Leaning 08: More Climbing (Frye)

tl;dr Frye gets out. Probably.

So much climbing. So little editing.

All the good things belong to Monolith Soft.

The climb went great. Just dandy. The muscles on Frye's arms didn't start twitching until what was maybe the halfway point, which was fine. There was definitely light to be seen above, very encouraging. It didn't actually illuminate where he was, but having that speck of light as a direction was definitely encouraging. It didn't seem to be increasing though, which Frye would have worried about if he wasn't so distracted by his arms and then by the way his toes had cramped and then more worryingly stopped cramping. He wiggled them but still only felt a vague sense of the groove. But he hadn't fallen, so they must be doing their job.

So the climb was going just peachy, aside from the cramping, numbness, and endlessness. Frye wasn't gong to include the stretch where the groove had vanished suddenly and he'd had to find handholds in pitch darkness. Enough to say he'd found them. He was getting out of the shaft if he had to chew his way up the sides. He'd done it, rejoining the groove about 3 meters up, and the twirling, spiraling climb resumed.

There were signs he was coming to the end. The light was still fainter than he'd like, but the air was fresh. He started to hear echoes that weren't just his grumbles and gasps. He thought he smelled ocean water, not the stale smell of the cave but fresh stuff. It might have been his imagination, but he was willing to believe until proved otherwise.

He knew he should rest, but he didn't want to risk cramping solid. He steadied his breathing, kept his head to the cave wall, and took one grab after another, shuffling around emptiness. His reward: the end of the groove and the body of the shaft. No exit, only what looked like a dome capping the top.

Frye wasn't broken by this. The key fact that he could now see the ceiling was enough to keep him going. Light was coming in from somewhere, and that was where he was getting out. He just needed to figure out the source. He took that delayed rest now, craning his neck to examine the rock above him.

Frye could see how he could do it. Seeing the rock face was an improvement over the past hours of relentlessly dull climbing in the dark, grabbing outward on faith alone. If that climb had offered any challenges, he'd never have made it. (Already Frye was reframing the terror of the broken patch. When he got out, he'd turn that part of the story into something that made his buddies laugh.)

It was going to be tricky, and he wished he could be roped up, because without the normal precautions he was getting one chance. If he blew it, it was several flights down onto a floor that would not cushion his landing. But he could see it, and he could do it. A crack, a natural one and deep to boot, running about an armspan away up to where the glow was brightest. He figured he could wedge both hands into it, keep pulling himself upward with his toes in the artificial groove until that ran out, then jam his toes in and kind of squeeze himself up to freedom.

The first grab went well, and the edge of the split held firm. Frye's grin glinted in the dim light. He'd been dead bored for a hour. Now he'd get plenty of excitement, one inch at a time.

The space he needed to cross was about two body lengths. It was going well, better than well even. The crack had just a bit of an angle that let him curl his fingers in, not just put pressure against the sides. As good as a rope, he told himself.

Dumb thing to think, because he lost his advantage almost immediately. His toes slipped out, he wasn't sure how, because they'd been pretty numb. Don't summon the gods of dumbass, he told himself as his legs fell away from the ceiling. But the edge of the groove was there and it allowed him to dangle like an inverted bat. He decided not to risk swinging his legs back up. He'd grip along the edge of the crack and see where it got him.

The crack ran out at the peak of the dome. Frye was almost blinking in the thin light streaming in from somewhere. He took one hand away and swiped at the light, soft like morning but blinding after hours in complete darkness. His wrist slammed into rock, hard enough to make his arm tingle, but his hand? His hand was in still in free air. There was a ledge, a proper ledge, with enough space for his full hand to curl into. This was going to be a breeze. Another blind grab, and then nothing more than a regulation pull up, he'd done a million of those. He could almost hear a drill instructor in the far distance, yelling at him to do another. Nuts to that. The shelf was deep enough for his shoulders, his full body. He slithered onto the space, deep but low enough that his butt scuffed the roof. He lay his head gratefully onto the rock ledge, gave a great huff of relief, and passed out.

a/n: The reader may be delighted that we are done with climbing. The reader may not be aware of what come next.

Next up: ridiculous amounts of fluff and no Frye whatsoever.