Huff, huff.

His arms ached as he stretched out for the next bar. The bar’s were just far enough that he had to swing to grab onto the next one. Which proved even more tiresome than the act of holding himself up, especially with the briefcase constantly battering against his body.

It had probably been twenty minutes or so since he started swinging. Turning back, he could no longer see the broken part of the ladder where he came from. A small hill was blocking his view. Unfortunately, there wasn’t a place for him to stand on like he had hoped, so the journey would have to take a bit longer.

Grabbing onto the next bar, he breathed in, and let go of the first one. Using the momentum from this, he swung and latched onto the next one. He repeated this for as long as he was able to until his body screamed at him to stop.

Putting both hands on the same rung, he swung back and forth for a while until his body naturally came to a stop. I can’t keep going like this, I need to rest. Ed looked up at the rungs, and realised that he might be able to lay down on top of them and give his arms a rest.

There’s no harm in trying. Lifting himself up, he managed to pull his body over it just before his arms gave out. Lying bent over the bar, he didn’t bother to move at all. As long as he wasn’t about to fall off, his body wouldn’t let him move an inch until he was rested.

The roof above him wasn’t exactly flat. It rose and fell naturally. The bars were placed in a way to try and make them as level as possible, but sometimes that wasn’t an option. Tilting his head up to look a bit further ahead, he saw that the space between the bar and the roof was far too small for him to fit through.

He had lucked out in finding a place to rest in time.

He stayed there in that position for an unknown amount of time, until his aching arms started to hurt just a tad bit less. With everything feeling better now, aside from his leg, he rolled back and continued swinging from bar to bar.

He travelled around the second hill, then the third. Unfortunately, unlike before, he wasn’t able to find a good spot to rest. Either the bar was too close to the ceiling that he couldn’t fit, or it was on an incline.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Every muscle in his upper body felt like it was burning, but he had no choice but to press forward. If he didn’t, it wouldn’t be long until he fell into the sky below and was never seen again.

When he no longer had the strength to swing his body, he would use the thrusters to give him a boost and build momentum. When his arms were too sore to hold him up, he would throw the briefcase over the rung and use the handcuff chain as support.

He wasn’t worried that the chain would break. The cops would occasionally have to deal with people with enhanced arms. And while they couldn’t be prepared for every type of modification, they made sure the handcuffs were durable enough to not break under any amount of stress a human could put them under.

Dangling precariously, with only a metal chain to keep him alive, and nothing but death awaiting him if he fell, he kept his eyes locked on the briefcase. Remember why you did this. This briefcase could change your life.

More time passed, and yet the sky below remained the same. A clear blue, without any clouds or smoke to stain it with imperfections. From what he could tell, there wasn’t even a sun. He didn’t know much about how the sky worked, but he was pretty sure that there was something weird about this one.

Shaking the thoughts from his head, he turned his attention back to the matter at hand. He continued to swing, making it further and further away from where he started. He had no clue where he was, nor where he would end up when he managed to make it back to the lower city.

Hopefully it was somewhere he knew, or was at least familiar with. That would make things easier.

Roughly an hour after he started, he finally noticed something different. Just after wrapping around another small hill, he saw the end of the ladder. And just below where the ladder ended, was a series of grated pathways that spread out in a massive web, connecting to countless other roof ladders.

And at the very centre of this web was a spiral staircase that climbed into the ceiling.

Breathing a mixture of relief and excitement, Ed pushed himself to keep going. His hands were slick with sweat, and in his excitement to reach somewhere he could stand, he failed to properly hold himself and managed to slip before he could grab the next bar.

Falling backwards while scrambling for something to grab onto, it was only a second before his brain kicked into gear, and he activated the thrusters. The thruster in the boot was far more powerful than the one in his leg, but he managed to offset it just enough to keep himself upright.

Pushing the thrusters to their limits, he propelled himself towards the pathway without caring about the burning feeling lapping at his legs.

The thruster in his leg petered out, but the one in the boot remained strong long enough for him to hit the floor with a crash. Tumbling forward, he stopped with his body splayed out and his face pressed against the metal.

He turned the boot thruster off and smacked his leg until that thruster went quiet as well. Lying down and feeling something solid beneath him, he immediately passed out from exhaustion.

Fucking finally.