That Last Step is a Doozy
I was on vacation in Ithaca with my boyfriend at the time. We had literally, I’m talking ten minutes, just gotten into town and stopped at a suspension bridge near Cornell’s campus. I’m terrified of heights, so my boyfriend was coaxing me step by step over the bridge. It was gorgeous and we stopped in the middle to take a picture.
On the side we had come from, there was a parking lot with steps leading to the bottom of the gorge. But on the far side, there were hiking paths with no barrier. A woman walked past us and offered to take a picture for us. We declined. What she did next was absolutely chilling. She smiled and walked quickly to the far side of the bridge where she smoothly jumped off into the gorge.
There was not a second of hesitation. It was almost like she expected the path to keep going. The sound of a person hitting the ground from a jump like that sticks with you.