So Close

The climb stops feeling like movement after a while. The climb stops feeling like movement after a while and starts feeling more like survival stripped down to its most basic form. I stop thinking about where I am, how far I have climbed, or what might be waiting for me below because none of that helps anymore.

My entire world narrows into individual motions repeated over and over against the cliff face. I reach upward searching for another crack in the stone, tighten my grip hard enough that my bleeding fingers ache, pull myself higher one painful inch at a time, **** air into my lungs, and search desperately for stable footing before doing it all again.

Everything else disappears. The desert below me no longer feels real. The voices beneath the cliff fade in and out with the wind until they sound distant and dreamlike, swallowed by the sheer height of the rock face surrounding me. My entire world shrinks down to stone scraping against my skin and the constant terror of empty space beneath my feet.

The wind grows colder the higher I climb. It curls through the narrow cracks in the cliff face with low hollow whistles that almost sound human sometimes. More than once I catch myself glancing sideways because I swear somebody whispered nearby, only to find nothing except black stone and moonlight.

I focus upward again. A narrow vertical seam cuts through the cliff ahead of me deep enough to wedge my fingers into. I pull myself higher carefully, pressing my chest against the rock while loose gravel rattles downward beneath my feet into darkness below.

Do not look down. I repeat the words constantly now inside my own head. I keep repeating the same thought inside my head over and over like a prayer while I climb. Do not look down. The moment I start thinking about the empty space beneath me, panic immediately tries to claw its way back into control of my body.

So I focus only on the rock directly in front of my face instead. Another handhold. Another foothold. Another **** pull upward while loose gravel rattles away beneath my bleeding feet into the darkness below. I finally risk looking upward again after another brutal stretch of climbing.

For the first time since starting the ascent, I can actually see the top of the mesa above me. Moonlight spills silver across the flat ridge line cutting against the night sky only a short distance higher now. The summit no longer feels impossibly far away. I can see individual rocks along the edge. Sparse desert brush grows near the top.

Open ground beyond the cliff face waits just above me. Relief crashes through me so suddenly it almost makes me dizzy. I am close. The realization changes everything. Every cut across my palms, every trembling muscle in my arms, every burning step taken barefoot against the stone suddenly feels survivable because the climb finally has an ending.

I **** myself upward faster despite the pain tearing through my body, **** now, almost frantic with the belief that if I can just reach the summit, I might actually escape whatever is hunting me below. I pass a narrow opening in the cliff face barely wider than my shoulders without fully registering it at first.

It looks like nothing more than a deeper shadow carved into the rock beside me. Just another crack in the mountain. My attention stays focused upward toward the next ledge above me. Which is why I never see the figure hiding inside the hole.

I reach upward for another crack in the cliff face and pull myself higher without ever noticing the narrow black hole hidden beside me in the rock. My entire focus stays locked on the climb, on the next handhold, on the **** need to keep moving before the people below catch up to me.

Sweat stings my eyes while loose gravel skitters away beneath my bare feet into the darkness below. Then something suddenly wraps around my ankle. The grip clamps onto my bare leg so violently that my brain cannot process what is happening at first. Long fingernails dig hard into my skin from somewhere inside the cliff itself.