Savage Run

by E. J. Squires

  Should I leave him behind? My chest squeezes.

  I study the wrap, and it seems to help control the bleeding. He’s going to slow me down significantly, and most likely, he won’t be able to make the climb.

  “Ready?” he says, gritting his teeth.

  “Will you be…?”

  He interrupts me, and says angrily, “Don’t worry about me!”

  I force a smile, but suspect that it looks more like a pained frown. “Okay?” I walk over to the base of the mountain and press my palms against the red rock. When I look up, my stomach drops like I just swallowed a bag of concrete. Of course they had to put the hardest challenge last when we’re thoroughly exhausted. A lump forms in my throat, but I force it down and put on a stern face. I lean my back against the cold, hard surface of my next challenge. I need strength, and I need it now. Glancing upward, I see a dozen or so participants ascending the wall, moving slowly, clinging to the mountainside like spiders. I study their movements—their strategies—to see if I can pick up on how to climb the cliff. When I try to survey the best route to climb, I happen to notice a strange pattern of rocks. I hear Nicholas’s words in my mind. “All the things you need to succeed are within the obstacles…”

  Every few feet there are protruding rocks—stepping stones up the mountainside. And all the guys climbing seem completely oblivious to them. I gasp.

  “What?” Arthor asks.

  I tell Arthor to come in closer and I show him what I see. The only problem is that the steps are just beyond reach of each other. Why would they go to such lengths to create those ledges if we can’t even use them? Then, from the wall, I see movement; a ledge protrudes out from the mountainside as another vanishes just a few feet away. The steps appear and disappear at timed intervals. If I can just figure out the timing, we can climb all the way up.

  Suddenly a ledge juts out right next to me. Arthor and I look at each other.

  “Let’s go,” he says.

  Without hesitation, I climb onto it and offer my hand to Arthor. He takes it willingly. The ledge is about two feet wide, and protrudes about twelve inches—just large enough for us to fit. Clinging to the cliff with Arthor right next to me, I see the next step jut out a few feet away and about a foot above where we are. I spring across the divide and onto the next ledge. Normally I’d be able to land without a problem, but since my legs are rubber from running the marathon and swimming for miles and miles, I wobble a bit. Once I have my balance, I offer my hand to Arthor. He takes it. We continue on like this for a while: me moving ahead, and then pulling him up. I notice that he’s avoiding putting weight on his bad leg, which causes him to sway so much that I fear he’s going to lose his balance and fall.

  “You all right?” I ask after we’ve been going for some time.

  “I’m feeling a little weak.”

  I look down at his leg and see the wrap I put on earlier soaked. “Just hang in there, okay?”

  I turn to continue upward, but he grabs my arm. “Listen…if I don’t make it…if I fall…”

  “You’ll make it. We both will,” I say harshly. Unwilling to have this conversation now, I press onward. From time to time, I hear Arthor puff. I assume he must have put some pressure on his bad leg. But I don’t stop. There’s no time limit to complete this first phase, but we need to get back to civilization before Arthor loses too much blood.

  We climb in silence, the shadows growing blacker by the minute. I wonder how dark it will get, remembering that in the northern countries, it supposedly stays light through the entire night. I see a drone hovering just by us—a camera—and then just as quickly as it appears, it vanishes. Nicholas said they’d be here, snapping illegal shots for the media. I just ignore them. As we hop from step to step, the space on each step seems to be diminishing. I don’t mention this to Arthor, not wanting to cause him to worry, but as we continue to move upward, my fear is validated. The ledges are shrinking in size and where it was fairly easy to stand together before, now it has become very challenging.

  “They’re smaller,” Arthor says, studying the ledge we’re standing on.

  He doesn’t ask the next obvious question out loud, but I know he’s thinking the same thing as me: a little farther up will the ledges eventually vanish? “Yeah, I noticed that, too.” With an injured, or partially removed calf muscle, Arthor won’t be able to make it to the top.

  “Let’s just keep going,” he says.

