2136: A Post-Apocalyptic Novel (Book 1 of the 2136 Trilogy)

CHAPTER 5 - Part II

"Come on down!" I heard him say. Roxx's voice sounded muffled as if it had to carry and wind its way through thousands of tons of shrapnel and crumpled concrete and dirt. I leaned my head near the gap in the earth and shouted.

"Are you sure? How am I supposed to get down there?" I yelled into the hole. Wherever there was.

"Wrap the wire around your leg. Use your hands to lower you down. Like a pulley." he said.

He made it sound so easy. I'll have you know, this wire he was referring to, was a two inch metal cord that was used to hold down telephone poles. It was also what held the carnival rides together. Needless to say, definitely not ideal for scaling concrete chunks with sharp iron staves protruding from every corner. If I didn't die from the fall, I certainly would from being impaled on the way down. I knelt to my knees and etched backwards towards the opening of the hole. I wasn't normally afraid of heights or anything, but something about the permanent blackness emitting from the depths of an unknown chasm put some fear in me. I really felt my heart lurch when my feet disappeared from sight.

I yelled back down into the hole.

"I'm not sure I can do this. I can't see anything, and this cord isn't exactly ideal for descents into unknown dark holes where death is the only sure visitor you'll find." Even in fear, my sarcasm found its voice.

His voice cut right through the rubble and my mental debating and hesitation.

"Stop fiddling around and get your rear down here. Now!" he ordered.

I don't know what it was about the sound of a father demanding your obedience and trust, but it got me moving. I latched my right boot around the cord like he said. Next, I removed my gloves from my back pocket and squeezed my fingers through their slits. I may survive the plummet into the mouth of the earth, but I sure didn't want to die of an infection from a oxidized copper wire. Let alone a metal splinter. Yup, better safe than sorry. Such is the irony in a world that can kill you in a hundred different ways within a blink of an eye.

I looped my left arm around the wire with it nestled firmly between the groove of my bent forearm and bicep. And with my other hand I grabbed directly ahold of the black wire.

"Alright," I yelled over my shoulder. "I'm coming down."

Ready or not, here I come.

Slowly, painfully, I lowered myself into darkness. My eyes were ground level just as the sun was fading away behind the Smoky Mountains to the Southwest. I couldn't actually see the mountains from here. We were roughly 500 miles from those rocky slopes. But I imagined what they must be like. Majestic, mysterious, and full of indestructible resistance to change. Maybe one day I would follow the AT all the way to the national forest and make camp there. Away from the system. Away from the heartache. Away from it all. It actually passed through not too far from our precinct and continued Northeast for several hundred miles. I watched the orange glow of the sun cast its eerie glimmer along the sand dunes and abandoned festival rides. Their metal hinges and swings creaked in the wind.

Something else was cracking. The strain on the metal wire from the heat and weight of the concrete blocks weakened its resilience and it started to fray. I felt my hands slipping before the sharp tug on the cord sent a rush of cold damp air over me as I fell. I grappled with the metal wire with my gloved hands but could not gain traction. The metal was too damp. That's odd. I felt my hands lose grip and my back lean away. I could see the orange glow of the sun peaking through the slit in the earth's surface quickly shrinking as my body plummeted. The farther I fell, the colder it got. Here I come death. Open your arms and embrace me. I've finally arrived.

I felt a searing jolt of electricity fire off through my ankle and up my leg. I heard a pop and cried out in pain before the air was sucked right out of me. The wall had caught my tumbling. As consciousness faded, and a new permanent darkness swept into my soul, the glow of the sun far above was merely a speck in the distance. After all these years, this was how I would die. Perfect I thought. I'm ready for the next journey.

Then the water rushed down my throat and I stopped breathing.