The Reason No One Has Made it to the Top of Mt. Manawoo

A short story I wrote as part of a class project. We were given free rein to write whatever we wanted. You have been warned.

The winter air was still against the faces of Andrew and his friends. They had come here, to the town of Pilky, Alaska, to climb the mysterious Mt. Manawoo. Though from the outset it appeared unremarkable, there was an air of the uncanny to it as well, for the mountain contained many secrets. No one knew anything of her, not even how she received her name. The one truth, the one thing that anyone who lived under the mountain’s sleepy shadow could tell you, was that no one had reached her peak.

 

‘Until today” thought Andrew, as he and his friends embarked to ascend the mountain, for they had experience, and it wasn’t a very imposing rock anyway. This would be an easy climb; three hours to the peak, tops. As they predicted, it was almost insultingly easy. The paths were even, the elevation rose at a steady pace, and the weather was fair. The group was beginning to wonder, ‘if this is so easy, how much do the townsfolk suck that they cant reach the top?’

 

They found their answer, though, when they were only 100 yards from the tip, and Brock, who had been leading the group, exclaimed in shock at the unimaginable, the impossible sight beheld before him…

 

 “Holy freakin’ crap, is that a giant squid on top of the mountain?”

 

Andrew looked for himself and confirmed,

 

“Oh my god, that is a giant squid.”

 

Brady and Ricky looked and found that yes indeed, their friends were not lying nor were they mistaken: Lying before them in the flesh, completely intact and unmistakable, was a squid of the genus Architeuthis… on top of a mountain. In the snow. With absolutely no sea water around at all. They stood there in stunned silence, as one is want to do when the stumble upon a massive and mysterious misplaced mollusk, before Andrew finally said,

 

“Well, it’s dead, and more importantly it’s blocking the top so we probably need to push it off.”

 

“Yeah,” agreed Brady, as he approached it first, “I’m amazed it doesn’t smell though.”

 

Suddenly, as if on queue, a slender pink tentacle wrapped around Brady and tossed him down the slope, as two more grabbed Andrew and shook him with violent force. He screamed,

 

“I WAS WRONG! IT’S NOT DEAD! WAIT, HOW IS IT STILL ALIVE,” as he was tossed like a salad before being thrown on top of Brady, who was just getting up. As Brock came to their aid, Ricky dashed down the slope, saying ‘I’ll tell your girlfriends that you loved them’ before he karmically received a rock to the back of the head. They all eventually recovered, and flee the terrible tentacled titan on top of the mountain.

 

When they arrived back in town, they tried to tell the locals what had occurred, but it was to no avail. In their astonishment, the four forgot to take a picture, the squid didn’t leave any smell on them, and frankly, basic principles of science were their biggest enemy here. So many questions were left in there heads: how did it get there? What it actually a separate land-dwelling species? How was it not crushed under it’s own weight and lack of skeleton to support itself? All these questions left unanswered, but one they finally knew:

 

Why no one made it to the top of Mt. Manawoo.

Author's Note

Just say whatever comes to mind

Reviews

[Myra Fellows]

A squid. How does one not crack up during the composition of this tale?
It is too quick. It climaxed before I had a chance to get into it.
More squid.