A lot has happened this week. After deciding that I really do want to cross the chasm, I had a lot of things to figure out.

The first was a plan of action. I knew, that even if I trained for it and managed to cross the timed platforms, once was not going to be enough. I would likely have to cross it many times as my ‘adventure’ continues.

To be honest even crossing it once would be dangerous enough. I would be risking my life in the most unbelievably literal sense of the phrase. So there are a few things that need to be taken care of.

First I need to make sure that I only have to cross it once. To that end I have already ordered some ‘equipment’ to make that possible, about a week ago. Said equipment, is not going to magically get me over the platforms, they do span forty meters to the other side after all, but it will ensure that I only have to cross it once.

Secondly, reducing the risks if I fail, that is too say, try and give me an extra life or two for the attempt. Some more equipment that I ordered at the same time and from the same online store should help with that.

Thirdly, I need to try and prevent failure all together and make it across on my first try. This is without a doubt, the single most important part of this operation.

It is for this reason that I spent a couple of hours just filming the timed platforms. I then spent several more hours watching and analyzing those recordings. What I discovered, is that they all have the exact same base increment of time, multiplied by a power of two.

Some platforms toggle on and off every one and a half seconds. Other platforms toggle every three seconds while others every six. There are even some platforms that toggle on and off every twelve seconds.

It is also worth noting that the size of the platform seems to be directly inversely proportional to the speed of its toggle. Large platforms typically toggled at one and a half seconds and the smallest one by one meter platforms toggled slowly at the full twelve seconds.

I knew that I would need to somehow practice this platform hopping business before I go out there. So I did the only thing I could while I waited for my equipment to be delivered. I cracked open my copy of ‘Unity’ and started building a really shitty small scale 3D game, that would allow me to simulate the real environment.

The platforms were all just blankly colored untextured blocks of various sizes and when they toggled ‘off’ in the game, I just added an eighty percent opacity to them. I made it first person perspective for a more natural feel and to avoid having to dig up a character model.

I then spent an entire day setting up all the different platforms to the correct, placement, sizes and timings according to my camera recordings. At that point all I needed to do was set up my ‘characters’ collision box and control systems and I was set.

I spent every remaining day, ordering takeout and barely doing anything aside from practice my shitty little game. Over and over again, learning the timings of the platforms, the different routes I could take to get to the other side, even which routes were safest and had the most leeway.

Once I had narrowed it down to one single ‘safest’ route, I practiced that same route over and over again. I even quadrupled the timings of all the platforms at one point just to do panicked speed run tests.

I felt I was ready. Or at least as ready as I was ever going to be.

So when the equipment arrived, I wasted no time loading up and getting ready for the main event. Before I jumped through the portal, I laid out a soup bowl on the floor and put some now old fish in it for the unwanted house guest.

It was quite heavy lugging the equipment all the way over to the north edge, I even had to make a second trip for the the four way folding ladder I purchased. I was already pretty tired by the time I was done.

I quickly unloaded my gear and set to work. I set my folding ladder up in an ‘A’ shape at the base of a seven meter high pillar that is located some five meters away from the north edge. I picked up my brand new portable drill and started drilling into the pillar, near the top, or at least as high as I am able to safely reach with the help of the ladder.

It was the most powerful portable drill I could find, but that being said, they are not really suited for drilling into concrete, or stone, or whatever the hell the pillar is made out of. At the very least it’s making progress, that is to say, at least the pillar isn’t made of some indestructible material.

That was one of my biggest concern for this operation. Once the hole is drilled, I grab a large washer that is oblong in shade and has an additional hole in it for hooking stuff into it, I really don’t quite know what this thing is called. I feed a raul bolt through it and push it into the hole in the pillar. A perfect fit.

I pull a spanner out of my backpack and get to work on expanding the raul bolt until it is as tight as I can get it. Nice job! Now I have a very secure hook in the pillar some six meters above ‘ground level’.

I load the drill and spanner back into my backpack, as I will need to do this one more time.

I put on a safety mountain climbing harness. Well more like a harness you would use with a rope in any high place, they are all quite similar. I clip the end of a fifty meter rope onto the ‘hooked pilar’ and roll the rest hanging around my shoulder in loose rolls. I then clip the other end onto my safety harness.

I quickly realise my mistake and take the fat roll of rope off my shoulder and reverse it before slinging it over my shoulder once more. The rope itself is thin and lightweight, however, between the less than fifty meters of it and my weighty backpack, it’s a lot of weight to be jumping around with.

