Another World

Another world

        

                     

      The light blasted into his vision as Scott McInerney walked out of his tent into the base camp of his Everest climbing excursion. The neon orange tent behind him stood out prominently against the brilliant white landscape. As he gazed out across the small area of flat land that the base occupied, he could make out the small blurry orange dots that he recognized as the other tents.

     Today they would be continuing their journey up the tallest mountain in the world and by his calculations they would be at the top in less than two days. He hoped that there would be no more setbacks seeing as Mick Bravo had broken his leg on the climb up when he lost his footing and fell three stories down. Mick was now under care at the medical tent, and Scott doubted that he would be able to continue. He pulled the edges of his thermal jacket together and tightly crossed his arms as he trudged through the knee-high snow towards the medical tent.

     He reached the tent and out of habit, took a few deep breaths before he went in. The tent was a square about fifteen feet across and just as wide. As he entered, Scott zipped the tent back up behind him. He walked over to where Mick lay in bed, apparently asleep with his foot in a cast slightly elevated on a supply pack. Not wanting to disturb him, Scott started to turn when he heard Mick stir.

     “Wait, I’m up.”

     Mick groaned as he sat up in his hammock. “What’s up?”

     “Um well,” said Scott, “I’m sorry Mick, but you’re not going to be able to keep climbing up with us with that leg.”

     “I figured as much.” Mick looked down at his leg. The two sat in silence for a few moments, neither not knowing what to say.

     “I’m really sorry.”

     “Just go.” Mick replied, still staring at the object that was keeping him from journeying on. Scott turned and left the tent. He was heartbroken over telling him he would never fulfill his dream of climbing Everest.

     The bright light made him shield his eyes again. As he blindly stepped forward, he bumped into another figure in an identical snow suit.

     “What the? Oh, it’s you.” As Scott blinked in the sunlight and could make out the person standing in front of him as Natalia welsh, the Swedish bombshell that was assigned to guide the team up the mountain; much to the men’s pleasure. “How is he?” she asked in that ridiculously sensual voice of hers. It took him a moment to get past her looks and answered “He’s better, but there’s no way he’s going to be able to keep climbing.”

      “Then there’s nothing keeping us here, we should move on.” Scott didn’t want to leave without Mick, but he knew that there was no choice.

      “Alright, I’ll go tell the guys.” He said. Natalia nodded and walked off until she was nothing more than an orange blur. He turned and headed off toward the rest of the tents.

     He found his group sitting outside one of the tents with all of the gear already packed and ready to go. They looked up at him hopefully. He knew what they wanted to hear, but unfortunately for him, it wasn’t the truth. “He’s not coming guys, I’m sorry.” They all looked away. “Natalia says were gonna to get going soon,” he continued, “she’s waiting for us up ahead if you’re all ready.” A few of them grunted as they got up. They grabbed their packs and started to walk on. Scott stayed back and watched as one by one, they left the camp and the group made their way towards the mountainside.

         All were oblivious to the black cloud that was now circling over its peak.

         They found Natalia waiting for them by an icy stretch of cliff side that led nearly straight up into white nothingness. “We start here. We’ll make our way up about fifty feet, then we’ll shift over right, onto another safer stretch.” Everyone nodded. Nobody was going to question Natalia.

       Within ten minutes the group had made it up the majority of the stretch of wall. They climbed their way up the mountainside following Natalia’s orders. They moved without a single mistake. Every axe found its mark and every foothold held true. Everything was going remarkably smoothly and everyone began thinking of success. Even Scott let his mind wander to coming home to Minnesota and bragging about how he had braved Mt. Everest. He thought about his wife and son. He missed them so much. He had reminded himself day after day that they would be reunited soon. It was what had kept him going for the past few weeks.

     Then Scott began to hear a strange noise.

     It sounded like metal grinding on metal. Scott halted and began looking around to see what was making the noise. Apparently nobody else had heard the noise and they were all still focused on climbing. He looked up and caught sight of something. It was something brown stuck in the cliff wall about twenty feet above his head. He climbed for it, ignoring the fact that he was climbing slightly off course from everyone else. He reached the object and firmly dug himself into the rock wall. He released his grasp on his right pickaxe and pulled the object out of the snow with ease and drew in a sharp breath.

     It was an old journal; bound in brown leather and covered in ice.

     Somehow it had managed to stay unseen for centuries or however old it was. Then Scott noticed something else in the bottom corner of the tiny book. It was a tiny speckle of crimson. A closer look revealed a drop of blood. Scott quickly surveyed the area for anything else that might explain why the journal was there. Then he heard the noise again. This time it was louder and seemed to be coming from in front of him, on the other side of the ice wall. He pulled back his hood slightly and put his ear to the wall. Then there was a different sound. It chilled him to the bone and froze him where he hung.

       It was the sound of someone laughing.

      A loud bellowing laugh that made the wall vibrate against his ear. He turned to look back for his team but they were nowhere to be seen. He readied himself to climb back onto their course when suddenly the entire mountain shook. It was violent and loud, and threatened to throw Scott off the mountainside.

     “Aahhhgh!” Scott yelled as he held onto his axe for dear life. Snow and ice rained down upon him and fell down into the depths of his clothing freezing his skin. Suddenly, next to him where the journal had laid frozen in the side of the mountain; the entire ice wall gave way, and a massive sheet of ice fell to reveal a gaping hole. It was some kind of cavern in the side of the cliff, but to Scott’s horror, it was already occupied by a body frozen solid and standing near the cavern opening in what appeared to be a running position, his hand outstretched. Scott realized that the man’s outstretched hand was most likely holding the journal and the ice had frozen over it.

