The Deadly Climb
For experienced climbers, it could have been a most entertaining and challenging part but for an amateur and an 8-year-old boy like Haru, it was next to suicide.
A foundation from the uneven path having pebbles stones bulging out, covered with algae and greens evolving into a slippery hell road, nearly as straight as a wall, part of rocks popping out, transformed into knife edges as the result of the battle with rain and wind over thousands of years, never knowing of when they fall out.
“Ohhh... what the hell is this? Now, how am I supposed to climb this one?”, Haru first surprised then chuckled, not having any idea of what to perform. He thinks for some time and suddenly a memory strikes, of his father practicing climb on a similar terrain steep first grabbing the small rocks and pulling himself up without looking down and forcing on the bulged rocks through his feet to maintain his balance.
The memory vanishes leaving behind a way for Haru.
“Thanks, dad”, he smiled and gazed the steep
.
Proceeding the same way as his father, he nearly completed half of the climb. All of a sudden, the rock at which his left hand clung to, falls out, leaving him hanging in the middle of the air, saved by his right hand from falling into death’s mouth.
“Ooohhhhh... hhh...”, with each second, heart becoming faster, sweat breaking out and mind drowning in fear, Haru was getting totally blank.
“Wha... ha.... ttt..”, still swinging in the air, unable to complete words due to high adrenaline and fear.
Though being a kid, Haru’s inner self was altering itself into a matured person, with each day passing along Izumi.
Controlling his breath and fear, he looked up in the hope to find a new bulged out rock, with the feeling to do everything possible to save his life, in his eyes.
Thanks to the adversity of the events, all bulged rocks were out of his reach except one, still one and a half arm away, the last hope.
“huh..., this is so scary. What should I do now? Even my grip won’t last long”, afraid to death, analyzing the situation.
That one bulged rock being the last hope, he tries. To extend his left hand, he forced every muscle of his tired body to move in that direction with every ounce of his remained energy. But the rock came out to be much further than what he calculated, missing the rock and being able to reside his right on the life-saving rock. Distressed, drained body, bearing mud spots and hilly grease, begins to fall through the air. Hopes extinguished leaving a serious cliche of not living up to the expectations.
As he declined, he got absorbed in towering woods, striking and breaking branches. Leading to the projection of cuts and bruises over his open parts and finally, he fainted.
Still unconsciously falling...
“Open your eyes, Bratt. You ain’t a sleeping beauty”, a voice, jeering aloud, struck Haru out of his unconsciousness.
Slowly moving up his eyelids and felling the pain immediately, as ratted out by sensory receptors to the brainstem.
“aa...hhhh..hh...”, Haru groaned in pain.
“So, you are up after all”.
Haru managed to slip a sight over the guy, sitting aside him on a rock.
“What are you doing here...”, heavy voice, trying to sit pointing his back to the rock.
“Still showing attitude... huh... you should be grateful that I saved your life or you’d have been eaten by ferocious animals by now”, he commented, while gazing at him.
An unexpected silence took place.
Haru inhaled and exhaled deeply.
“I... I guess you’re right. And thanks for saving me”, he showed gratitude and suddenly something clicked his mind.
“Oohhhh... I still don’t know your name”, asked him.
“I am Mitsubi”, he responded quickly.
“Okay”, replied while moving his muscles to stand up, wrapped in bruises.
“You still want to complete the task, when you know that you just saw the nose of death, and believe me, I’ll not save you again”, he explained himself thoroughly as well as the condition, Haru was in.
“Yeah, I do”, Haru shot back, finally standing.
“Good”, gave a suspicious smile.
“You know what boy, with those injuries, you’ll be nowhere. And... I like your “never giving up” attitude. Yeah... it’s good”, he smiled once again, getting his left palm ready to get an unalike and contrasting symbol and putting it in front, standing straight and firm.
“Hey, what are you doing”, with a huge question mark and uneasy feeling rounding up in his mind.
“Relax boy. Take it as a gift from me”.
The next second, he utters some words “ I summon thee....”.
A blow of wind, suddenly struck Haru, out of nowhere.
“Hey what happened... hey would you care to tell me”, Haru yelled.
“Calm down boy, just take a look at your bruises now”, he commented while pointing towards his injuries.
“My bruises... huh... they... they almost healed... but how.. Did you do it”, Haru totally confused and looking for a quite satisfying explanation.
“Well, of course, I did that. But you know, I can’t tell you anything in detail. For now, you should go to complete your training. Now get the hell out of here”, he commanded.
Haru gazed at him and then at the steep.
Before moving forth, he exclaimed only two words “Thank you”, and gave a smile full of warmth and respect.
Now, back again challenging the monstrous steep, Haru proceeds with the climb, not repeating the same mistakes and taking care of the movable rocks, he made his own path.
At last, near the end of steep, grasping it with a strong grip, Haru pulled his weary body up and giving up to the fatigue and thirstiness, he lied there for a minute.
A small recap of what happened today with him hovered his mind.
“huh... uu... I need some water to drink. This humid day is seriously absorbing a lot out of me”, Haru pushed some words out of his mouth while lying and wiping his sweat off of his face.
With every second, his feelings for water getting deeper, he decided to go look for it. Departing from the path paved by beings and nature over the years to the top of the hill, he went into the dense and green woods.
Trees and bushes, all around, green and dark, even hard for sunlight to fall through, a different scent flowing in the air, still moving forward but no sign of Adam’s ale.
Suddenly, the voice of the branch breaking fell into the ears of Haru. He flipped back to inquire, unknowingly his right feet tapped upon a covered secret tunnel-like path, into which Haru couldn’t stop himself falling. After sliding and rolling through some pebbles covered in algae and little droppings of insects, he reached the plain surface.
“What the hell was that? Just who made that road to hell”, Haru furiously shouted, while standing on his legs and gushed
“Whoa....”
How was Haru healed?
What is this place Haru fell into?
What will happen next?
Stay tuned to find out...
0 Comments