3,843 Meters Ascended
My auto-piton growled as it twisted itself into the stark, shiny black stone of the Tower. The sound was swallowed, as all sounds were in the Tower. Haunting, hollow. I secured myself to the auto-piton and leaned back against the wall. The ledge I’d found was shallow, just enough to rest back with my calves and feet dangling down.
The babbling began. Soft at first, then more and more voices. Hoarse, guttural, pleading, and chiding simultaneously. The voices bounced off the obsidian stone, rebounding, multiplying, invading my head. I flexed my fingers, feeling the bright ache in each joint. My right elbow sang with similar pain, worse maybe. The tendons inflamed and overworked.
I tried to ignore the voices. Tried to block them out. They were insistent.
Despite the chorus, loneliness weighed on me. I hadn’t seen or spoken to another person in a long, dark while. My personal comms unit had no signal. No surprise there. The forums had been pretty clear about the Tower blocking any transmissions or overly sophisticated tech.
I slipped a small comms bead into my ear, played a voice recording Abithe had left me, the only record I had of her voice. I usually deleted voice notes to keep my inbox clean, but not this one. I checked the rope again, it would be the only thing to keep me from plummeting.
Closing my eyes, I tried to relax.
Tried to sleep. Lulled by her voice.
0 Meters Ascended
The Tower was an aberration. A stain against the sky it pierced.
The line of poor, hungry, ragged people stretched out behind and before me. I shouldn’t be here.
I shouldn’t have to be here.
I’d been waiting a little over twenty-seven hours. There were fifteen more people in front of me. Fifteen more poor souls desperate for the prize offered by the Company if an ascent was successful. Ten million credits. Enough to set someone up for life.
I looked up, shielding my eyes from the light of the two unobstructed blue stars that framed the small sun, now eclipsed by the planet’s singular moon.
The Tower’s point disappeared in the middle of the eclipsed sun.
A scream cut through the protestors’ clamor. Another failed ascension. Company security went into the Tower and pulled out a woman, hands hooked under her arms, her shattered legs dragging uselessly along. She kept screaming the whole way to the medvan.
The protesters paused to watch, their signs lowering. When she was out of sight, they shouted again, begging us to turn back, to resist our pride, our greed, our hubris. No one in the line reacted. It wasn’t the first fall. Wouldn’t be the last. I steeled my heart.
Her failure meant I still had a chance.
Still had a chance to change my life and win Abithe back.
2,960 Meters Ascended
“Hello? Is anyone up there?”
I paused, both feet pressed into painfully narrow cracks, right hand outstretched. Far, far above me, the stone caught the light from my headlamp glittering like stars … or eyes.
The voice had echoed up from below.
“Hello? I think I broke my fingers.”
Masc-sounding, no idea how far below. The strange, iridescent stone walls played tricks with sound and light. He could have been at the very bottom, he could have been right below me.
“Please, I—I can’t get back down. Please help me.”
I reached, curling the mechfingers of my left hand around a small outcropping, carefully continuing my climb.
“I can hear you!” he shouted. “Please don’t leave me!”
I’d read on forums that there had been accounts of ascenders attacking other climbers, taking their supplies, pushing them off the walls.
“Don’t leave me here to die!”
He could actually need help. He could be telling the truth. It didn’t matter.
I continued to ascend.
0 Meters Climbed
“You need to let this go,” Abithe said, arms crossed.
I couldn’t look at her. She didn’t understand. She hadn’t had her dreams crushed—literally—doing soulless factory work. I flexed my mecharm, the soft growl of its internal machinery making my blood boil. I felt phantom pain in an arm I didn’t have anymore. An arm that had been left pulped on the factory floor, under the tine mill.
“Climbing is my life, Abithe,” I snapped.
“You can still climb, you can still work,” she said, voice cracking with tears held back. “You’re the one stalking committee members, you’re the one ruining our lives!”
“Me?” I finally looked up at her, my face burning. “I was working that job for you—for us!”
