Lauren--Part Forty-Six

Splog # 167

Forty-Six

   By now, there was a light rain driving through the wind behind Lauren, and the cloak she was wearing was beginning to feel damp. She looked up from the rings to find herself no more than a few minutes away from the edge of the plateau but there didn't seem to be any way leading up it. She hoped it was merely difficult to see in the dark and brought her eyes back to the rings she was following. They continued to light her way, slowly and flickeringly. She haltingly placed a foot on each as it appeared. The wind seemed to be trying to push her faster than the rings lit up and she had to struggle to retain her balance. She continued this awkward travelling until once again she stood on a ring on one foot and none appeared before her. She held the cloak about her and brought her other foot close to the ground, attempting to balance while she waited. Still nothing. She looked up and saw she was only ten or fifteen steps from the cliff. She couldn't hold her foot up any longer so she lightly set it down on top of her other. As she gazed at the ground, searching for a ring to step on, she thought she could see a very faint glow some ways ahead of her. But there was no way to reach it from her present position. And it was so indistinct that she wasn't sure if it was a step or only her imagination. She remained at a loss, buffeted by the wind. She had to do something and quickly! Again, she heard a faint sound of barking, but decided it couldn't be real. She was panicking. She looked at the blank cliff face so close in front of her. She inspected the ground again and decided the only thing to do was make a run for it. She thought for a second of trying to step very lightly in hopes that that would alleviate any dire consequences. But as the wind pushed at her, she figured she'd best just go as fast as possible. She took a deep breath and leapt as far as she could from the glowing ring. Her foot came down on solid earth but before she could lift it she felt the ground begin to give beneath her. Her next step went in a little as if she were running on hot tar. Her third step landed on chewing gum and as she took her fourth, she found it difficult to lift her foot for a fifth. Within seconds, she was no longer running but slogging through moist ground that came up to her ankles. Each step she took sank deeper and became more difficult to extricate. She was nearly at the wall but was mired almost knee-deep in a thick claylike mud. As she slowly advanced, moving deeper with each step, she looked up to see that when she reached the cliff there would be nothing there to help her lift herself from the viscous stuff she was wading through. And all the time the wind was trying to pull the cloak, which she could no longer hold tightly about her for her exertions, away from her. She was almost at the cliff and the mud was up to her shorts and she didn't know what she'd do when she got there. And she still heard barking. She could feel one of her feet slip out of her sandals just as she reached the cliff. It was only bare rock and she could feel herself sinking as if she were standing in quicksand. "And I've lost one of my sandals!" she thought inanely, as a rope jerkily descended into her line of vision. Gratefully, she grabbed onto it and it began to rise, pulling her with it. She thought she'd never be able to hold on all the way up the cliff but she closed her eyes and before she knew it, hands were reaching under her shoulders and lifting her to solid ground. She collapsed and let out all of her breath and then lay panting in relief. She could hear whoever had helped her panting also, and her eyes popped open when something wet touched her face. She lay laughing and sobbing as she saw Austin standing over her. She reached up and hugged him fiercely. "Oh, Austin," she finally managed to say, "you saved me." She sat up to find a young woman of about twenty coiling a length of rope around her arm.

   "You certainly came here the hard way," she remarked flatly.

   Lauren was at a complete loss.