Jumping Jack

Note: Image associated is from Ironage.media, specifically their prompt, 'The Leap'

Something had changed for Jack Lang in the past week.

He couldn't have told you what had caused it if he tried, and what little he could grasp would have left you thinking he was bloody mad.

Six nights ago, a meteor shower had been visible from where he lived in sunny and scenic San Marozia. It had been estimated to start just a few minutes past curfew, and his parents had let him stay up to see it. That night, he had dreamed he was one with the meteors, screeching through the stars at speeds even F1 racers had never felt.

Four nights ago, as he'd been drifting off, he felt himself, well, not falling but doing the exact opposite. At the time, he wrote it off, 'Just a weird thing, nothing worth paying attention to'. After all, who hasn't been on the edge of sleep only to panic at the thought that they were falling? Who's to say the reverse was abnormal?

Two nights ago, he'd woken up feeling cold, only to find himself lying about half a foot above his bed. That was until he really noticed, and he immediately fell back into it. That morning, he just assumed it had been a dream. A distressingly realistic dream, but a dream.

Today, not only had he woke up to his alarm only a foot from his ceiling, he could finally dunk a basketball, but not by a fine margin. No, he had jumped high enough that his waist had been above the rim. During track practice, he had barely been able to keep himself on the ground. Every step felt like a launching pad to him, as though he was wearing springs on his shoes.

Now, he found himself looking out at the sea from the cliffs of Marozia. And where before there was the rogue thought of 'jump' that might echo in his mind if he looked too long, now something entirely different told him, 'Fly!'

And before he could think about the impulse, he'd already followed through.

He only opened his eyes when he realized that he couldn't feel himself falling, nor the wind whipping through his hair and clothes. Looking around, he saw he was simply floating in the air, as though gravity had never existed. 'This can't be,' he thought to himself, and before the thought had finished, he was falling, the cliffs suddenly racing high above him.

"IT CAN BE! IT CAN BE!" he started yelling, flailing himself about as his descent slowed the more he believed his words and the less he thought them a lie. As the cliffs stopped growing, He looked back at the tops from where he'd jumped. 'If I can float, can I fly?' He thought about rising back to the top of the cliffs, how it would look and feel, but found himself still in the same spot.

Then, a thought occurred to him. 'Maybe I just need to jump?' Jack let himself fall to the ground beneath him before he jumped again, finding himself almost 20 feet in the air before he felt himself slow again, catching onto the cliff face. He jumped again, throwing himself higher, 25 feet this time. Again and again, he did this, scaling the cliff in leaps and bounds.

Jack Lang couldn't tell you why, but he could say that now gravity only moved him when he wanted it to.