She let out a sharp laugh. “You chose that job because it would pay for your climbing shit, it had nothing to do with me or my wants.”
“So, you want me to just give up? To slave my life away, no passion or joy? Abithe, I can climb the Tower. You know I can. I’ll change our lives, I promise.”
“People die in the Tower, Sam.”
The skin grafts connecting my left shoulder to the mecharm itched still, a year after the accident. “Why can’t you understand how this is killing me? To be disqualified from ever competing again because I have a fucking robot arm? How is that fucking fair? How do you expect me to live?”
“I expect you to live with me, Sam!” she said. “Why can’t I be enough? Why can’t you just move on?”
I turned from her, shaking my head, and picked up the bag I’d packed.
“If you leave, I won’t be waiting for you. I’m done waiting,” she said.
I ignored her and left our cramped hab-home.
5,102 Meters Ascended
Higher in the Tower, climbing was treacherous, agonizing. For once I was grateful to my mecharm—its tireless strength allowing me to hang off its grip for brief rests when my single flesh hand cramped up. My left shoulder ached at the grafted edges, but it was better than the pain in my hand. I pictured my life after this dark climb. A new home, a climbing federation approved arm. Abithe.
Flexing my right hand, I winced. My muscles cramped, loosened, cramped again.
My mecharm’s internal gears sounded louder, struggling against the ceaseless use. Maybe it was just a trick of the Tower. It fought against my ascension. I knew I had to be the highest climber yet. I would reach the top. I would change my life.
Sharp stone splinters rained down on me, pinging against the plexicarb shell of my mecharm. I looked up, my headlamp’s light splashing against the wall.
Above me hung a corpse.
No, not a corpse.
My nostrils flared as the stench hit me—the reek of souring flesh coating the back of my throat and teasing up bile.
It perched on the wall, facing down towards me, defiant of gravity. Ropes of saliva hung from its knife thin lips. I froze in position, creaking back and forth. Pale skin, the calico colours of a healing bruise, jointed in places there shouldn’t be joints. Mimicking the human body but making a mockery of it.
Its tiny, cloudy eyes caught the light from my headlamp and its two nostril holes flared. The back of its skull flared out, creating a wedge-like shape. Crouching against the wall, braced back against wide webbed feet by its preternaturally long hands, it swayed a bit with its own heavy breathing.
Its head tilted a bit, as if examining me. Then it turned and easily slipped up the wall with a soft, slick sucking sound.
It took a long, long while and an alarming whine coming from within my mecharm before I could work up the courage to continue my ascent. The same way the creature had gone.
99 Meters Ascended
None of the sounds from the exterior penetrated the Tower. None of the protestors’ cries, the Company guards’ shouts. Just me and my thoughts.
Roughhewn ledges made for an easy start and I scrambled upwards quickly. I felt my confidence rise with my progress.
I could do it. I would reach the top. The old thrill I’d always felt during my competitive climbs came flooding back. I’d been on track to qualify for the Onus Galaxial Annual Climbing Challenge. I’d been on track to be a celebrity, a star. Sponsors, money, freedom.
I reached, rejoicing in the stretch and flex of my muscles. I pulled, smiling through gritted teeth. This would be a breeze. I was a climber. It was in my blood.
The protestors claimed some kind of god appeared at the top of the Tower when it pierced the center of the eclipse.
They didn’t understand. When it came to climbing, I was a god. I would make this Tower mine.
I would prove I could change. She would see how much I love her, she would come back. I could be better. She would see that I’m worth it.
In the end, they would see.
In the end, Abithe would see and she would come back to me.
4,860 Meters Ascended
The body lay against the smooth Tower wall, tucked away from the sharp edge of the large ledge. I picked up a curved bone, probably a rib, maybe. Running my thumb along its concave side, I could feel notches and cracks in its slick surface.
The body was on its side, head splattered against the stone, one arm twisted behind it, the other flung out as if reaching for me. The legs were crumpled. They must have fallen a long, long way.
