Footsteps stomping on the ground, I walked with a steady stride to the base of the mountain. A backpack shook with each movement I made, metal pots and pans clanging inside and aluminum cans jostled around, following my movement. A grin spread across my face as the adventure of a lifetime was fast approaching. Taking the final few steps, I came up to the mountain base station.
The station had only a few buildings making up the place. The guard quarters that the security and rescue team slept in took up the most space at the bottom left of the station. Right next to it was the guard space that took in the payment for entering the mountain.
The most important building sat at the very edge of the mountain, right next to the only entrance. It was the rescue team base, and it was filled with a multitude of people coming in and out of the mountain, making rescue trips every single minute. People considered them a joke since they barely rescued anyone and the people they did rescue either killed themselves from failing the journey, or tried climbing once again, destined to fail before ever reaching the top.
The mountain itself wasn’t named. Instead people just referred to it as “the mountain.” It wasn’t allowed a name because naming something like it was impossible. The mountain scaled so high that it reached above the clouds and the top couldn’t be seen. The government tried flying people to the top just to get the credit of being the first people to have climbed such a beast, but no matter how high they flew, there seemed to be endless rock and snow. Because of that, it was in a league of its own and given the same treatment as a demon. Some people even said that naming it will make it grow even higher.
As of today, the mountain has never been scaled all the way. Either people died, or were brought down by the rescue team, and the stories they shared were harrowing. Tales of comrades seeing each other fall and land on rock, splitting their spines; stories of avalanches barreling down and covering everyone whole; Details of how they would climb and never reach the top. That would all change since the tower has never met me before.
I had a feeling that I would be the one that conquered this climb. Every time I saw it on the news of someone being rescued or another dead body being found, I just think to myself that I could do better. If I climbed that mountain, I’d grasp onto that peak and hold on for dear life as I would shout about being on top of the world. I could die peacefully by that point, knowing that I was the first person to make it to the summit.
I walked up to the guard booth and the guard was too preoccupied drinking his coffee and reading an out of date newspaper talking about previous people that climbed the mountain. I coughed into my hand and he tore his eyes away for a brief enough moment to see me. He placed his possessions to the side and grunted.
“Wanting to climb the mountain?” The guard asked.
“Sure am.” I said with gusto. “I’m going to be the first to climb the mountain all the way to its peak.”
“Everyone else says the same. Now look at them.” He pointed to the newspaper. He sighed when he saw my face didn’t change its hopeful expression. “Name please.”
I told him my name and he wrote it down on a form. He asked several other questions, all I answered with as much honesty I could give him. When everything was taken care of, he held out his hand and asked for payment. I had been saving up money for this very moment and held out my card. He swiped it and all my life savings went down the drain.
“Want to keep the card?”
I shook my head. “No thank you. I’ll be back down in no time to get it back.”
The guard shrugged and handed me a badge that signified I had paid for my trip and done all the necessary preparations. With a nod and wave, I ran off to the mountain and began my ascent.
The entrance was a measly grassy slope upward. From the stories I heard, the start of the mountain was rather tame. It was several large grassy sections that sloped upward with a ton of wildlife. I had carried enough cans of food with me to last a few months if I rationed them right. However, just in case, I took out my gun and fired at anything that came by. The mountain was enormous so the journey might last even more than a year. I needed to prepare for when that time comes.
As I climbed higher I could spot camps of other travelers on the way to the top. Some rested and chatted with friends while others sped across the hill with as much grace as a bull race. On one hand, I knew we were all competing for the same prize, but I also appreciated that I wasn’t going through this alone. When the time comes I might need some help, so I need to be as friendly to wandering people as possible.
One woman came up to me with a bright smile and golden look in her eyes. She had the same look that I possessed the moment I decided to climb the mountain and the determination showed itself full heartedly with little shame.
“You think we can make it?” She asked.
I nodded. “Of course. This is a whole new generation. We have better knowledge on the mountain than before, so this might be a piece of cake this year.”
She smiled, the sun glinting off her white teeth. “I couldn’t agree more.”
We shook hands and began climbing together, sharing our stories. We had a grand time, and it was such a grand time that I never noticed we reached the second section of the mountain. It wasn’t until I noticed trees coming in and my foot sliding on loose rock that I realized we passed the plains behind. She had seemed to not notice it as well since when I brought it up she looked back surprised with her mouth agape.
