3. Ascension

The story continues...

3. Ascension

 

 

 

A small but persistent beep was coming from the square platform, with panic rising right up into his throat 408 tore himself away from Phoenix and scrambled aboard the platform. It instantly began to raise with the same fluid motion with which it had descended. As he rose right up through the roof he caught one last look at Phoenix’s worried expression before being plunged into total darkness. All was black for some time, and quiet - save for the almost imperceptible hum of the machine, then suddenly small bright LED lights began to glow in all 4 corners of the claustrophobic shaft in which he was rising.

The rushing of the lights gave him his first indication of how fast the platform was moving, and he was surprised to see that he was rising very quickly, meaning this place was bigger than he had imagined. The lights slowly brought him out of his daze and he began to go through recent events in his mind, he still had so many questions but only a few were important right now. Was his contestant as unprepared as he was? Did they have a top 10 contestant advising them too?

As he continued to travel upward he did his best to slow the beating of his heart. He needed to think clearly and panic was only going to distract him. He flexed his fingers, feeling some of the ache from earlier ebbing away, replaced by raw adrenaline. He supposed it had been a stiffness in his limbs, how long had he been lying on that uncomfortable stone floor before he woke up " hours? Days? It hurt less to keep moving so he stretched as best he could in the tight space.

The lights appeared to be getting brighter, but no…that wasn’t right, he tilted his head upwards and saw a bigger light source coming through a rapidly growing square hole. He was almost there. It was considerably brighter now, he was almost through it. His heart had started up again, despite his best efforts, panic was threatening to consume him. The platform stopped moving, the brilliant white light surrounding him was beginning to resolve itself into shapes, into a scene. The lights dimmed slightly, and his eyes widened as he took in the arena.

A million different scenarios had run through his mind whilst in the lift, but none of them quite matched the scene in front of him. It was both smaller, and simpler than he had expected. No bigger than the size of a tennis court and about half as tall, he was trapped in a giant cube of steel mesh, which seemed suspended over a much larger open space. If he looked closely through the mesh he could make out an audience, sitting in ascending rows behind giant clear plastic screens. He was so bewildered by the amount of people in those seats he barely heard the whip-like crack of a gun, but he felt the pull of the bullet on the side of his top. He looked down to see a neat tear through the side, it had barely missed his skin. His vision still a tiny bit blurry he looked up to the opposite side of the arena, for the first time he took in his opponent, a tall, thin girl - holding a gun. From time feeling as though it was passing like slowly dripping honey it suddenly sped up to what seemed twice it’s normal speed. He had begun running to his left, not looking at where he was going really just trying to at least be a moving target. Another crack " the plan was working so far, he saw a pillar connecting the floor to the roof and slammed himself against it and kept side-on, using it as temporary cover. From here it bought him a second to look around. The arena was symmetrical; there was another pillar a few metres away from him, beyond that, against the wall was a ladder leaning almost fully vertical. He wondered why for a moment and looked around, suddenly he saw his answer. Hanging by a rope from the roof, suspended between both the pillars was what could only be the box, he studied it for just a second before his entire world went dark red, and he knew he must be dead.

There’s no way death would be this painful, he had slumped to the floor, the pillar barely covering him. It felt like someone had the bridge of his nose in a vice and was slowly crushing it, he could hear the distant roar of the audience and figured he must look dead. After tiny minute flexings of the muscles around his body he discovered he was still functioning, and that he must have been shot in the face, he risked lifting a hand to his nose and his fingers soon discovered that a decent chunk had been blown away from it, and it was bleeding profusely. He could feel it trickling over his lips and chin, trying to actually move his nose brought him close to passing out, he decided it was time to try something else. He attempted to swivel his eyes around to check his situation, clearly his opponent agreed with the audience’s reading of the situation. She had her back turned to him, the gun tucked into the back of her pants and she was removing the ladder from the wall on the side opposite to him. He performed a quick run through of the situation in his head, everyone thought he was dead, but as soon as he got up to do something the audience would give him away, and he’d be really dead. There was no way he could reach the box without a ladder, and there didn’t seem to be any weapons in the arena. If he charged at her he might get there in time, but the sound of his feet on the mesh would give him away in time for her to get the gun - dead again.

Think…think…

The ladder.

So he’d been given a weapon after all. A weapon that might make a shield with a bit of luck. He didn’t have time to think it through, he launched himself to his feet and began running as fast as he could towards the ladder at his side, within seconds he was on it and had wrested it off the wall. The audience had finally caught up and on cue " gave up the element of surprise. Another crack and the clang of metal told him another shot had been fired, and luckily for him, another shot had been missed. He did his best to hold the ladder vertically, trying to use it to cover himself as best he could. The girl had abandoned her ladder and was keeping both hands on the gun, trying to get a good shot on him. The next shot would be his chance, probably his only chance at this rate. He kept moving, side to side, ducking slightly, turning slightly, keeping the ladder waving in front of him, never presenting a still target. He heard a clang and it suddenly felt as though the ladder was being yanked out of his hands, he had caught a shot on the side of it! He wasted no time; all the panic, all the confusion, all the distractions seemed to melt away into pure silent concentration and cold fury. He angled the ladder down so it was being held out in front of him like a ram, and charged.

