A Breathless Prose Surreal Horror Story

I remember the rush of wind, the way my stomach lurched as I stepped off the ledge of the fifty-seventh floor, the city a glittering mosaic of light beneath me, and I tell myself that any second now the ground will come rushing up to meet me, but it doesn’t, the air just stretches and stretches, my descent never ending, the people in the windows above me changing each time I pass, my mother watching now, no, not my mother, I never had a mother, did I, or is that just another thing the fall is taking from me, because it feels like I have been here forever, floating down but never hitting, my hands flailing but catching nothing, my screams swallowed before they ever leave my throat, and the street below is different now, it was a crosswalk filled with people a moment ago but now I see a cobblestone alley, slick with rain, a man in a dark coat staring up at me as I drop, his face familiar though I can’t place it, but before I can reach him the alley disappears, the street shifts, and I am falling past the same office building again except it isn’t the same, the windows are bricked over, the neon sign on the rooftop is gone, the lights are all out, but I swear I see movement behind the walls, shadows shifting in places there should be no space to move, and I realize I am not alone in this descent, that something is falling beside me, above me, below me, shapes in the air, twisting, watching, their mouths open though I hear no sound, and I try to reach for one, desperate for something solid in this endless drop, but my fingers pass through as if through mist, as if they are echoes of something that fell before me and never stopped, and I wonder how many others have been here, how many have stepped off the edge expecting a quick end only to find themselves trapped in the fall, watching their past stretch and distort, unraveling memory by memory until nothing is left but the falling, the rush of air that is not air, the light that flickers like a dying film reel, and I swear I have seen this moment before, I swear I have told myself these thoughts before, I swear I have fallen past this same floor before, because there is the man again, the one in the alley, but the alley is gone now and he is standing on a train platform, and I see him more clearly, his face sharp, his eyes locked onto mine as if he is waiting for me, as if he has always been waiting for me, and something in me shudders at the recognition, because I know him now, I know him completely, because he is me, but older, or younger, or from a life I have not yet lived, and I try to scream, try to call out, but the wind steals my voice and the platform disappears, the city disappears, and suddenly I am no longer falling past buildings but through something else, something darker, something vaster, an abyss without edges, without sky, without ground, and the realization slams into me that there is no end to this, no bottom, no impact, only the sensation of descent, a gravity without a source, and that I will keep falling forever, through memories that are not my own, past moments that have never happened, past faces I will never know, and the thought grips me with a terror so complete it consumes every part of me, until there is nothing left but motion, the rush of something that is not air, the scream that never comes, the realization that I have always been falling and will always be falling and there is no escape, no end, no beginning, only the endless drop.