Read Jump: The Fallen: Testament 1 for Free Online Page A

well.”
    Each of the faithful ruffled their feathers and bobbed their heads back and forth, adjusting themselves on their favorite grandstand perch. It would be a lengthy judgment, they had witnessed it before. War would not happen today. The sting of Dal’s quills had become all too common.
    Life smirked a little and brushed her bright locks back behind her ears. “Perhaps you should relent,” she said. “There is always a pathway to return, nestled way in the back . . . even for you.”
    Dal smiled at her and his teeth glistened. “Said the lamb to the lion. It is a great memory. One which you must ponder often.”
    “I ponder only in regret at your fall.”
    Dal slowly nodded his head. “Your time shall come,” he said. “You will reap what you have sown. And yet today . . . I must politely decline. Bounding through fire at the crack of your whip is not my . . . color.” He grinned a little at her, remembering their time. “What do you believe you possess that is so compelling, anyway?”
    Life smiled a devious grin at him. She spoke from her right heart, “Everlasting love.”
    Dal’s face turned to a frown. “Oh, you—a rotting, silken pittance to starving peasants,” he said. “Sooner or later, they all require proof. And the only thing they know of love . . . is that it cannot last. A shooting star that burns out before you are able to catch it.”
    “How far you have fallen, my Angel of Light,” Life said. “The sands of this eternity have done little to erode your cynicism.”
    Dal turned his attention back to the fall. It was a good day for it, but the conversation grew boring. “I have not their blind eyes. I know your deceptions. Soon, he will as well. Submit or be cast out. You speak of cynicism? From a hypocrite!”

    Life’s light blasted brighter and the arena lit up brilliantly. The grandstands prepared. To challenge The Word was blasphemy, but to berate its author openly. . . War might ensue, after all. They all leaned forward on their perches and waited, poised to tear the talons and slice the wings of their brothers and sisters. They listened for Life's response.
    “Do not tempt me,” she said.
    “Lest I may incur your wrath?” said Dal. He spread his great, red wings and flapped them several times without flying. Then he tucked them behind his back and pushed his flight feathers together, forming his shield. If she came at him, he was prepared. “You prove my point.”
    Life looked toward the dark side of the grandstands and then at her own followers. The shine of her truth returned the hall to its previous bright white. She would spare them . . . today. “And what do you offer him that is better than love? What could you possibly—”
    “Redemption.”
    Life clucked out a small laugh, but ended it quickly. “There is nothing redeeming about you.”
    Dal gazed back to the fall. He watched the Man-monkey slip deep into his judgment. “Redemption, your majesty, requires power . . . and I am gifted with an abundance of that. Sufficient for his needs, to be certain.”
    “If you do this,” Life warned, “there will be no way back . . . for any of them.”
    Dal’s eyes glowed a shining blue flame. “Go back? What makes you believe that our rotting carcasses, impaled on the words of your love, are so succulent as to cause us all to long for another bite?”

— IX —

    I CAN’T FIGURE out how many floors I’ve plummeted past, and I’d be lying if I told you I didn’t crap my pants, because something smells like shit. Anyway, lying isn’t me—white, black or gray—you want the truth . . . just ask.
    I’ll tell you one truth I know for sure: falling is not a natural thing. It’s one thing to know that you are diving into a lake or even some kind of Protection parajumper, whose chute will save him before he smacks the earth, but waiting for the pavement to blow your guts out your ribcage . . . is a far different experience.
    I imagine the end of this like a pond