The Abyss

Chapter 12: The Escape

"Raven!"

She plummeted through the air, her back gracefully arched like an acrobat while her long, feathery, jet black hair rippled behind her. As she fell, she reached her arms outwards, extending them like wings as she glided through the air. For a moment, it looked as if she was flying. Then gravity took hold and she was falling fast through the sky, her peaceful flight now a deadly fall. But Raven seemed calm, bringing her arms forward to grab the cold, metallic arms of a robo clown.

The robot held firm, swinging them across the void like monkeys on a vine. Across the way on a rapidly approaching platform, another robo clown began to trapeze through the air, holding onto the swing with its knees bent and arms dangling, like a child on a swing. As Raven approached it, hanging from her own robots arms, she pulled herself up and swung her legs forward, planting a kick in the approaching robot's chest. Then, while it was stunned, she lept onto the second robot, using its flailing arms as footholds as she grabbed hold of the second trapeze. She used her feet to kick and pry the robot loose, just a short distance away from the platform. The robot continued to fly forward as it fell, its momentum carrying it crashing into the platform.

A massive bang rang out as the robot's weak metallic neck hit the wooden platform, effectively decapitating the creature. The rest of its body tumbled over the top of the wooden platform before joining its severed head on the arena floor. Raven managed to pivot as the trapeze began to swing back, and dropped onto the platform. After pausing to test the stability of the new platform, she then pointed at me and then towards a cable which ran from above my platform to the higher center platform. A similar cable ran from her platform back to the center platform, and she grabbed it and hauled herself up, wrapping her legs around it like a pro. She then quickly pulled herself along the thin line with her arms, never pausing to breathe.

I flinched, understanding her message. Still, I clung onto the pillar at the center of my platform, staring at the cable that was hardly thicker than my thumb. I had no idea how to climb it, nor did I want to. I frowned at the cable, trying to think of a safer way across. I wasn't brave enough to cross it without some kind of backup plan. But maybe...

I looked at my harness. I could clip the harness to the cord and use it as a zip line. The only problem was that the cord was too high up for me to clip myself onto it from the center. I'd have to lean over the edge to secure my harness and I wasn't sure I wanted to get that close to death yet.

I looked over at my best friend, bravely scurrying across a cord so rusty she'd probably need a tetanus shot afterwards. Yet somehow it was strong enough to bear her weight. But she didn't know that. All she knew that her friend was in danger and it was up to her to save him. But she couldn't do it alone; she needed my help, and I couldn't fail her.

Working quickly now, I yanked hard on the safety harness, testing its strength. After seeing that it held, I grabbed the thin cord with one hand as I leaned backwards over the void, pulling down firmly on it while trying to pull myself closer to the wire. The grooves in the rusty steel bit into my palms, but I couldn't loosen my grip in fear of falling. I was running out of time; there was no way I could hang here forever, and I couldn't go back or I'd never get myself to try again. There was only one way to go, farther out.

Taking a quick breath, I jumped up and backwards over the edge of the platform, using all of my strength to pull my body up to the wire, so that the clip on my harness around my waist would connect to the cord. I almost made it too, the clip banging wildly against the cord, but then my hands slipped and I began to fall.

Too scared to scream, I cursed like a sailor and closed my eyes tight, bracing for my painful flattening against the cold hard earth. Then, suddenly, my hips jerked to a jagged halt and my head and back whipped back as my harness caught on the zipline. I shuddered, sweat dripping down into my eyes as I bounced up and down while the cord shook from the force of the impact.