Writer Games | Death Wish & 51

Task Seven: The Last Midnight /SF - Nathaniel Morrison [8]

In the early mornings  back home in Five, a dense fog rolled out over the District, like the  clouds grew tired of floating through the sky, and came to rest on the  ground. You couldn't see anything through the fog, not the turbines that  normally pierced the sky, not the house at the end of the street. Your  world was the few feet in front of your face, everything else just a  distant, clouded memory.

It seemed like the same  fog had descended into my mind, clouding my thoughts until anything  beyond this arena seemed so distant it wasn't real. All that remained  were the vague outlines of memories, things I'd done over and over  again: climbing pylons, Mom kissing me goodbye before school, running.

A wind blew across my  hiding spot, a cold, biting wind that seemed to pierce right through me.  Even if the clouded mess of my memories, I knew that the wind was never  like this back home in Five. Even on top of the pylons, where the air  was cold and dry, the wind wasn't biting like this. In Five, it felt  like I was on top of the world - here, I felt like it was crushing me  beneath its weight.

I closed my eyes, a  pathetic defense against the wind around me, and hoped. There usually  wasn't a lot of wind in the morning, but when there was, the wind blew  away the fogs. The best mornings were always the ones with lots of wind -  even if it was cold - at least you could see where you were going  before you got there.

As though the wind  really did blow some of the fog away, my mind cleared a little, and I  couldn't help but smile a little bit. Even one memory was better than  none.

*

From the ground right  underneath it, the turbine's size was honestly a little terrifying. It  seemed like it stretched on forever, its blades reaching up through the  sky, turning slowly with the wind. It was just a little bit of a breeze  today, but the sudden gusts were cold. I was glad that I brought a  jacket like Mom told me too.

"Are you just going to  gape at it, or are you going to actually help?" a boy asked from beside  me. I'd never met him before, Five was a big District and he was a few  years older than me. He'd working here for a while, and, if his height  was any indication, he probably worked maintenance up on the pylons as  much as he worked on the ground.

"Yeah," I stammered,  remembering the parts that I had in my hand. All I was trusted to do was  run in between the turbines, carrying supplies for the other boys to  use.

The boy glared at me, it  was obvious that he didn't like new kids much, and yanked the supplies  out of my hands. There was a special part to help keep collecting  electricity, and a few screws to hold it in, nothing special really. But  it was one of my first deliveries, and I couldn't help but feel like it  was much more important than I actually was. After all, that part and  those screws weren't just to fix the turbine, they also proved that I  wasn't a little kid anymore. My first Reaping would be next year, I was  basically a teenager.

The boy turned away from  me, shoving the part and the screws into his pockets, and began to  climb up the pylon. As much as I had been awestruck of the pylon, I was  of him too. He was fearless climbing up the pylon, while I probably  wasn't even big enough to reach from one rung to the other. Soon, he was  too small for me to really make him out - I could see him, but he was  only a little speck on the huge, white turbine. Already, though, I had  made up my mind.

I was going to be just like him when I grew up.

*

I remembered the first  time that I actually got to climb anything. It was a pylon and not a  turbine, since the pylons were easier to climb and just a little  shorter, but I remember the rush. The metal rungs were cold on my hands,  but I hardly noticed as I climbed to the top. I was climbing slowly,  sure, but I was climbing, and that was what mattered. Just the idea of  climbing was so exciting to me, that I didn't even think to be scared  until I was halfway to the top.

Halfway up to the top, I  looked down. They told us not to look down when we climbed, cause it  slowed us down and looking down was what made it scary, but I didn't  care. I just wanted to see how high I was, to see how small everybody  else was compared to me. That was when I started thinking about being  scared.

The people below me were  so small from how high up I was, in our work uniforms, I couldn't even  tell who was who down there. My hand slipped on the rung, and I pulled  myself in closer to the pylon. If I fell from this height, I would be  going too fast for anybody to catch me, and I would fall and die. My  hands began to shake nervously, but I ignored it. I could imagine what  they would say if I came down now. They would say that I was a chicken,  and if there was one thing I wasn't, it was a chicken.

Climbing to the top of  the pylon was the best feeling of my entire life: the wind whipping  around me from up there, the feeling of accomplishment, that I had done  something I was terrified of.

Laying here on the ground was one of the worst feelings of my life.

But in the distance, I  thought that I could see some sort of light. I was too tired, my mind  was too foggy for me to think about what it was, but I ran towards it  anyway.

"Where are you going, Nate?" A voice asked, but the voice was distant. It was soft and feminine, but that was all I could tell.

I thought I was running home, but I couldn't be sure anymore.