Yet …
I slid closer. I’d seen many climbing accidents before, brutal scenes of agony and broken limbs but never one where someone had looked disemboweled.
The corpse’s belly spilled out in a pool, smearing towards the edge, intestines like stinking ribbons festooned about. The ribs were cracked open, chest a hollow hole. The air hung heavy with the wet, rancid reek of copper and meat.
My legs shook from holding a crouch, I shrugged off my bag—pitifully empty as it was—and slid down the cold wall to the ground as far from the body as the ledge would allow.
I knew I’d run out of food—hours, days, weeks ago?—but I opened my bag anyway and rooted through the auto-pitons, the packs of hydro gel, mini first aid kit, food wrappers I’d already licked clean. My belly ached worse than my fingers. I trembled constantly.
At this rate, I would die of starvation before I ever reached the top. Pressing the heels of my palms against my closed eyes, I held back stinging tears.
“I won’t,” I hissed. “You can’t beat me. Fuck you. Fuck you!”
The Tower swallowed up my words, offering no echoed reply.
Abithe would say there wasn’t anything to beat. That this was inevitable. That I should have listened to her.
I shook my head, digging ragged fingernails into my scalp.
“Like you could ever see a project through,” I said with a sour smile. “You are the queen of abandoned hobbies.”
I had no idea how much farther I would need to go. I had no idea how far I’d come.
Sucking in a shuddery breath, I looked over at the mess that had once been a climber like me. Someone who had hoped for better, believed they could change their own fate.
They couldn’t have been dead for too long. Despite the smell, I couldn’t detect any hint of rot. They’d been someone before me, maybe from the front of the line. Maybe they had starved, climbing on weakened limbs until they fell to land here, to die slowly or maybe instantly.
I licked my lips, stomach growling again, I pulled out the small utility knife I had in my bag.
The body wouldn’t be too old at all.
0 Meters Ascended
Overhead the moon eclipsed the planet’s main star, plunging the dry, desiccated plains in a somber burgundy light. The temperature dropped dramatically and a slow, hissing wind picked up.
I shifted in my place, midway in the line that snapped back and forth in tight switchback turns. I’d gotten here over a day ago and still hadn’t been the first.
The moon centered on the star and a brilliant bloody corona flared out around it, a silent protest from the sun behind it.
The two blue stars that framed it were weaker, smaller, casting the barest light in contrast.
The tip of the Tower disappeared in the obsidian eye of the eclipse. A groaning grind of massive stones echoed over the fields as a door appeared at the base of the Tower, where there hadn’t been before. A door that now opened.
A crowd of people took this as their cue to pick up their signs and yell, surging forward against the blast shields of the armed Company guards. They screamed at us to turn back.
They were descendants of the original colonizers and true believers of a god they thought existed in the eye of the eclipse.
The Company soldiers were silent, deploying non-lethal stun shots, pushing back as the first person in line stepped inside the Tower.
Hours passed, the line slowly shuffled forward.
I tried countless times to reach Abithe on comms, but she didn’t pick up. My heart ached to hear her voice. To tell her she was right, that I would change, that I could change.
A scream rang out and I looked up, my heart shuddering in my chest. I couldn’t see if it had been a protestor or a climber.
Sobs echoed. I ducked my head down, and tried not to listen.
7,023 Meters Ascended
Waking with a scream caught in my throat, teeth sunk in my upper right thigh. I kicked out, boot sinking into flesh, a chittering laugh in response. I scrambled, caught in my own safety line, switched on my head lamp to reveal a calico-skinned face, blank eyes, and abnormally long and crooked teeth—teeth now stained with my blood. One of the many scrambling corpse creatures I’d seen more and more of as I ascended.
The abomination lunged at me and I raised my mecharm to shield my exposed neck. Its jaws snapped tight on the plexicarb shell and I was yanked forward as it tried to drag me to the edge of the ledge I was camped on. My safety rope yanked at my waist, snapped taut. Pulling my natural hand back in a fist, I struck the beast once, twice, thrice, four times in its face, hearing bones crack. It reared back with a cry, but just as quick, lunged at me again.
