Sand.
Not soft or warm, but cold and coarse.
Rock.
Not smooth or stable, but sharp and unforgiving.
The wind.
Not calming or relieving, but stinging and always reminding of the chasm below.
The cliffsides.
An unmoving fog settled below this point holds a secret of the pain below only every few moments is a hint given from a sudden cry.
A hand emerges, bloody, slashed by the stone before it, but the hand does not recoil.
No.
It clings to the stone, even as they separate the flesh of the hand drawing more blood from its shaking and scarred form. Another hand lurches further and an arm reveals, showing its bloody and painful story from the lacerations to the punctures.
The ascent was not… tender.
The hand grips some stone, but they feel its desire to topple another.
Back down into the throat of the abyss.
Pushing aside the feeble stones the fingers find a stable surface, but sharp razor-like edges give the fingers a warning.
The pain is deemed bearable.
The hand grasps and red streaks down the rocks otherwise colorless face.
Excruciatingly the hand below pulls ahead as it finds…
A ledge…
The hand traces the stone, patting in disbelief at the stationary salvation.
The razor-sharp stone sees its chance.
“Crack.”
The stability of the razor-sharp stone was a facade. Its glass-like structure continued to crack preparing to shatter sending its victim plummeting back into the cold void.
A risk was necessary or everything was for naught.
A bloody, beaten and painful sight of a young man pulled himself from the fog.
Quick! There is no time.
The cracks whispering with the wind now.
“You belong back at the bottom. We’ll send you there where this mountain of misery will continue to drink your blood. Absorb your will. And eventually…”
No time…
The young man lunged out just as the crystalline stone shattered.
For what felt like eternity he fell…
But this too was the deception of the mountain.
His mind caught up with the reality.
He clung to the ledge and without any further hesitation scrambled upon its upper side.
He did not dare look back or downwards he simply saw what lay before him and cried.
Not tears of sorrow, but tears of exhausted joy.
Not trusting his balance after this success he crawled on all fours towards the mouth of an inlet. The inside was no bigger than a small room, almost like…
He heard it.
The whispers.
“What does it matter? You’ll fall soon enough. Many have been where you are and many more will follow in even your footsteps. However, you know what they before you, yourself and all those to the future we speak of all have in common? You all fall back into the chasm. You all feed this mountain…
And it has never starved…
nor will it ever…
You simply give excitement to the chase.”
“SHUT UP!! SSSHUUUT UUUUP!” The young man cried out to the infinite spanning before him.
“He he he. Ha ha ha. Aha ha HA Ha HA AHA HA HA!”
The whispers grew into a waterfall of conceited laughter. Drowning all other sounds and distorting into the manaic laughter only a demented man could tell you of. The deafening sound echoed within his head even as he cupped his ears.
He then heard a sound that made him open his eyes.
Amidst the downpour of laughter a voice light and… calming.
“Inside… get inside…”
His eyes saw the opening of the inlet and there within the voice echoed outwards from within.
His wary mind was torn, his body flayed. He turned around and saw the vastness stretching out before him again.
“Maybe the voices were right?” he thought to himself as he looked to the neverending, it was almost suffocating as it felt like it just…
Drank you in…
Then he heard that one voice again.
“DON’T!!”
He snapped from the hypnotic trance he had lingered within seeing that he was not by the inlet gazing away he was at the precipice of the ledge. He grew queasy. His mind his again, rang out to silence only with one thought. “Get to the inlet and get inside.” Then the downpour of laughter returned.
The wind picked up trying to force his balance to betray him.
It wanted him… to send him down to the devouring darkness.
Steeling his mind he rushed to the inlet, he denied the gusts their prey as they lashed and swept the face of the ledge. The mountain seemed to tremble and rock as though if it couldn’t urge him to take the jump it would bring the entirety of the cliffside down with him. He yelled with fury as he forced his body and mind to overcome the onslaught and finally he passed the entrance of the inlet, toppling inside…
Silence…
No demented laughter, no voices, no whispers and it was as though the wind ceased to exist. The shaking of the mountain side had subsided so suddenly upon him entering…
All was calm.
He felt… comforted. For the first time an almost uneasy feeling crept up on him. Not out of fear, but forgetfulness.
His uneasiness revealed its name to his mind…
Peace…
He collapsed to the floor bawling at such a beautiful thing as this quiet peace and before long he allowed himself another thing he had forgotten…
Rest.