  I nod, but for whatever reason, I look down at the ledge. The next thing I know is that my gaze focuses past it and all the way down to the bottom of the cliff. My head spins and I grab onto Arthor’s arm.

  “Careful,” he says, steadying me.

  I take a deep breath and go to the next step, but when my first foot touches the surface, it slips, and I fall. Somehow, I’m able to grab onto the ledge and hold on. With my heart in my throat, my fingers white-knuckling the edge, I scream.

  “Hang on!” Arthor yells. He hesitates for a moment before leaping to the ledge I’m hanging from. Landing on both legs, he cries out in pain.

  “Hurry, please,” I say, feeling my fingers slipping on the smooth surface.

  He turns so he faces outward. Clenching his teeth, he bends down and grabs onto my wrist. “I can’t pull you up alone, so you have to find a way to get one of your legs onto the ledge.”

  I kick my right leg up, however, it slips off the edge and I end up dangling in the air. I scream. Desperate to hang on, I press the bottoms of my feet against the mountainside to try and find a ridge to hold onto. The surface is smooth like glass.

  “Kick your leg up and dig your heel in!” Arthor yells.

  I swing my leg up again. This time I drive my heel into the step and it remains there. When I push off with my heel, it gives Arthor just the leverage he needs, and he pulls me up so I end up standing on the ledge, squeezing onto him for dear life. We stand like that for a few seconds, as I cry.

  “We have to move on,” Arthor says.

  I dry my tears and somehow manage to push the weak part of me aside. Looking up, I see another participant a couple dozen feet above us. He, too, is using the ledges, but he doesn’t have to share the small surface with anyone. From what I can gather, we’re about halfway to the top—our method has worked. But now, we have to come up with a better solution than to climb together on the shrinking steps.

  “We have to split up.” I’m not quite sure how to bring up the obvious dilemma of who will get to go first, so I wait a moment, hoping he’ll suggest something.

  Arthor nods absentmindedly with his eyes half-shut. I think he’s in so much pain and has lost so much blood that any suggestion is welcome. “One of us will continue on, while the other waits for the next wave of ledges to emerge.”

  I should be the one to stay behind; I’m not as wounded as he is. Yet, I can’t speak the words.

  “Just be careful,” he says, his face taking on the color of snow, and then he reaches for and steps onto the next ledge.

  At first, I can’t believe it. What is he doing? We hadn’t agreed on anything yet, and he just assumed he would be the one to go first. Not that I think I should be the one, but at least he should offer that to me. Shouldn’t he? Without looking back, he continues onto the next ledge, and before I’m able to say anything, I feel the ledge beneath my feet move. Quicker than lightning, my heart instantly galloping, I find a couple of grooves in the mountainside, and hook my fingers into them. Unable to find any decent ridges for my feet, I just press them against the mountainside as best I can. I have no idea how long it will be until the ledge beneath my feet returns, but this I know: I will hold on and make it all the way to the top just so I can give Arthor a piece of my mind.

  The groove between my eyes contracts as I watch him climb the next few steps. His movements are hasty and careless; he’s not taking enough time to prepare for the next step before he leaps. It will indeed be a miracle if he doesn’t tumble off the cliff. As for me, I’m stuck hanging until the next ledge a
ppears.

  After a few minutes, my forearms start to burn. It doesn’t take long before my fingers go numb, which really worries me simply because numb fingers can’t hold onto anything. I adjust my grip in the small crevice to try and relieve the pressure, but it only helps for a few seconds.

  Arthor looks down at me and yells, “They’re getting smaller! A lot smaller! I don’t know about this, Heidi…”

  “Arthor!” I yell, afraid we’re being filmed or that some of the other participants climbing the wall heard him. He must really be losing it to call out my name so freely. Then a scary thought occurs to me: maybe he’s out to get me and wants my secret to be discovered.

  “Oh…sorry!” he hollers.

