Jian crossed the security fence of the bridge and stopped just a few centimeters from the edge. He had mentally prepared himself months ago for what would follow.
He waited for the dreadful fear that they say one feels when touched by the specter of death.
He waited a little longer. Nothing. Jian sighed for the thousandth time since leaving his small apartment in a gray city.
He looked to his sides, the sun was setting, and there was no one around. "Perfect," he thought before fixing his gaze once again on the turbulent waters of the river below his feet.
He hadn't noticed the heaviness with which he had been living until now, near the end, when it began to dissipate. He took a breath and exhaled very slowly. He enjoyed a few seconds, with his eyes closed, savoring the scent of the wet gravel.
He leaned forward as if wanting to hear what the river was whispering to him, as if within its waters could be revealed a truth he had been unsuccessfully searching for for years.
The idea of his insignificance sent a chill through him, unlike the novels he used to enjoy, there was no savior, no muse, the sky would not cry for him, no one would notice he had ever been there.
Li Jian, an unemployed graduate, orphaned and empty. Only a dirty and unpleasant corpse would remain, a mark that would become just another number in a dull report.
The numbness that had taken hold of him so many years ago and that he hated so much, did not disappear even in this situation, and being so, he continued with his own.
The slender young man whose green eyes remained fixed on the river, let himself fall.
The impact was brutal, a sharp blow against the water knocked all the breath out of him and plunged his body into darkness. Just before losing consciousness, he thought he heard someone desperately calling him from the depths of the river.
The river's currents dragged him as his chest burned with pain from the water replacing the air.
They say the sea always returns what is thrown into it. If we extend this idea, we could say that all bodies of water tend to reject the strange.
But that night, Jian's body did not fall into the liquid that symbolizes life for many. He fell into a true source of life, one that did not reject his presence, but rather absorbed him completely and gave him life back.
Contrary to what Jian had predicted, after his fall, there was not a single trace of his body.
Thunder and lightning overshadowed the sharp and desperate cries of the creature that was thrown into the fierce river by its own mother.
The woman was not particularly cruel, but how could she imagine the absurd situation in which she would conceive a demon in her womb for 9 months?
No, as soon as the midwife placed the baby in her arms, she knew what she had to do. It was the demon, after all. This unshakable determination would be the only strong trait Yu, the little one with bright red eyes and small horns, would inherit.
Upon finding the woman's body hanging in her small wooden house, the village began searching for the newborn. The warnings and fearful whispers of the women who assisted the birth were ignored because people attributed their testimonies to their senility.
But no one found anything, some claimed to hear its cry near the raging river, but unable to continue their search due to the danger of the river's turbulence, nothing was clear.
The small village was deeply moved by the father's grief, who in one night lost both his wife and his first child. At dawn, many set out in search of answers. The village, usually quiet, was suddenly full of activity.
However, no matter how extensive the riders' searches on horseback or the tireless glow of the torches, they found no trace. Even the women witnesses began to doubt whether what they had seen that night was real. Very soon the story was buried alongside the most varied legends. As time passed, only a handful remembered the tragedy.
That night, in two alternate realities, helped by the bravery of the source of life, Jian and Yu crossed their lines of destiny.