The idea here is that as I jump from platform to platform, taking the ‘safe’ route, that is to say, the route with as many six second platforms as possible. The twelve second platforms are too small and will be very dangerous with my sluggish movements and anything faster will be too dangerous in it’s own way.

This is because as I jump from platform to platform, I will need to feed rope off of my shoulder to have enough slack to jump to the next platform. If I do this too quickly the weight of the unwinded rope so far at that point, may swing around and throw me off balance. If I do it too slowly, well hence the choice of six second platforms as my preference. Also I can’t afford to let too much slack go into the rope as I move, if the rope touches one of the ‘off’ platforms, as it comes back on, it will cut it off.

As long as I can make it across just once, I can attach the rope to a pillar on the other side, using a similar technique as to what I did on this side and thereafter, simply shimmy across the void and skip the platforms all together.

Clipping the other end of the rope into my safety harness just acts as insurance. If I fall, it will hopefully save me. I will hopefully not be snapped in half after falling for forty meters, before the rope goes terse to catch me. The connection to the pillar will hopefully hold and not let me plummet to my death. And lastly with my climbing harness, with its little rope throttling contraption thingy and my climbing gloves, I will hopefully have the strength to climb my own rope back up.

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This was a really bad idea, wasn’t it?

Well, no backing out now. I test one of the solid platforms with my toes and then jump onto one or two platforms and back again to build up confidence.

Then I wait for the start of the correct sequence and I leap out onto my first platform. I land safely in the middle of a two by two meter platform with a six second timer, as it appears.

Jesus! It’s scary as fuck! It feels like I’m standing on air, with this stupid semi-transparent platform below me. I have to try really hard not to look down into the endless abyss below me.

How many seconds has it been, am I wasting too much time steadying my legs. It feels like if I don’t, that I might just fall right off the platform. After a deep inhale, I sling one or two loops off my shoulder, until the rope hangs just above the platform and then leap to the next one.

So far it’s going well, I’m several platforms in, despite the near crippling fear of it all. Up next should be the last three second platform on my route, the rest are all six and twelve second platforms.

I wait for the platform to appear and then jump over to it. By the time my feet touch down the platform has already been up for one second. I realize now for the first time, just how slow a human is compared to a character in a game. I quickly unfeed two rolls of my cable and steady it before preparing for the next jump. This is nuts, that cost me another second! A take another step forward and jump towards the next platform. The previous platform disappeared almost as soon as my feet leave it, it could not have been more than a half second gap!

This knowledge sends a fresh chill of fear running down my back. Regardless of the terror slowly overwhelming me, I still manage to keep moving forward one platform at a time.

However, over the course of the next several platforms, I start to notice a serious problem. I honestly thought it would get easier, the further I go. I mean I would be offloading the rope on my shoulder the whole time. Reality had to go kick me in the nuts. Truth be told, the rope I am supporting behind me is much heavier than when it was on my shoulder.

This is because I have to keep it terse in order to keep it off the platforms, and the further away from the starting point I am, the harder this is to do. It has reached the point where I have to be careful not to let the weight pull me backwards.

A make a jump to the next platform. I have to do it at full power, despite the gap only being a meter, in order to make it across thanks to all the ‘resistance’, and even then I only barely make it, my left foot lands on the edge.

I continue to struggle from one platform to the next, feeling like I’m about to be pulled backwards off each new platform I step onto as I go. I am almost there, just two more platforms!

It is then that my blood runs cold. I realise that the next platform is one and a half meters away. That gap would have been nothing to jump earlier, hell I’ve jumped one or two two meter gaps on my way here earlier. But now it’s impossible. It’s reached the point where I can’t jump at all, not even a hop, or I’ll get pulled over backwards. I can at most ‘step’ over a one meter gap, but even that would be pushing it.

The one and a half meter gap in front of me is simply not possible anymore. I’m starting to panic, I have to get off this platform. Even if I abandoned my cable, detaching it, too easily hop the rest of the way and ‘save myself’. But if I did that, how would I get back. I only practised a one way trip. There is not supposed to be a return trip. There’s only one choice, an alternate route.

I let my vision drift wide to scan my surroundings and try to forget about the platform under me that should be disappearing soon. There! A small platform that just turned on. I quickly step over to it. I can only risking moving to platforms that I have seen appear now, as anything else and it would be impossible to know how long the platform will stay ‘on’. If I don’t do it like this I could step onto one and have it disappear immediately.