We looked at each other and grinned like massive idiots. We couldn’t believe we just let something as important as passing a section pass us by. Did we not want to appreciate the marvelous occasion. However, we weren’t alone. Others also began climbing up and going ahead. I looked back and saw only a few head back, but it seemed more out of boredom rather than injuring themselves in any way.
Ignoring them, I climbed higher with her following behind. We climbed for several days on end, going from one section to the next. From grassy plains, to a foresty marsh, then a rocky surface, and now we reached snow and ice. With each new section we reached, the mountain’s hazards became more and more pronounced. It became common to slip our footing at least once per day. Once we reached the snow it became even harder to maneuver around since we could barely see what we were stepping on.
The woman with golden eyes had her foot sink down a massive hole because the snow blocked the view of it. She fell and it took a lot of manpower to pull her out, in turn scratching her leg badly. This wasn’t the first injury we gained since climbing, but it was the first one of this serious nature. We had to rest, or else she could end up wiping out.
Taking out a tent from my bag, I set it in front of a cliff wall. If any avalanches occurred, we’d be safer the closer we are to the cliff. The snow should barrel down further ahead with its momentum leaving the area near it more shallow. At least I hoped that was true. I did my research, but it could be nothing but false information. One way to find out I suppose. Although I wouldn’t really want to find out in such a way.
We rested and let her ankle rest. It took around three days of providing medical treatment and constant rest for her to be able to walk again. It still took some time, but when I asked her if she was good to climb again she gave me a thumbs up. She couldn’t fool me though; I could see that pain in her eyes. They still shined like the gold they were though, so how could I deny her the opportunity to keep on rising.
We climbed again, but much slower this time and more cautious. We made sure that where we were stepping wasn’t hiding some sort of trap. After that incident, I realized that one wrong move could result in our deaths. Of course I knew that beforehand, but after that incident that realization dawned on me.
It didn’t deter me, however. In fact, I would say that it helped burn more passion in my soul. If, not if, but when I overcome the odds and make it to the top, overcoming death along the way, that would make my victory that much sweeter.
As we climbed higher, the number of people climbing shrunk faster and faster. Before, it didn’t take much of a glance to see another person. Now I could go days without seeing anyone. Either they gave up, or a worse fate had managed to befall them. It wasn’t my problem anyway. I could just climb with little to worry about.
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A few days later, we found our first dead body. We were resting inside of my tent, eating away at chili that helped keep us fed and warm. Of course we didn’t eat it all, only shoveling a few spoonfuls down our gullets, but we made sure we ate an adequate amount. We still had enough food left over to keep ourselves going for a few more months, but from the look of things, the top was still incredibly far off.
Suddenly, I heard something rustling outside. It had to be an animal of some kind and I was extremely hyped for the revelation. I hadn’t seen or heard an animal lately, the harsh conditions making the mountain nearly unlivable. The golden eyed woman heard it too and turned her head toward the ruckus.
She crawled to the tent's entrance and opened the flap. It came unloose and I waited for her to either bring back the animal for us to cut apart, or come back empty handed. Instead I heard her gasp and my protective instincts kicked in. I hurried out of the tent and came face to face with a frozen corpse.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
The golden eyed woman was hyperventilating, each breath coming out more ragged than the last. I got on my knees and stroked her hair and gave her a plastic bag. She held it to her mouth and breathed into it over and over again. The bag expanded and shrunk with her constant breathing, letting out an annoying crinkling as it moved.
I looked at the body and couldn’t help but feel disappointed. This was one of the fallen. It was a person that thought that they could reach the top and become the god of this little world. However, they fell and took whatever dignity they had left to the realm that the dead wandered. Whatever it was, I could only hope he found his dream on the other side.
“Will that be us?” Golden eyes asked.
I shook my head, hoping to calm her down. “We’re going to succeed where they failed. They got this far just so we could rise above them. Let's not let their death go to waste.”
She nodded and we continued upward after putting everything back up. With one last look back, I took one final look at the corpse. For some reason, it seemed like those empty eye sockets, where the animals had scavenged his eyes out, were staring at me. I couldn’t help but shiver, but not from the cold.