I got it in the rib cage with a kick, launching it over the side of the ledge, giving me time to scramble back.
It slithered up over the edge, its abnormally long fingers making slick suction sounds on the stone. The thing babbled, gray tongue dancing across its tombstone teeth, and it was on me again, quicker than I could see. Its fists rained down on me, talons ripping through my canvas climbing suit, tearing skin.
I screamed—in despair, in rage, at the unfairness of it all. Something snapped in my mecharm, the outer shell shattered, exposing wires, gears, the central ceramite bar. Lubricant fountained into the air, ruby coloured, almost like blood. I cried out even though there was no pain. I hadn’t been able to afford that level of prosthetic.
The abomination cackled, yanking at my mecharm in glee, tearing it off at its carefully greased and maintained elbow hinge. Sparks flew from the circuitry, spraying brilliant heat in its monstrous face, and the beast’s cry turned to fear, to pain.
I rocked to my knees, thrust the remnants of my mecharm—the broken bar and flying sparks—straight through its throat.
Its cry was cut off, talons scrabbling at my chest, blood—as red as any human’s—bubbled from around the ceramite bar.
I pulled free, pressing against the wall. The thing dropped, blood pooling, went still.
Shaking, I sunk to the ground. Sparks still flew from the shattered remains of my mecharm, the internal cogs whined and a burning smell choked the air. The other half of it lay beneath the now dead creature with the calico skin.
I clutched my hand—my only one now—around the base of the mecharm. Tears flowed freely down my face.
I was trapped.
With only one arm, there was no chance of reaching the top or even retreating back down. I would die here.
0 Meters Ascended
“Fuck them,” I hissed, stomping out of NuU Functional Limb Co. “Fuck them and their mothers.”
Abithe chased after me, apologizing to the bored looking sales rep.
The street was busy, humid, crushed with carts, motorbikes, Citizens alike. She grabbed me by the pocket on my left side, pressed against me.
“What was wrong with it?” she asked, the frustration clear in her voice.
This was the fifth shop. The fifth waste of time. My left arm, shredded, gone, still ached. Sharp phantom pains shooting up from the void, setting my teeth on edge.
“It’s useless!” I said.
Pulling me from the crowds, into a tight alleyway, Abithe spun me to face her. Her hands reached for mine, her two hands. I saw her pause, then grab my one hand—my only hand now—in both of hers.
“There aren’t any more shops left,” she said slowly, as if speaking to a child. “These are the only ones in the Company network. We can’t afford anything else.”
I shook my head, pulled away from her. “I can’t compete with those arms. I need—”
“Sam, we can’t afford it. You understand that, right?”
“Do you?” I clenched my fist, my one fist. “Do you understand what it’ll do to me? If I can’t climb? It’ll be like I died, okay, Abithe. Is that what you want? For me to just fucking die?”
7,023 Meters Ascended
I watched the thick worm-like appendages creep from the wound in the abomination’s neck. Blindly seeking, rooted in its flesh, the tendrils turned towards my climbing bag—crusted with old, dried blood—then towards me. The things could smell blood. They tapped at the stone ground, then rose once more to waver.
I watched and dug the tip of my knife under the base of my mecharm. The pain almost made me vomit but I clenched my teeth, prying the prosthetic components from my shoulder. First the frame of the limb, then the screws and bolts that kept it in place. Finally, I unspooled the connective wiring, feeling the soft material moving through my body like a snake, as I pulled it one yank at a time, out of myself.
Once done, I vomited. My vision spotted, darkened, returned.
Sucking in sour breaths, I shuffled to the corpse and dug my blade into its shoulder. I had to pin the body down with a knee to keep it still, the appendages tapping insistently against my calf. My blade was dull from all the butchering I did early, but I persisted, I cut its arm free at the shoulder.