I scan for my next platform quickly. But I don’t see anything close by turning on. Most of the nearby platforms are already on. Shit! This is about a six second platform I’m standing on, it’s been on for about four seconds.

There’s no choice, I quickly step over to the smallest nearby platform, and hope it stays on long enough for me to cross over it. I am unravelling rope with reckless abandon now, not even caring if it touches the platforms. I need to get across.

I immediately step over to the next small platform, now just making a mad ‘dash’ for the finish line. As my right foot touches down on it, I feel the platform below my left foot vanish. Luckily I was already leaning over far enough onto my right foot and by extension the platform in front of me, that I only lost a little bit of balance.

I reach over two more steps and cross the divide to solid ground. Safety! I fucking made it!

But I can’t rest yet, the weight of nearly fifty meters of rope pulling on me is tremendous. I drag it over to the nearest pilar, wrap it around a few times to lose the excess, before hooking the hook on the end of the rope, onto itself, to keep it from retreating.

Now I breath a sigh of relief. Thank god I’m alive.

I still don’t feel very comfortable with this ‘loose’ setup and waste no time getting to work, finishing the job. Using my drill and raul bolt and hook thing, I mount and attach a pulley of sorts that I feed the rope through and use it to tighten the rope as far as it can go, until it is running almost straight across the divide, without hanging downwards. Albeit at a downward angle, since I did not have a ladder on this side.

Before picking up my tools and backpack off the ground, I take a moment to consider whether I have enough physical and emotional strength left to start exploring or if I should return at this point and just rest up a bit.

I decide that after this much trouble I shall explore! Fuck it. I wanna know what that machine thing does. I get up and take a step forward to reach for my backpack. There’s just one problem though. I have stepped on something. The something I have stepped on is mildly squishy. The something I have stepped on has four spider like legs and a single oversized red glowing eye!

The something I have stepped on squeals in complaint and this is enough for me to practically leap backwards. It was more of a fumble over my feet as I stagger backwards to try and keep myself from falling over though. Never mind that, it’s a monster! THERE’S A FUCKING MONSTER!

I realise too late that I have stumbled backwards too far. My left foot is slipping over the edge of the chasm and I am busy leaning over backwards as a result. There is no chance of righting myself anymore, I am going to go over!

Screw that! I didn’t come this far just to fucking up and die! I twist my body around so that I can see behind me as I carry on slipping backwards and as soon as one of the nearby platforms comes into view, I kick off from the solid ground, into the platforms direction.

I manage to land on what I think is a six second platform. I quickly scramble to my feet, not knowing how much of those six seconds are left and stumble forward towards a nearby twelve second platform that is literally just ten centimeters apart from my current one. If I can step onto there, I may just have enough time to check on the monsters position or figure out how to get to my safety line without falling to my death first.

I do not however get to step over to the twelve second platform, before the six second platform runs out of time and turns off. My feet meet empty ground as I move forward and gravity starts doing its work.

I manage to hook my arms over the twelve second platform as I fall forwards and down. The weight of the rest of my body however, causes my arms to slide down and I end up holding onto the platform by only my two hands, before the motion stops.

Dangling there, I immediately try to pull myself up. I manage to once again hook my arm over the platform and pull my chin up above it, after a fair amount of struggling. I don’t know how long the platform will be there still.

It is at this point that I realise in horror that the six meter platform was only ten centimeters away and I’m pretty sure my neck is thicker than ten centimeters. How long has it been? Maybe about five seconds? Oh fuck!

I instinctively drop my head and my arm back down as fast as I can, once again holding on to the twelve second platform with only my hands. I make it just in time as the six second platform once again appears, shaving off some of my hair in the process.

That was too fucking close. Now I just need to wait for it to disappear and try again. No, wait! This is only a twelve second platform, no matter when it turned on, it will definately be the one to turn off first!

I quickly flip my hands around, one after the other, to grab onto the six second platform instead. As soon as my second hand touches it, the twelve turns off. Two seconds passed I think, maybe three? I pull myself up with every fibre of my being, every ounce of strength I can muster.

Three or four seconds is all I have until I die, there will be no second chances. I hook my arm, then pull up my head, then hook my leg, and pull up my body, all in one swift and rapid motion.

I launch upwards and onto my feet and prepare to jump to the first platform in sight.

But I am falling. The platform is already gone, it has run out of time.

I can only watch helplessly in horror, as the platforms get further and further away, above me.