Nada's Escape

2- Clinging...

"Change of plan," I hiss, "Give me the hammer - I'm going up first to fix this." I check my pocket - the last three nails are still there. The hammer appears in my other hand and I take a deep breath to calm myself.

"But..." one of the girls whispers, I can't tell who in the dark.

"No arguments," I interrupt and then I'm on the ladder. My heart pounds hard, begging me not to go up, but I force my hands to reach for the next rung. I check each rung with my hands before I move on, counting the rungs as my feet land on them.

By rung eight my toes are grazing the sandstone wall and the back of the hammer head scrapes my hip from its place in my waistband. My knees shake like a ship in a maelstrom but I keep going, rhythmically counting my steps. I have to balance on my toes once the rungs are flush with the wall, commanding my legs to stop shaking.

I'd imagined this would be difficult but I hadn't realised how little space they'd be for me on the rungs. It's thin rung number twelve and I really have to hold on both with my fingertips and my clenched-up core, praying that I don't overbalance the whole thing and end up a stain on the earth below. But they must be holding the base to the wall because I make it to rung thirteen which is thicker and easier to stand on.

I'm standing on rung 24, huffing like a racehorse when the rung my hands are on slips. I test it with some more weight and it holds. I continue, squeezing my fingers into the wood so hard that I feel my knuckles cracking. I'm counting 27 when that deadly rung slips again. It dissipates right from under me and my heart falls away with it.

A whoosh of air and darkness fills my mind, an image of shattering bones forcing my muscle into spasm. I clutch and scramble. Don't let me fall! I panic.

My feet catch on the rung below and I press my face into the wall, relieved but tasting blood. My arms cry at their stretch to the rung above and I scold myself for resting - even for a second.

I didn't fall. I'm okay. I have to keep going. I scramble up to the next safe rungs, begging that the ones I'm holding are strong enough because there are no more back-ups.

"Nada!" hisses one of the girls waiting below.

"27 gone," I reply, my arms now shaking. "I'm okay," I whisper more to myself than them and continue. Every rung after that is more terrifying than the last.

The more rungs that hold under my weight the more I believe that the next will break. But they don't. I scold myself every step to make myself go on. I am not a coward. This wall will not defeat me.

By the time I reach the crooked piece I must have entered a plateau of fear. I swing the top piece of ladder until its straight and start tapping away at my nail, no longer worrying about whether the ladder below will hold under this new strain. I just do it, ignoring everything else. When it's done I keep going, not even calling back.

The top of the ladder isn't the top of the wall. I forgot to even check once I'd fixed it. I angle my head up as far as I can and it seems impossibly far away. But I've just climbed fourteen metres of impossible ladder - I have to make this last leap.

Luckily it isn't a leap. From the penultimate rung the top of the wall is just a centimetre over my head. Now I know I can do this. This was how high the garden wall at home was when I climbed it as a child. Still my body fears, especially when the dim light of the moon meets my eyes as my head crests the wall. My body hangs on my palms, one gust of wind away from toppling back the way I've come. But I haul myself over the lip of the wall.

I smile as I lay on the gritty stone. Finally I've conquered this wall. The top is wide; someone could lay beside me quite easily. I call down to the bottom.

"I'm at the top. Next one of you go." While I wait I survey our next step; perhaps harder than the last. We will have to haul the ladder over to the other side, find a steady spot to place the base and then crawl down the moonlit side. Directly below is a clear ribbon of ground and bordering that as far as I can see a scraggly garden. The trees hunch under their drooping leaves and the shrubs just look like spiky balls but my heart is still lifted. I haven't seen any natural growing plants since coming to Camp Seven.

Beyond the reach of the garden the buildings start. Pathways run between them, lit occasionally by a lamppost. The closest paths are maze-like and winding, the buildings small and single story. In the distance I can see a few streets lining up into a grid, the large buildings in-between like a line of tanks. That's okay, I remind myself, we knew there were Huntsmen living outside the walls. But we'd never known exactly how many...

I stretch my gaze beyond the Huntsmen town to the horizon. I frown and turn to get a view from every side. There is nothing beyond the Huntsmen. No city lights, no mountainous horizons, not a single light in any direction. Darkness eats at the edges of the town and stretches to the sky. The sight shocks me, making me wonder if we aren't anywhere on earth at all, but on a different planet or realm altogether.

The stars are the same though, glittering mysteriously from space. Orion's belt and the Southern Cross are there as always, and the immensity of the Milky Way. Old friends in an unfamiliar world.