Climb the Ladder

You fight through the relentless tickling, but it takes every muscle you've got. There's some relief when you finally manage to lift yourself high enough on the ladder that the hands can no longer reach your poor armpits, still buzzing with sensitivity. But the hands don't let up on the other parts of your body.

Your muscles shuddering with exhaustion, you pull yourself upwards, the ring of disembodied hands feverishly tickling over your sides, chest, and stomach, then lower. You nearly lose your grip when a pair of the devilish mitts jab teasingly under your butt cheeks and around your lower thighs!

The hands move further down your body, over your legs and knees. You kick and twist at the hands as they swarm your feet, but they easily strip off your trainers, leaving you in just a pair of hot pink no-show socks. Before they can do any more damage however, you manage to swing a leg up over the bottom rung, lifting yourself wholly out of the reach of the hands. You sit panting for a moment, locking your body around the ladder. Down below the hands still fidget and jab towards you, but you're safely out of range.

Sweating and exhausted, you stare up, seeing the ladder, rope, and chain disappearing into the darkness above. Who knows how many stories up these things go?! Then you notice a circular duct in the tube wall, only a few feet above you. It's grate is rattling loosely in the flow of warm, wet air tumbling out of it. You might fit through it.