  “Just shut up, okay?” I want to vanish into the rock this instant, fully expecting the other participants climbing the wall to call me out, or for a hovercraft to appear out of nowhere, beaming me into oblivion. After waiting for a few minutes for something to happen, I start to think maybe no one heard Arthor say my name and maybe no one’s coming for me after all.

  A drop of sweat rolls into my eye so it stings. And then it starts to itch. When is the next step coming? I could be hanging here until the morning when I’ll fry in the sun and slowly die of dehydration. The gnawing feeling in my stomach has been there a while—I’ve just ignored it—and I’m weak. A moment of weakness could cause me to lose my grip or balance, and I would tumble to the rocks below. My achy fingers have held on way longer than I thought they were capable of and my right hand is cramping something awful. I breathe through it—pant—but I have to face reality: I just can’t hold on much longer. There’s no use in crying for help, for what good will that do? I look up again and see Arthor is at the top now. I should have been the one to go first. If he were any bit of a friend, then he would have offered to stay behind.

  Trying to ease the cramp in my right hand, I loosen the fingers just a tad. Unable to carry the majority of my weight, my left hand slips. I drop toward the earth.

  I have heard that some people have their entire lives flash before their eyes right before they die, but this does not what happens to me. Oddly enough, when I squeeze my eyes shut, Mai’s face appears, and she smiles softly as if telling me that everything will be okay. I believe her.

  With a crash, my feet hit a hard surface. Knife-like pain radiates up my legs. When I open my eyes, I see that I’ve landed on a ledge. It wasn’t the ledge I was waiting for—this one is farther down—but it’s a ledge! I hunch down, and bring my clenched fists to my mouth, hyperventilating—wailing—tears spilling out of my eyes. I’m not going to die; I’m going to live! My mouth is dry, and my belly feels like it has been filled with gasoline and set on fire.

  “Are you okay?” Arthor bellows from above.

  “Yes,” I say, my voice trembling as much as my hands. Focus, Heidi, focus! There’s no time to sit here and cry. I need to continue on before this ledge vanishes, too. Locating the next one, I jump onto it. Still thoroughly shaken, I slowly make my way upward. Step by step, I continue on, and the farther up I get, the more confident I feel that I’ll make it. As I ascend, the steps grow smaller, like Arthor said, and when I finally come to the last few ledges, they’re so tiny that the balls of my feet barely fit. Fortunately, they’re very close together so I can easily get from one to the next. Stepping onto the last ledge, Arthor reaches his arm out to me and helps me up to the top of the cliff—a flat, square surface void of any vegetation.

  Unable to contain my emotions, tears spring out of my eyes and run down my cheeks. I collapse into Arthor’s arms, and there’s nothing I can do to stop my emotions from coming out in loud, ugly sobs.

  Once I have calmed myself, I pull away and brush the wetness from my cheeks. Glowering at Arthor, I shove him in the chest so hard that he falls down.

  “What was that for?” he asks.

  “You took advantage of me down there!”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Please—you went first and left me there to die!”

  “But you nodded toward me. I thought you meant for me to go first.”

  I think back to our exchange down there. “That’s ridiculous. I didn’t say anything! Besides, if you were a true friend, you’d at least offer to let me go first!”

  “So what you said when we were sitting in the lake…?”

  I open my mouth to speak, but I have nothing to say. Remembering how I actually had said that I would help him if he needed it, I feel like a jerk. “Fine, whatever.” Not wanting to remain on the subject, I step past him and walk to the other side of the cliff, stopping about ten feet away from the drop off. Behind me is the lake; in front of me is the ocean. I don’t dare to look over the edge yet, but from where I’m standing, it looks to be way higher than two hundred feet.

  Now that the fog has lifted, I see how the sun hangs low in the sky, hovering right above the surface of the ocean. The sky is a deep blue, the water below black, and the horizon golden. According to my father, the sun never sets during the summer in the northernmost countries. I never actually believed him until now. Looking to the right, I see a sign, and it says,

  To complete Round 1 of the Savage Run program, jump off the cliff and into the water below.

