Upside Down

The world hangs upside down beneath me. Blood pounds violently through my skull while my fingers claw uselessly at empty air. The cliff face sways in front of my eyes beneath cold moonlight, jagged rock dropping away into darkness far below.

Panic tears through my chest as I kick instinctively, and loose stones rattle down into the ravine beneath me. A hand grips my ankle tighter, ahuman hand, mostly. I twist upward hard enough to nearly dislocate my spine and finally see him crouched above me near a narrow crack in the cliff wall.

The mutant leans out over the edge with one arm wrapped around a thick iron spike hammered into the stone beside him. His other hand clamps around my bare ankle hard enough to bruise. He is thin beneath layers of filthy miner’s clothes and feathers lashed together into something resembling a ceremonial coat.

Mud and soot cake his face beneath wide bloodshot eyes that never stop moving. Long black hair hangs across his shoulders in greasy tangles while pieces of bone and rusted metal dangle from cords braided into it. The grin stretching across his face looks far too wide.

“Well now,” he rasps excitedly. “Look what done climbed into my fishin’ line.”

My pulse hammers harder. “What the fuck are you talking about?” I shout.

“I’m a Cavefisher,” he says proudly. “Best one on this whole damn mesa.” He jerks my ankle slightly for emphasis.

I swing violently over open air. “Fuck!” I scream.

“Now hold still,” he snaps suddenly. “You wanna fall, girl? Cause I sure as hell ain’t climbin’ down there after you.” I freeze instinctively. The mutant shifts closer to the edge, boots scraping against loose rock. “Mercury,” he says, thumping his chest with his free hand. “That’s what they call me.” His grin widens further. “Cause I move quick.”

I stare up at him while terror churns through my stomach. The canyon wind whistles softly around us. My shoulders ache from dangling upside down while blood rushes painfully behind my eyes. Mercury watches me carefully.

“You keep kickin’,” he mutters, “and one of two things gonna happen. Either I lose my grip…” He glances down into the darkness below me. “…or your ankle comes clean outta socket.”.I make the mistake of looking down. The canyon drops away beneath me so far that the bottom barely looks real anymore.

Moonlight washes across endless shelves of jagged stone and steep black cliffs descending into shadow until depth itself becomes impossible to judge. My stomach lurches violently the longer I stare. The ravine floor looks distant enough that falling almost stops feeling physical and starts feeling abstract.

The earth itself has simply opened beneath me. The desert stretches endlessly beyond the canyon walls in every direction beneath the cold silver glow of the moon. Wind whistles softly through the rocks while loose gravel trickles down from beneath my dangling body, vanishing silently into the darkness below.

Every instinct in my body screams the same thing at once. One slip, one mistake, one twitch of Mercury’s hand. That is all it would take. Fear tightens every muscle in my body. “You gonna help me or not?” I demand.

“I might,” he says. “Depends.” “Depends on what?” He shrugs. “Whether you bite.” I stare at him in disbelief. Mercury leans farther out over the cliff edge, feathers rustling softly around his shoulders.

“Ain’t everybody down here mean,” he says. “Some of us can be real nice to a pretty thing like you. Real nice!” The sentence somehow unsettles me more than if he had threatened me. His grip tightens again. “So make your choice, Bells,” he says softly. “You can trust me long enough to let me haul you up…” He smiles down at the abyss beneath me.