I Climb a Mountain with an Attitude

After a long debate we decided we should go. On the way there I was mumbling to myself about how sore I was and how now I had to go to Washington despite it. It took seven hours to get there from Chicago. When we arrived, there were four kids in a line listening to a huge man. "See you soon, honey." I crept over to the other kids.

"Eric! You are late!" The man looked furious. "I-I'm sorry. The traffic was terrible."

"Sir!"

"What?"

"The traffic was terrible, sir!"

"Oh. The traffic was terrible, sir!"

"Very well. Now as I was saying, the five of you are going to be competing in a series of events. The winner of the final challenge will get riches beyond their wildest dreams. The others, assuming they finish alive, get nothing. Now go to the cabin and get some rest. The first challenge is tomorrow."

"Boy was that harsh," I said to a short boy who was also competing in the challenge. "Yeah. 'Assuming we make it out alive'. Is that scary or what?"

We walked into the cabin and talked. He said his name was Aaron. He was a seventh grader from Idaho. We became friends pretty quickly. The other kids were Samantha from Cincinnati, Ohio, Tyler from Vancouver, British Columbia, and Leslie from Des Moines, Iowa.

The next morning we all walked to a mountain where a man named Jeff was waiting for us. "Good morning. I hope you had a good night sleep because today you're going to climb this mountain," he continued, "It is three hundred feet tall."

"What if we don't want to?" Samantha said.

"Then you will have to take the other challenge." Jeff told her.

"And what is the other challenge?"

"Feeding these three sharks while standing in the water." He pointed to a saltwater pond. A shark jumped up.

We all decided to climb the mountain.

I looked nervously at Aaron who was cringing at the thought of climbing a mountain. "Don't worry, I've rock climbed before. I'll help you." "Thanks Eric," He replied.

Jeff gave us gloves and told us to climb.

"What about harnesses?" I asked.

"You aren't using harnesses," He replied

"What!" Everyone said in unison. We argued with Jeff for ten minutes or so until we decided it was no use and we might as well climb. About ten feet up, Leslie fell and landed on her back. Thankfully she got up. Aaron was side by side with Tyler. I was the highest on the mountain followed closely by Samantha.

"Move it!" she shouted. She shoved me so hard that I almost fell. I was hanging on with one hand. I managed to balance myself enough to get a grip with both hands. I looked up and saw Samantha about twenty feet above me. I looked down and saw Aaron struggling to keep his footing. I kept climbing until I got to a ledge. I waited for Aaron.

Three minutes later he made it to the ledge. "Aaron", I said. "Stay by me."

"Okay." He replied

So the order was Samantha, Leslie, me, Aaron, and then Tyler who fell when he reached forty feet. It took about an hour to get to the top. Aaron was right behind me. "We made it!" he exclaimed. "But Tyler didn't. Look." All four of us looked down at Tyler's lifeless body.

After he fell at forty feet, he fell again at ninety feet. I realized then how serious this place was. All of the sudden the mountain opened up. The four of us fell for what seemed like forever. We finally landed on a bunch of pillows. A voice said that we were supposed to sleep there for the night. Of course, Samantha hogged all of the pillows so everyone else had to sleep on the rocky floor.

"Good morning contestants." The loud voice woke us all up. "Congratulations on making it this far. Unfortunately one of you will not make it out." We all looked at each other.

"Hey bozo, let us out. We already lost one member of the team. Why are we in this stupid challenge thing anyway?" Samantha is very demanding.

The voice ignored her and continued. "This room will flood with lava. Once three people cross the bridge and exit through the door on the left, the doors will shut and the fourth person will be trapped and will burn to death" I had an idea. A crazy idea. An insanely crazy idea.

"Samantha, Leslie, you get out first. Aaron and I will stay here." Aaron looked at me like I was crazy. "You have to trust me Aaron."

The floor had about an inch of lava. "Go Samantha. You too, Leslie." So they both went out the door. "Aaron you need to stay right beside me." So we ran to the door and stopped.

"Aaron, we have to go out at the exact same time."

"How?"

"Stand on my shoulders. You're short enough and the opening is high enough for us to get through."

"Are you making fun of my height?"

"Come on!"

So he climbed on my shoulders and we got out. The door slammed behind us. He got off my shoulders.

"That was brilliant Eric!"

So we ran and caught up with Sam and Leslie.

"What took so long?"

"Sam, will you shut it." I was a little crabby. I mean, I witnessed a boy die. I almost got killed along with my friend. I had every right to be mad. Sam looked like she was about to kill me when the walls started shaking.

"I think we should get out." Like I really needed Leslie to tell me that.

"Run!" I probably shouldn't have yelled like that since the cave was crumbling behind us. We ran until we saw an opening. We went through the hole in the wall and we were finally outside.

"Hurry! We need to get further away from it so we don't get crushed by flying rocks!" I told them. We stopped running after about a minute. I figured we were far enough from the rubble. After walking a ways we spotted our cabins and decided we should rest for awhile. After we rested up and were about to leave the cabin, Jeff came in and looked surprised.

"There are still four of you. How did you get out of the mountain alive?"

"We're smarter than some stupid mountain," I said simply. "Now can you please explain why we are here?" He said that we all had something in common. After that, he just walked out of the cabin completely baffled. I took off my shoes and hopped into my bed.

"Goodnight Aaron," But he was already asleep.