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I could see something wrong with golden eyes lately. She seemed a lot less determined, but she continued the climb so I assumed that it was just me seeing things. It had been a month since the last time we saw the first body, but once we had we saw them regularly. Every time I saw one, I would pay my respect then keep climbing. Where they failed, I would succeed and become something even greater than they had someday.
We had to begin climbing along a cliff wall since we lost the original path and had to traverse by getting our hands as dirty as our feet. I pulled on every arm muscle and used my legs to pull me up. Before grabbing a rock embedded in the wall, I would test it to make sure that it wouldn’t budge. One nearly killed me as I grasped it and it came loose, tumbling toward the ground. Golden eyes yelped as it came past her, nearly banging against her skull.
As we climbed, the snow began to calm a little and I could see even more of the landscape. I looked over to my right and squinted my eyes. I thought I could see people climbing just far enough away from us for them to be made out, but not in excruciating detail. There were two people, one man and one woman. I pointed them out to golden eyes and she looked over, seeing them as well.
Our eyes widened when we saw something unexpected and horrifying occur. It looked like the man was shaking his body very roughly. It was like what someone would do when a bug landed on them and they tried to shake it off. Then he kicked his leg out and smacked it against the woman’s face. She took the full brunt of it and fell, smacking the back of her head against the rock below. Despite being so far away, I was sure I could hear her screams.
Nothing could prepare me for what I had just seen. I just witnessed a murder, one of the most disgusting acts that a person could do on another of their kind. It happened so nonchalantly that I couldn’t grasp my head around it. Why would he do that?
Golden eyes and I looked at each other. Terror filled her eyes as she looked at me with the same fear as I imagined that other girl looked at that guy with. I looked up and kept on climbing, hoping that she would take the hint that I would never do something like that to her. We may be rivals, but I would never murder her in clod blood. I wasn’t some heartless freak.
When we reached the top of the cliff, we met ourselves with another cliff. This one was much shorter than the one we just climbed, and hopefully it would lead us back onto a good path. I got back on my feet and rubbed the cliff wall, ready to begin climbing until I heard crying behind me. I turned and saw golden eyes bury her face in her hands as tears streamed down her face and hands.
“That was just too cruel.” She whimpered. “Why? Just why?”
I couldn’t do anything but shrug. There really was no answer, was there. He just did it because of his own reasons. No matter the reason though, he shouldn’t have done something like that. It was pretty pointless in the end and would really serve nothing since he wouldn’t be the one to get to the top
“I don’t think I can do this anymore.” She said letting her arms drop to her side. Her golden eyes dulled to the point I could barely call them gold. It turned into a darker yellow more than anything.
“So you’re going to give up?” I said. She nodded and I couldn’t help but feel anger boil into my chest. I walked over and grabbed her, pulling her up and forced her to peer down the cliff. She screamed and tried to fight back, but I was much stronger than her.
“Look at that.” I said, pointing down the mountain.
Despite the fact that I could barely see anyone moving above us, below us was a completely different story. I could see the people looking as tiny as an ant attempting to scale such a mountain that they knew they could never fully overcome. I was the only one that could, yet they still persisted, not realizing the main character was right above them all along.
“You want to go back down and have them laugh at you. You want to go back down and ignore all that you just accomplished. Well you can’t.” I pointed at all the many rocks, crevices, and mini canyons that we had passed along the way. “You won’t survive the trip down and you know it. Not without any help of course, and we both know how much of a joke they are.”
“Well I won’t know unless I try, right?”
The wind howled, trying it's best to claw off my jacket hood and expose me to the harsh elements. I used my free hand to keep it forced on, but she refused to fight back against the mountain. She let the air brush past her, letting her hair pick up and blow in my eyes. I couldn’t see anything, and in that small amount of time, yellow eyes managed to get away from my grip.
She walked forward and her foot slipped on the edge of the cliff. I blinked and saw as she began to fall down the cliff side. I hurled myself with my hand extended and palm open. I was too late as she plummeted down toward whatever hell awaited her. I could only grimace as I knew I could have saved her, but she made her decision. She wanted to fall, then let her fall. She got what she wanted.
Meanwhile, I had much better things to do. I had to keep climbing. Finally, after a while, I could see someone else climbing above me. A grin appeared on my face as that climber made me remember that I still had a ways to go. So what if I just saw someone end their own life in the most idiotic way possible. I would be able to keep going.
