Falling

Derrick had a story to tell, he just didn’t know whom to tell it to. A combat veteran, and often alone, one night he encounters a spirit with seven rings.
“Derrick, I’ve come to talk to you. God sent me, he’s heard your prayers,” the spirit said.
Derrick wakes up and sees no one. Sweating, he grabs his crutches, then hobbles to the bathroom to take his medicine. The life of a war veteran can be strange in the middle of the night. Memories are usually what keeps a vet up. Noticing his bandage falling off, Derrick starts screaming at the mirror in rage.
“Do you give up? Old friend.”
“Who’s there? Leave me alone,” Derrick said, looking around only to see no one.
“I’ve come to talk to you, to give you a message from the other side. Tomorrow you’ll find one of my rings on the floor. When you put it on, all of your pain will be healed. You made it through the war for a reason Derrick, but you have one more war to fight.”
The voice then fades away while Derrick tightens up his bandage and grabs his crutches, only to fall to the floor in pain.
“Somebody help me! Somebody help me please!” He shouted, with no one answering.
“God help me, please.”
Feeling his medicine kicking in and tired from all the pain, he falls to sleep on the bathroom floor. He then begins to dream. In his dream he sees his ex-wife.
“Linda, Linda, is that you?” He asked, but she pushes him away.
When she pushes him, he begins to fall. The falling wakes him up. In another cold sweat on the bathroom floor he notices a ring underneath the toilet, it looks like his wedding ring. It had to be about three or four in the morning because the house was still dark. In agony, Derrick slowly picks the ring up and puts it on his finger. After he does this, something magical begins to take place. He’s healed and feels no more pain.
“Oh my God, it’s a miracle. I can walk,” he said, out loud.
The floor screeches as he feels his feet hitting the dry dirty wood. In the midst of his excitement he notices a face in the mirror hanging on his closet door, out of the corner of his eye, he can see it while standing still.
“Who’s there?” He asked.
“It’s me, the man with six rings. I want you to keep my seventh ring, it looks good on you,” the man said.
Derrick straightens up.
“What do you want from me? What do you want in return, for healing me?” Derrick asked.
“Derrick, I want you to be happy. Do what your brothers on the battlefield would do if they were to live. Do what’s right and I promise you, you’ll never feel pain again. I want you to stop having so many regrets, just use what you’ve learned from being alone as a force to help you be the best man you can be. That’s the war you have to win. In forty years, I’ll be back to check on you.”
The man then fades away.
Still in disbelief, Derrick opens the doorway to his closet and sees nothing but black, he mistakenly steps in and begins falling again, only to wake up in another cold sweat.
Feeling no pain, he looks at the clock on the wall, gets out of bed and realizes that his dream was real. He then takes a shower, puts his clothes on, eats breakfast, brushes his teeth, and heads to his doctor’s appointment. He feels refreshed, in light of the fact that he was able to do these things for the first time in a long time with no pain.
“Derrick, where are your crutches, and why did you remove your bandages?” His doctor asked, examining his healed wounds.
“Something happened to me last night.”
“What? What happened? You look like a whole new man.”
“I had a dream, a dream that I was falling. I don’t remember much before that, I woke up and now I’m healed,” Derrick explained to his doctor.
Derrick’s story soon spread throughout the whole world. Headline after headline made the news about a fallen forgotten solder who was miraculously healed in his dreams. Derrick had given every veteran and active duty soldier something to believe in. The country was on the brink of collapsing until he had come back on the scene. Derrick had done everything right, he lived his life and forty years later the spirit came back while Derrick was asleep on the couch.
“You did it,” the man with six rings said.
“I did what?” Derrick replied.
“Because of you, they’ll never forget another fallen soldier again. You alone gave them the strength to remember. My work here is done. Carry on soldier, you won the war,”
the man with six rings said beginning to fade away.
“Wait, will I ever see you again?”
The man pauses and looks Derrick in the eyes.
“You dreamed that you were falling, but now you rise. When your life is complete, you’ll be like every soldier who falls down so that his country can face the ultimate test of remembrance. Me and your brothers will be waiting for you on the other side. Thanks for putting my ring to good use. One day it’ll be your halo.”
The man with six rings solutes Derrick, then fades away.
Derrick later remarried and lived the rest of his life as a family man. His story still lives on in every soldier fighting on the battlefield today. A story about a fallen forgotten soldier who got back up and pulled off a miracle. On his tombstone it read: “You can only learn to get back up after falling.”
The End.