Time went back in to slow motion, he saw her eyes flick between the ladder and the sights on her gun, wondering if she had time to make another accurate shot. He could see her rolling the dice in her mind, the top half of the shaft of the gun slid back in an explosion of force as she attempted another shot. He felt the hum of the bullet sail through the air past his ear, missing him completely but throwing her ever so slightly off balance. It was all he needed, she had stood in the one spot for too long " with a dull squelch the top rung of the ladder caught her squarely under her jaw, right in her neck. The impact lifted her right off her feet and drove her backwards into the wall behind her. She hit it hard and remained pinned there as 408 used all his strength to hold the ladder straight and keep it pressed hard against her neck, despite her frantic attempts to shove the ladder off her. Her panicked movements caused her to drop the gun and her eyes began to bulge and redden as she struggled with the rung against her neck.

It wasn’t rage that fueled him now, and it wasn’t anger or vengeance that kept his muscles pumping even though they were screaming out in agony, it was a sense of purpose. He knew exactly how long his arms would last holding the ladder at this angle, he saw the scene around him break down into perfect lumps of logical exertion, he could choke her this way, but would he have long enough? What if-

“*30 SECONDS*”

His question was answered for him, everything changed in a single second, he saw the event play out in his mind’s eye a moment before it happened, and he knew what to do. In one movement he brought the ladder away from her throat and began to turn on the spot rapidly, using the ladder to generate momentum, helping him turn. As his pivot completed she came back into view, she had dropped down to her knees, collected the gun and was already bringing it up for another shot, but his plan had worked. Before she was even able to raise the gun to eye level, the end of the ladder connected with the side of her head, the momentum caused a dent in her skull, her eyes filled with blood and she crumpled to the ground, unmoving. 408 bent down and grabbed the gun, stuffing it into the back of his pants he turned and ran toward the box. Red filled most of his vision, but he dared not try to wipe it away, lest he faint from the pain, he leaned the ladder against the box and climbed as fast as he could. He was soon at the top, his hand on the large, heavy handle, he turned, opened it, jumped inside and slammed it shut behind him. It was pitch black inside, he felt along the side of the walls for any sign of a switch or a lever but felt none. Suddenly glaring lights shone on him from screens built into the walls and the roof of the box. All of them were showing the same thing, a clenched fist with the middle three fingers raised, just like Phoenix had done back in the cell. A quiet calm female voice spoke to him from an unknown speaker, it seemed to be coming from every direction at once.

“Congratulations on your victory, prepare to receive the Prize of Three”.

408 was shaking so badly from exhaustion that he barely noticed the faint hissing noise coming from the bottom of the box. A sharp, acrid smell filled the air and his vision began to dim. Red quickly became black, he saw the screen slide upwards as his eyes rolled backwards into his head and he slumped to the ground unconscious.

Author's Note

© Chris Chalmers 2014

Reviews

[kclyaine]

I feel bad for the girl but the fight was unfair from the start. She got a gun and probably knew the game more than him. I'll look forward to the next chapter.

[AprilRN1210]

This definitely had some action and gore.. this was well thought out and the sequence of events was done nicely.. another cliffhanger ending.. always good.. have the random " again in this one.. After three chapters, I can see it appealing to that target audience nicely.. always a pleasure to read your pieces Robin.. I anxiously await more additions.. :)

ok.. more of my opinionated "two cents".. only to give you a different point of view..

(claustrophobic shaft).. made me giggle.. how can a shaft be claustrophobic?.. If I were a shaft, I would probably take great joy in the fact that I invoked panic in those with claustrophobia.. (yep, still giggling)

(The rushing of the lights).. would probably change that to "rush"

( It was considerably brighter now, he was almost through it.).. pretty much repetition--with the exception of "considerably".. but is it really needed?...

(His heart had started up again,).. this really made me giggle.. medical geek and all.. when did it "stop"?.. know what you are trying to say.. but would reword.. and leave out.. "had"..

( From time feeling as though it was passing like slowly dripping honey it suddenly sped up to what seemed twice it’s normal speed.).. you are in an action sequence and this way seems a little, I dunno passive for me.. made me stumble..maybe something like... Time suddenly sped up from slow dripping honey to warp speed ahead...

(Time went back in to slow motion).. would cut out "in".. but either way, shouldn't it be "into" in this instance.. I dunno... not sure..

