Escape- Part 3 of 8
Looking down for the first time since letting his eyes adjust to the weak yellow glow from above, he found himself standing not in a pile of kindling wood, and not amid a sea of broken glass, as he’d originally considered most likely, but in a pile of bones, human bones. Every bone in the human body lay crumbled and crunched around him, and many times over as far as he could tell. Some were old, ancient even, and crumbled to dust at the slightest pressure, while others were newer and still held their original shape and color. Sweeping his hands down the back of his pants, he felt the remnants of the bits that had been drilling into his skin fall to the floor.
Turning his attention to the walls surrounding him, he forced himself to focus through the fog currently shrouding his thinking. Shuffling his feet through the bones, their clattering and scraping only serving to set his nerves further on edge, he heard an odd tinkling sound from beneath, like someone jingling a ring of keys.
Dismissing the seemingly out of place noise as pain induced nonsense, he placed his back against the smooth stone wall and reached forward. The pit was too wide. He’d hoped to force himself upward, using his feet and his back as leverage against each other, but it was just too far across. Standing in the middle he could rest his palms comfortably against the smooth stone on either side of him, but there seemed no way to climb.
Looking back down into the eerie pile of rubble, an idea occurred to him. Maybe there was no way to use his body alone as leverage, but there might be a way to make use of the dried human remains he seemed to have in abundance.
Reaching down into the remnants of humanity, he swatted aside the smaller bits to dig for the larger, newer, and less decomposed of the lot. Again that odd tinkling noise came to his ears, and again he dismissed it. Empty skulls stared accusingly up at him, their hollow eye sockets black against the surrounding yellow tinged darkness. His fingers finally wrapping around one of the bones he sought, he shuddered as revulsion gripped him. Forced by survival to use that which seemed repulsive, yet sacred, he lifted a severed tibia from the heap. The end had broken off perfectly, leaving a jagged yet lethal point.
His dizziness beginning to abate, and the throbbing in his temple easing just enough to loosen that particular vise, he reached back down into the fell pile for the remaining bones he needed. One more tibia, severed like the first yet not quite as new, and a half dozen rib bones to press into service as pitons. It was time to climb.
Turning his attention to the walls surrounding him, he forced himself to focus through the fog currently shrouding his thinking. Shuffling his feet through the bones, their clattering and scraping only serving to set his nerves further on edge, he heard an odd tinkling sound from beneath, like someone jingling a ring of keys.
Dismissing the seemingly out of place noise as pain induced nonsense, he placed his back against the smooth stone wall and reached forward. The pit was too wide. He’d hoped to force himself upward, using his feet and his back as leverage against each other, but it was just too far across. Standing in the middle he could rest his palms comfortably against the smooth stone on either side of him, but there seemed no way to climb.
Looking back down into the eerie pile of rubble, an idea occurred to him. Maybe there was no way to use his body alone as leverage, but there might be a way to make use of the dried human remains he seemed to have in abundance.
Reaching down into the remnants of humanity, he swatted aside the smaller bits to dig for the larger, newer, and less decomposed of the lot. Again that odd tinkling noise came to his ears, and again he dismissed it. Empty skulls stared accusingly up at him, their hollow eye sockets black against the surrounding yellow tinged darkness. His fingers finally wrapping around one of the bones he sought, he shuddered as revulsion gripped him. Forced by survival to use that which seemed repulsive, yet sacred, he lifted a severed tibia from the heap. The end had broken off perfectly, leaving a jagged yet lethal point.
His dizziness beginning to abate, and the throbbing in his temple easing just enough to loosen that particular vise, he reached back down into the fell pile for the remaining bones he needed. One more tibia, severed like the first yet not quite as new, and a half dozen rib bones to press into service as pitons. It was time to climb.
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