Just a step

I'm so close. So very close to freedom. It's literally a step away. Just one. Little. Step.
Someone grabs the hem of my shirt and pulls me back. I spin and raise my fists for a fight, then lower them when I meet eyes with a short girl with cropped blonde hair and anger shining in pale green iris'.
"Bridie?" I stutter.
She gives me a hard smack across my cheek, making my head snap back. I turn back to her with surprise and slight anger, but she talks before I can.
"What's wrong with you?! Were you really about to do that?"
I purse my lips and reply with, "if this is the only way, then it's the way I'm going. Stay and rot here, if you want, but I'm getting out."
"By jumping?"
I look down at where I stand, inches away from the edge of the tower we're in. Thick clouds flow around us in the dark night sky, obscuring anything below their fluffy opaque bodies.
Bridie speaks again. "Please don't, Dannie. You know that this isn't the only answer. Just-", she takes my hand and squeezes it,"-come back."
I think about everything that's happened to me in this place, and I'm tired of it all. I'm sick of the testing and the probing and the injections. I'm done with it all. I've heard stories about this tower, about the other kids who've jumped. I'll be added to those stories, and maybe I'll be able to tell them myself. I look back at Bridie, who's crying softly, and say, "I'm not gonna be like everyone else. I'm gonna get out, and I'm gonna survive. I swear to God, I won't die here."
Bridie looks past me at the hovering clouds. "You really think you can make it there? The stories the kids tell...about the passage to the other land..."
"It's there," I say, "and I can make it."
She swallows hard and nods, stepping up beside me. "Then I'm coming too."
I smile and nod, squeezing her hand reassuringly. And together we step into the sky.