Stuck
A Grooselan "Bottle Episode"
I can only blame myself, really.
Not a lot of people would decide to go swimming near rapids, but it was the only water near Joshua’s home and he wasn’t the sort of person who intended to stay put if given the opportunity to travel, once he was old enough. In the meantime, he prepared himself however he could, today being one where he made use of the water feature known as the Cliffbase River. That wasn’t its official name on any map made by a big city person, he could bet, but it was here.
However, the climb down wasn’t an easy one, so years ago Joshua had made it easier with the help of learning rappelling and then tying a rope to a tree at the top. He hadn’t ever bothered to change the rope, however, and so he got his surprise today, where he only got most of the way down before the rope snapped and he dropped ungracefully into the waters below. He’d wanted to go for a swim, but not with no way back up.
I suppose I could walk along the river, he thought for a moment before dismissing the idea. No, it’s a river. It’s miles downstream just to get to a place where the cliffs recede, and then the river empties into a swamp and it’s not like I brought a sword. At least down here I don’t need to contend with wildlife other than the occasional fish. Fish could get pretty big, but they were still smaller than a person and a few hits with a rock would stun them, and they couldn’t really leave the river anyway. He ate breakfast so he didn’t really need to worry about food just yet, and he wasn’t planning to be down here long enough for that to matter. The rocks above him were good for climbing. He just wasn’t much of a climber and it was a long way up.
As much as he wanted to put it off, Joshua knew that the only way back was to try to climb. His remaining rope wasn’t going to be much help, lacking as he was on tools, so he just put it aside. And then he considered the magnitude of the climb. If I fall, I’ll have to try my best to land in the water, because breaking my bones on the rocks is a great way to not escape. Bouldering is usually only two or three times your height and this is… further. He’d measured the rope out so it wouldn’t dangle in the water, but he forgot the length over the years. Something like eighty or so feet.
Yeah, this was a bad plan. But he didn’t know where the source of the river even was, and if it was in the mountains to the west, he had an even longer walk than to the swamp, and his safety was even less guaranteed than when fending off creatures of the swamp and creatures of the forest (on the long walk back). And this was the calmest part of the river that he knew about; further down, it might not even have a bank. So he looked up from the opposite bank and scouted out a path, then executed it.
Okay, first off, it’s a lot harder to see the path when I’m right up against the rocks. And my hands and feet are wet. Joshua dropped and dried off his appendages using the gravel of the narrow bank. The material was worse at the task than sand or ground salt, but better than nothing. Extremities now less wet, he started up again, and immediately realized that this was going to hurt. Not in a falling sort of manner, but he didn’t use the same muscles climbing the rope as climbing rocks, and he had been sort of hoping he’d get a flying Trait when the time came so he didn’t need to learn how to climb better. Well, it was too early to get his Trait—and he didn’t know how to do the ritual anyway—so worrying about that wasn’t going to help any. And so, he climbed.
Perhaps twenty feet up, he found a little ledge where he could rest. It wasn’t a rest spot where he could just sit, but the handholds and footholds were less difficult than other places and it didn’t take a ton of strength to stay put. It wasn’t nothing, either, but he was grateful for the break, however little time he could stay there. The planned route didn’t have any challenging maneuvers and would even let him cut into a gap prior to the true top, but not every rock was small enough for him to find a handhold and eighty feet was a long way to plan.
Just as his fingers started to burn so much that he was afraid he’d fall, Joshua reached the gap that would let him rest. Not one he could stand in, nor the one at the top, but a gap all the same. A fissure partway up the cliffside was big enough to slide into so that he could brace against its sides for a true rest—feet on one side, back on the other—with just a little stress on his legs, though not much more than standing up. Looking at the opposite cliff let him gauge how far he’d made it. His home was on the shorter side, but that one ultimately had the tougher climb, as the gaps between rocks that formed the tops of the cliffs started lower on the other side. He’d be well into the easier part now if he was trying to scale that side, so he probably only had maybe fifteen feet left. It was hard to check, hugging the rocks as he was most of the time. Just a little left. I can do this!
And indeed, there was only a little left. The gap he’d been resting in wasn’t on his planned route and was actually so far from it that he couldn’t find his way back, but with how small the river looked below he was pretty certain he couldn’t have even seen the gap from down there. And he was also fairly sure that the gap he’d wanted to cut into was too wide to shimmy up, so it might not be a good idea to try to find it anyway. But his hands were at least a little rested and didn’t threaten to give out anymore, so up he went. Closer, closer… A hand reached up and found the top of a rock, and there was only gap in which to stick his arm. And when he found grips to pull himself up and around, he looked up to see the now midday sky through the slit above that was wide enough to squeeze through.
Joshua’s stomach rumbled, ready for lunch. He slowly pushed himself up, not relying on his fingers anymore, but simply on the friction between the rocks and the widest parts of his hands and feet. Up, and up, and out!
The GWC has put out its second prompt and since I’m not submitting for that competition I don’t have to stick to the word count for the competition. (GWC requires 1850-2150 words. This is 1190.) Instead, I just used it as a prompt for this short tale.
Those of you who follow my update schedule closely might notice this one is rather early. I’m submitting it for the Lunar Awards! And that competition entry period ends at 6:59 AM on my normal weekly update day, so I’m posting this still on the same day but a few hours earlier so that I can get the entry in.