Falling back, I hissed with pain, blood leaking down my side. I picked up the arm. It was longer than mine, with extra joints, and thick ropy muscles. Appendages slid from where I’d cut it from the body, they reached for me, scenting the blood pouring from my wounds.
I pressed the open stump of the arm against my gaping shoulder. I cried out through clenched teeth, screwing my eyes shut, as I felt every movement of those diving, digging hungry worms in my shoulder, wriggling deep, deep, deep inside.
My flesh burned, feverish heat washing over me, as I vomited again, retching up the last shreds of flesh I’d eaten before. I curled over myself, trembling uncontrollably, praying I wouldn’t roll myself off the edge.
Minutes later, in agony, I considered willingly throwing myself from the ledge, then the pain began to fade.
I gasped, sweat pouring down my face to drip to the ground. The pain became an ache. I sat up.
My new arm, hung awkwardly from my shoulder, flesh fused in a rainbow of bruised skin. I licked my cracked lips. Flexed. First my right hand. Five fingers, normal number of joints, chipped nails. Then my left. Six fingers, double the joints, tipped with talons. The hand flexed, I felt it, talon tips pressed again the flappy loose flesh of my new palm.
With my right hand, I pressed and touched my new fingers, my palm, my talons. It tickled.
My new fingertips were covered in soft, slick cups. I slipped a finger into the cup on the tip of my new index finger. The cup sucked in my finger eagerly, the flesh almost velvety. I shivered. It reminded me of Abithe, of gasping nights under cool sheets, of her taste on my lips.
I shook my head, separated my hands with a little gasp.
I cut the meat up quickly. I’d had practice now. Packing my bag as full as I could, I pressed my new hand against the stone wall where it suctioned on eagerly. I smiled.
With this, with my own two arms now. I would climb.
0 Meters Ascended
My comms unit vibrated insistently against my thighs. The factory machinery roared around me, dulled by the headset I wore.
“Increase torque, twenty percent,” my supervisor barked over the team comms.
“Yup,” I replied.
I tapped through the menus, activated the appropriate protocol. The floor rumbled as the power core revved up. I pulled the comms unit from my pocket, looking around as I did. Personal devices weren’t allowed on the floor, but as long as I wasn’t seen, it didn’t matter.
I’d missed a call from Abithe, she’d left a voice note. I smiled.
“Initiate tine coating test,” my supervisor said.
Still holding my comms, trying to read the transcript, I reached out with my left hand.
23,451 Meters Ascended
I climbed easily. I hunted easily. My new legs and arm never seemed to ache or fatigue. I would summit the Tower and look in the face of the god who had turned its gaze from us. I would make it submit and I would take what I deserved, what was owed.
Below me, deep within the dark bowels of the Tower, the creatures babbled to each other and did not approach anymore.
My backpack was heavy with food now. My new limbs allowed me to scale even the smoothest walls. Nothing would stop me. Nothing ever could.
I would summit.
I would breach god’s paradise and take my place.
Baring my teeth, gritty with alien flesh, I smiled. There would be a reckoning. I would punish the Company for their greed. I would tear apart the factory and the fat supervisor. I would force Abithe to kneel before me and beg for forgiveness, beg for my love. I would spit in the eye of god.
Above me, light broke over the walls of the Tower, red light, bloody light.
0 Meters Ascended
The person ahead of me entered the Tower. The protestors had long since exhausted themselves to silence. I waited for the signal for my turn.
Pulling out my comms, I tried to call her again.
No answer.
My heart ached. The Company officer waved me forward, no expression on her face. I looked up the side of the Tower as I approached the entrance. The comms redirected me to her voice note inbox.
“This is my last climb, Abithe,” I said as I stepped through the threshold. “This last one and I’ll give it up. Just as long as you come back to me. You were right. You are enough. You’ve always been enough. This is my last climb and after, we’ll start a family. Just like you wanted, okay? I love you. I love you more than anything.”
Content Warnings: body horror, death/dying