
I'm sending this in, for a reflections, or an Activated issue, or just because. If it gets to any of those places, you can all say you read it here first.
Much love!

Gio.

PS: It's for you.

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The man hung on a rope, his muscles trembling from the strain of his grip, and he was alone. His next move meant falling moving ahead toward the peak of this mountain—his mountain. Just like his every move, it was either a slow, careful step to the top, or one very quick, dark step down the frozen abyss. The man moved upward—the only choice to take now.
Earlier, he had run away from a town that hated him; a town he hated back. They had never wanted him. He didn’t care. He had always loved their loathing and smirked at their disapproving scowls. He was simply not how they would have him—different all his life, and hated because of that one simple fact: Head and shoulders above the rest of them, not in standing, just in nature.
The town had not wanted him to climb the mountain either. They had not wanted him to leave, and they had not wanted him to stay the same. He was meant to obey—to live his life in a tree-lined street with tree-lined yards, where the green the lawn is all the really matters. Grow old and die there. He couldn’t do that.
That was one thing he couldn’t do. He would refuse to just exist. He would die—again and again and again—before just existence—to just be there. That is what the town below had wanted him to do, what they would say through gritted teeth, “don’t live, and don’t risk dying.” That was what he was there on that ice-covered mountain for.
That is how he was—always had been—; when the world inhaled, he would exhale, and savored inhaling at their exhales. When he was supposed to sit down, shut up, grow old and die, he would stand, chest swelling, and scream and live. Bite me!
That’s how he was.
“Reach the top,” scrolled down his mind. –Every time his hand moved to a rock higher than the last, he would hear those words. Occasionally, his feet would slip, his reflexes barely catching him. Then the voice would change—the message would be different. Every step of the way, he knew; he was going to reach to top, or hit bottom. Either way, he was going to make some kind of headline.
Whoever hears about the man who slips and falls on the city street anyway?—Or the man who attains the perfect lawn, best in his street—what is in that?
He had been climbing, and scratching and bruising, for hours now—his body got used to the cold, and his hands learned to find the right spots in the rocks, ice or snow. Not much he could do about the pain by now. His eyes ignored the frozen wind, looking ahead, seeing a tip on top of the mountain. He wanted that headline.
The sun was setting by now, the cold was freezing over, and the cliff was getting steeper, but his eyes had caught the top, and they would stay there. He would reach the top.
…That, or hit bottom.
He locked his hand on the next opening in the cliff’s surface. It was just another step forward.
Abruptly, the rock sunk. He heard a small crack underneath the surface—ever so slight, ever so ugly. He didn’t want it, but his glance turned, away from his ambition and onto the hand holding the rock.
Crack! Not the sweetest sound in the world. It was the sound of rock breaking all around him, and of a heart stopping, frozen air holding its breath. It was just one step forward; just one small rock, and it broke off easily. One misstep and he would fall fast and hit hard. Next, the rope snapped. His body jolted, his hands and feet broke loose. Freefall.
As he plummeted, he looked up to see the summit he would never reach. He could feel the drop now, down in his gut; and he could feel it fast. His body turned with the wind, and his vision diverted. Downward. He saw the valley below, his town below for just a moment.
He saw the houses. He could see his tree-lined dream house—or a thousand of them or a million; what he should have had.--The houses of mere existers, vegetating by the thousands, doomed and waiting for their lives around them to turn a deathly gold, and to die.
He escaped. They would find his body somewhere, smiling--the kind of smile put on to try to break the wind. They would find him somewhere, frozen stiff.
His eyes closed, and he savored the wind. It had never been this fresh before.
They—the teacher, the pastor, his parents, mechanics, the major, the builders, the doctors, the butchers, the zombies.— they would all shake their heads in and look down. “Another life, wasted,” the would say. The world would shake its head with them and frown.
He smile a thrilled smile. It was worth it. He had escaped. They would find him somewhere, soon enough, and he would make his headline.