(but throwing her ever so slightly off balance).. would cut out "ever so".. that is slightly no?.. not needed..

(she had stood in the one spot for too long ").. would cut that out.. actually detracts away from the--knocking her off balance and "that was all that he needed".. no need to explain further..

I dunno.. for an action sequence, some of the lines, the way they are worded are more "passive" than "aggressive" if that makes any sense.. would change wording on quite a few.. but again, just me..

[Christopher Robin]

I'll try to get to all if it here, firstly, the reason for the underlined text in the previous chapter - that line was given to me by a friend. and I gave her one line, each of us had to write a short story somehow incorporating that line, I couldn't think of what to do until the quote from the start of the book popped into my head and the rest flowed from there. As for many of your corrections unfortunately it is a 'style of English' type of problem. American and UK authors and editors have a very different approach to to be honest I've simply read more UK works ad adopted many of their...nuances shall we say? Things like padding short sentences unnecessarily with things like 'had' ('had started up again'). If you can track down a British copy of harry potter or read any of Terry Pratchett's discworld series you'll see little things like this all over the place. It's simply a matter of how they speak, so it's how they write. From a technical grammar point of view it works either way, it just comes down to what you're used to.

Remember that the descriptions in the book are how 408 perceives them, so the 'claustrophobic shaft' is a shaft which he finds claustrophobic, no I'm not giving the shaft its own personality :P

Rushing is a tricky one, it's a 'verb with object' but it is not the lights themselves that are rushing it is 408's perception of them, like looking out a window you can see the 'rush' of people or the 'rushing' people, in this technical sense i figured 'rush' would create a sense of multitude whilst rushing creates a sense purely of speed.

'started up again' is a turn of phrase, possibly Australian, just referring to his heart rate increasing suddenly once again. The 'had' in this sentence as well as others separates the reader from making this observation and 408 making this observation for the reader, just for the style of the book I'm intentionally choosing the latter, but you're right, grammatically it makes sense either way.

'into and in to' are either correct, incorrect, or interchangeable given the circumstance depending which dictionary you're reading, in this case I think you're right though - into would be better.

'ever so' is a very English (UK) nuance that i found necessary in this case to mean 'just enough'.

The rest I agree with, could do with some rewording and again work on cutting down the repetition, (I didn't know I had that many 'ears' ha!)

For every random " that you find, it's a hyphen that refuses to translate when copying from Word, because technology. I wont be changing things too much here but all the advice will go in to the master file on Word. I'm keeping a separate section for notes.

As for the words you don't get, it's understandable because you don't get them in your dictionary. Sewerage is interchangeable with the American 'sewage' and leant is just the past tense of lean (to 'lean against a wall' - not 'muscularly thin' ha!)

I'm glad that you picked up on the difference between the passive and aggressive action sequences or sentences. Again there's a melding I'm trying to create in terms of putting the reader in the protagonist's shoes, there's a very strong reason (yet to be revealed) why 408 is so detached and 'passive' in the way he sees and describes things during what should be short, sharp punchy statements. I think the more you read and discover, the more sense it makes. The book is intentionally as much of a mystery to the reader as it is to 408. I might be bold and get another chapter or two happening soon...might ease some of the cliffhanger anxiety and help answer a few things.

All in all very much appreciated, when I'm writing this I am not self editing nearly as much as usual as I get too caught up in it, which makes the feedback very valuable so thank you!

Stay tuned, the mystery will soon unfurl further...

-Robin

[AprilRN1210]

wheeew.. had to read that twice.. I love your explanation of "rushing" vs "rush" in this instance.. was definitely a light bulb moment.. I am glad I could at least be a little helpful.. and yes, figured a lot of it was difference in American English vs "proper" English.. :P... or so I have been told.. can't wait...

[KWP]

Ouch! Poor Lass ... what a way to go ...

Would you consider 'justifying' your text and making the font bigger to make it easier to read ...

I like it, as I said before, it keeps you moving, it's fast paced and doesn't hang around in any particular area longer than necessary ..

well done Sunshine xx

[Christopher Robin]

I have done both as you requested, at home I've got my PC hooked up to a 50" TV so everything looks big to me, hard to judge how it looks on other people's screens, so thanks for the suggestions, hopefully that makes it a little easier now!

As for the 'Well' point, I read it (used that way - to present a statement from the character to themselves and the audience without talking out loud) first by Douglas Adams, then by Terry Pratchett, both UK authors, I figure if they're allowed, anyone is. It could just as easily not be there, like someone saying 'um..' but for me it creates a beat before the punch, just paces the line out a little better in my mind. I did not realise it until you pointed it out so it may be a quirk of mine :P
Glad you're enjoying, if more people enjoy, more will come :)

-Robin

[KWP]

yes ... looks great now and reads with more ease ... have a great day x