With another breath and push, I climbed even higher as I attempted to reach the top.
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It had been a month or two since the time I saw yellow eyes jump off the cliff. Not much happened since then and because of her unfortunate accident, I had even more food then I started out with. Every tragedy came along with a happy ending after all. What ending would this be though I wondered.
I met another man as I followed the mountain path. By this point in the journey, the air was beginning to get stale and scarce. I had to wear a breathing mask just to be able to get enough oxygen in my lungs to stay alive.
This man wasn’t so lucky, however. He was missing an air mask and several parts of his body were black from frostbite. He didn’t have much time left. If I was a betting man, I would give him ten minutes at most. I attempted to walk past him, but then I heard him moan.
“Hey.” The man moaned out. “Over here.”
I looked and approached the dying man. My patience was beginning to wear thin with everything around me. The mountain was finally beginning to affect me after so long. I tried to stay upbeat that I’d reach the top, but sadly it still hasn’t happened yet, and worse it feels like I’m slowing down.
“I figured out the mountain’s secret.” The man whispered.
My ears perked up like a dog and I approached even closer. I couldn’t miss this juicy bit of information. “What’s the secret?”
He made several moaning and groaning noises, then passed away. Sadly the man died too soon for him to be of use to him. I couldn’t help but get angry at the man’s refusal to answer his secrets. Did he even know in the first place? Could he have been some strange lunatic looking for some final ounce of attention before kicking the bucket? Maybe, but there was no way to find out now.
Thankfully, I didn’t see anyone else climbing, so I knew I was nearing the top. This man had to be the person that climbed the highest so far, and with that, I had to be the new top dog. I was the new man that defied the odds and conquered the unconquerable.
With one intense burst of energy, I began climbing again, only much more quickly and not caring how much damage I took along the way. I could only care about making it to the big time. The air blew past with a biting cold, stabbing at my skin like hundreds of daggers piercing my stomach.
I collided against rocks, fell a bit and broke a few bones, and let the wind hit me like a truck. A blizzard sped throughout the summit as the sun managed to break through the ice and snow. I was nearly there. I was so close that I could taste it.
Finally, with one last burst of energy I leaped up to a tiny plateau. The ground below me was covered in snow and everywhere I looked I couldn’t see a single wall. The blizzard ripped down hard, taking away my life one by one. I didn’t care, however. I basked in my own success and glory as the first man to ever conquer this mountain was none other than me.
The blizzard began to fade and the sun shined even brighter. Even the world was letting me know that I accomplished something extraordinary. After everything that happened, I accomplished what I set out to do. I became something much more than just a human. I was a god.
Then the blizzard settled down and the sun shined brighter than ever and I could see clearly what was around me. What I saw absolutely floored me. Above me was more mountain, but that wasn’t all that stopped me in my tracks. It was what was happening to the surface.
Rocks and stone and boulders and snow and ice and many other solid materials were appearing from thin air and adding to the surface. It grew even higher to the point that it would take a day or more to climb to it.
I approached the cliff and attempted to climb it, but three things stopped me. I was so tired that I could collapse at any moment and sleep. Not only that but my hand was so scarred from cuts, bruises and some minor frostbite that when I placed it on the cliff, the pain was immeasurable. Then the mountain formed even higher and turned a day climb to a two day climb. That’s when the realization struck me.
The mountain’s secret and the reason it was so big was because it formed more and more layers as people climbed higher and higher. With each generation of climbers that pass, the higher the mountain top climbs until it becomes so astronomically huge that it would be impossible to catch up to. This was the secret of the mountain and mother nature’s last cruel words to me.
I couldn’t help but laugh as I toppled to the ground as my legs gave up on me. I had sustained too many injuries and couldn’t stand anymore. Everything didn’t make sense. How could a mountain like this exist. Who decided that this was a good idea to place in this world.
In this case no one, no matter how high they climbed, would ever reach the top. The higher they climbed, the more they were screwing themselves. When one final chuckle, I closed my eyes letting death take me. I didn’t want to die and have people remember me as the one that failed when I got so close to the top.
However, the world didn’t care. The mountain will always grow and the more people succeed, the higher the next generation's expectations will rise. They will want to accomplish more, but as I realized at this moment, that more will never come. There was never a summit. It was only the figment of our imaginations.