      Who was the poor man that suffered this fate? Scott asked himself, and what was he running from?

     He stared at the man, frozen in fear. Suddenly the mountain began to shake again, this time even worse. Scott looked up to see a large chunk of the mountain falling towards him, backed up by an avalanche worthy of Mt. Everest. Scott realized what he had to do.

    Freeing his hand from his axe, he prepared to jump to the mouth of the cavern. It was a great effort to simply adjust his footing. With the avalanche bearing down upon him, Scott willed himself to jump. He flung himself towards the cavern. As he stepped down, the ice beneath his foot gave way, and for one terrifying second; Scott was suspended in air. Everything happened in slow motion, Scott was falling, falling to his death. His life flashed before his eyes. Images of his thirty years of life whipped by him. And among them was the image of a ledge. Scott instinctively reached out, and his hand caught something. In an Instant Scott snapped back to reality. His hand had grasped the bottom edge of the cavern mouth. He hulled himself up, into the cavern, straining his body against his gear and his combined weight. At last he managed to crawl into the cavern just as hundreds of tons of snow and rock fell past it’s mouth and down to the white depths of Everest.  

    

     Scott sat in the cave for what felt like days. The avalanche had sealed the entrance. He worried about the rest of the team. Had they somehow managed to escape? It seemed unlikely, but he wasn’t about to give up hope. He was also reading the journal he had found and it was revealing a rather strange story.

     The words were dull and faded, and at times indecipherable, but Scott read aloud to himself, his voice echoing through the cavern.

     November 21, 1843.

               “I am trapped in here. No food, no water, no supplies of any kind. This place has stripped me of my hopes and dreams, and soon, my life. I hope that nobody will ever have to find this, but if they do, then I am sorry my friend. Sorry that you will have share my fate. I would’ve liked to see my family again, but I now realize that that is not possible, but where are my manners? My name Burris Cunningham. I lived in London. I attempted to make a name for myself. I was foolish.

        Whilst climbing, a horrible avalanche drew upon me. At the last second, this cave was revealed. I made my escape, but now I wonder if I should have simply allowed that avalanche to be my death. Now this place is my prison and will someday become my grave.

       

        I have discovered an energy source in this cavern, or at least, that is what I believe it to be. I approached it and it harmed me.

       With the last of my life, I will study it.

       Something has happened! I have made a breakthrough! The source I wrote of earlier has produced an incredible outcome! A strange and unknown image has revealed itself within!   But wait! Something else is happening!

      The journal ended there, whatever Burris had discovered, either he didn’t feel like writing any further, or it had resulted in his death. Scott stood up. He needed to find out for himself. He walked towards the back of the cave, his footsteps making a muffled echo through the cavern,

      The cavern was dark and consisted of a single tunnel with walls made of ice so smooth, it didn’t seem natural; which caused Scott to become both excited and alarmed to see a pale blue light at the end of the winding passageway. He crept along, hugging the wall and stepping as lightly as possible.

     Then he heard it.

     Scott froze where he stood. It was the deep laugh that he heard earlier, only this time, it had the air of triumph. He took out his other ice axe and held it over his head, ready to strike. He slowly made his way along the corner.

     The light was incredibly bright now, and whatever was making it must be right around the corner. He edged over to the end of the wall and took a deep breath. He took a second to mentally prepare himself, then jumped around the corner to face the source, and was not prepared for what he saw next.

     Some sort of great contraption stood in the middle of a room at the end of the passageway. It was made of intertwining metal spires that formed a beautiful pattern that wound around a great glowing object, the light was originating from some sort of object in the center of it, but was lit up too bright to identify what it was Scott immediately shielded his eyes. After noticing the design for a split second, his attention quickly shifted to the great silhouette, caused by the light, of a giant figure standing next to it.

     A great shadow was billowing around it as if the figure itself was one massive shadow. Scott couldn’t even identify the figure as human.

     A small string of the light was floating in the air towards the figure, and then disappearing into the shadow. Scott watched as more and more of the light was being absorbed into the darkness that surrounded the figure. The shadow laughed again, then turned to Scott.

     “WELCOME SCOTT MCINERNEY, I AM GLAD YOU HAVE COME TO WITNESS MY RISE TO POWER! I CONFESS I WASN’T EXPECTING COMPANY, BUT NO MATTER, THERE IS NO STOPPING IT, SOON, YOUR PLANET WILL FALL.” His voice was overpowering, it wasn’t even a yell, it was just loud. Scott fell to his knees and covered his ears as his words threatened to rip him apart. “I’M SORRY TO SAY THAT I CANNOT ALLOW YOU TO LIVE AFTER SEEING ME, NOTHING PERSONAL.”

     At this, the figure gave another bellow of a laugh that shook the cavern causing a small trickle of snow to fall from the ceiling. The monster before him held out its arm as if to attack him. It took all of Scott’s willpower to do it, but he stood up, determined to fend for his life and flung his axe at the figure. Instead of targeting Scott, the monster blasted at the axe with a ball of darkness similar to that which surrounded him. The force sent Scott flying sideways towards the structure in the center of the room. A light flashed before him, and then it consumed him.

     The next thing that Scott knew, he was falling through a space so vast that he felt there was no end to it. No bottom that he would ever reach and he was doomed to simply zone in and out of space and time. As soon as the thought took him, he landed on something soft and hot. Before losing consciousness, Scott recognized the feel of sand on his skin, and the sound of waves crashing on a beach.