  I thought I’d feel like a champion completing all three rounds in the first phase, but now all I can think about is that I have two more grueling phases to complete.

  “Will you take a moment with me?” Arthor sits down on the ground, reaches his hands behind his head, and looks up into the sky.

  His suggestion takes me completely off guard and I wonder what he’s really suggesting here. And besides, how can he be so casual about what happened? He didn’t even apologize for leaving me behind or thank me for risking my life for him. I at least thanked him when he helped me. Doesn’t he know that I nearly died and that he was partially to blame for it?

  Too tired to argue with him, I lie down and glare up at the sky.

  “I have something I’ve always wanted to tell you,” he says. “I feel like I could tell you anything.”

  I hold my breath. Oh, no. I hope he’s not going to tell me he loves me or something. But then I catch myself—what a ridiculous thought. If he cared about me in that way, or in any way really, he wouldn’t have abandoned me the way he did—all too eagerly. Even if he did think I gave him the nod to go ahead.

  “But if I tell you this one thing, will you share something with me, too?”

  I hate confessions. Especially when they’re forced out of me. I mean, I just completed three rounds of grueling obstacles—more like torture—and he wants to talk about secrets?

  “Your deepest, darkest secret.” He smiles at me.

  Arthor must think he’s going to die in this next leap and is why he wants to get something off his chest. I look at him, his face pasty gray, his lips dry and colorless. My chest aches for him. I look around to make sure none of the drones are filming before I say, “Okay, I’ll do it.” To my surprise, it only takes me a second to know exactly what I need to share. Something that’s been on my mind for years. Something I’ve never been able to speak out loud, not even to Gemma. And maybe, just maybe, it might help lighten the burden I’ve been carrying for so long.

  “You want to go first?” he asks.

  Of course he wants me to go first—now. “Sure.” My heart’s a nervous wreck, hopping all over the place. Why is this so hard to speak what’s on the inside? “Can I sit up and do it?”

  He chuckles a little. “Of course you can sit up. You don’t have to ask.” We sit up and look over the side of the platform we’re supposed to jump from. The water sways and the sun reflects off the surface like an eternal flame.

  “Ready?” I say.

  “Yes.”

  I inhale until my lungs feel like they’ll burst, and then I speak. “Sometimes I’ve wished I was a man.”

  Arthor is quiet for a minute before he whispers, “You mean…like…you’re attracted to girls?”

  “No!
What are you crazy?” I punch him in the arm. It’s illegal to be gay in Newland, usually punishable by death. “It’s just…” My voice lowers, just in case someone is listening. ”It’s just so much easier for a man, you know. They have so much more power…and control. Sometimes it just sucks being a girl.”

  “I suppose you’re right.”

  “Of course I’m right,” I laugh a little.

  “So that’s the deepest, darkest secret you have?”

  “It is. And the most powerful one, too. Maybe it’s pathetic.”

  “No, not at all.”

  I hear footsteps behind us, and then panting.

  “You guys ready to jump?” a deep voice says.

  I turn around and recognize the boy with the white hair immediately. “Hey,” I say. “Cory, is it?” I’m surprised he’s here so late in the competition—I thought for sure he would be one of the first ones to finish.

  Cory’s eyes narrow into slivers as he scrutinizes me, and I can’t help but notice that his tree-trunk sized neck is glistening with sweat. “Yeah. I remember you, too. I’m sure everyone’s surprised you made it this far.”

  “Uh…yeah,” I say. He must be referring to the poll from TV where I was voted the least likely to survive. Or how everyone’s talking about me—I know they are.

  “Seems you’re smarter than most to pace yourself—especially when there’s no real time limit on this phase.”

  “Sure.” I shrug my shoulders. No harm in letting him think I was intentionally trying to be slow. Then something unexpected happens. A small bubble of excitement swells on the inside; I proved everyone wrong.

  Cory continues. “But seriously, don’t listen to them. They want to put you in a box and keep you there.”

  “I’m Arthor.” He reaches out his hand toward Cory.