Almost There

"Come on, we're almost there."

I can feel my arms start to shake in the late evening light, but I can't let them give up on me now. "I'm pretty sure this makes the ninth time you said that." I hold back a grunt as I hear the comment from Theus behind me. "You sure it's not the twelfth time?" Dana responded with a small chuckle as she stood next to Theus rubbing her sore calloused hands together. I roll my eyes and hold back my snarky reply to their unhelpful remarks and continue to push the heavy boulder up the mountain. For a moment, I think about letting the boulder slip by me and to let the two try to stop it from rolling too far down the mountain out of pettiness. Not that it would work though, with the four others pushing the boulder with me.

"It... doesn't matter how many times he said it...because this time it's true." Ion said next to me between grunts. "I can... see the top finally..." All five of us who are pushing the boulder and the two behind us who were conserving their strength, all looked up to see the peak of the mountain no farther than 400 feet away. "Finally! I'm surprised it only took us five days to do this." Eri cheered. Seeing the top of the mountain must've invigorated her because she's starting to push the boulder faster. Tanta smiled, "And the first two days were spent trying to get a quarter of the way up." He then turned to look at Cassandra to his right. "Still think us getting this boulder to the top is pointless?" he asked with a smirk on his scarred face.

Cassandra shook her head to get her fiery red hair away from her face before responding. "Yes, in fact I do. Even if a God told us otherwise." We all think Cassandra's crazy. I mean, we all got the same message five days ago when we got here: You have all been brought here for a great opportunity. Bring this boulder to the top of the mountain. It is very important that the Gods get it by week's end. However, for some reason Cassandra has told us multiple times that there's no reason for us to do this task. That it's pointless in the grand scheme of things. The rest of us just ignore her anytime she goes on one of her tirades.

"Well, prepare to be proven wrong, Cass!" Dana shouted at her. Cassandra looked back over her right shoulder to give Dana a look of doubt. As this happened though, some rocks underneath my foot shifted, causing me to lose my balance and hold on the boulder as I fell onto my knee. I seethe through my teeth as I feel several rocks cause my knee to start bleeding. That wasn't the worst of it though. The sudden weight that hit Ion, Eri, Tanta, and Cassandra surprised them enough to have the boulder start sliding down while pushing us all back a couple feet. Theus and Dana ran up to us quickly to start pushing on the boulder to slow its descent.

"Come on! Don't be a weak sissy now, help us!" Theus yelled at me while bringing the boulder slowly to a halt. Doing my best to ignore the pain in my leg, I slowly get back to my feet. "Don't assume I'm weak just because you're the size of a barn!" I yell back as I get a better hold of the boulder and start to push. We're almost at the top. After spending 2 days just to figure out how to get sleep without the boulder rolling back down, and after three days of pushing it up this gigantic rock, I refuse to be the person to cause us to lose all the progress we made. The combined efforts of all seven of us pushing lets us continue our trek to get to the peak.

300 feet left.

Having all seven of us pushing at the same time would normally be a bad move, if someone were to slip again or get tired it would slow us down until we all lost our strength and boulder rolled back down. This time though is different. We're almost to the top. We can't stop now.

200 feet left.

The sight of the peak getting closer lit a fire in us. Realizing that the end of our quest was near made us dig deep and use all the strength inside us for these last few hundred feet. Every one of us had a determined look on our faces, even Cassandra. Though there was also something else on hers. A strange look, one that I didn't understand.

100 feet left.

We can do it. We can do it! We're almost there. All of our work will soon be rewarded. All of our efforts won't be for nothing.

50 feet to go.

Right?

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The boulder has finally come to a stop of the flat ground, and for a while no one said anything.

Until a few moments later, Tanta, with a tired face and voice quietly said "We...did it." Still, everyone was silent, still trying to process the fact that we had done it. "We did?" Ion asked silently. "I think so." Dana replied. Slowly, a smile grew on their faces. The quiet mountain then erupted in cheers and whoops, as we smiled and hugged each other in joy. Our quest was finished, and we get the bonus of being able to watch the beautiful sunset from our spot. We were on the top of the world. We felt strong. We felt like Gods.

All except for Cassandra. While the rest of us looked on at the sunset in satisfaction, she looked on with that weird look again. "Uh...guys?" Eri said with nervousness in her voice.

When the rest of us were celebrating, Cassandra said nothing. She didn't even smile.

"Wait...What?" This time it was Theus who sounded nervous and confused. In all our five days together, he's never had a moment of doubt or show of weakness. Or at least he never let it show.

Does she know something we don't? "Hey. Cass-"

I was interrupted by Tanta yelling. "What the Styx!" I finally decided to turn around to see what was causing the 3 of them to act like this. Once I did, my heart dropped. This can't be right. This doesn't make any sense. "That wasn't there before, right?" Ion asked. No one said a word as we were all too shocked at what we were seeing. "This doesn't make any sense." Dana said with her hand covering her mouth.

Right behind the boulder we all tirelessly pushed for days...Was a mountain. "This can't be right..." I muttered. I look up to see a peak several thousand feet in the air. It looked like the same distance we just pushed the boulder. I turn my head to see 7 stones stacked on top of each other, just like at the base of the mountain we just climbed. "This doesn't make sense. This wasn't here. We just climbed-"

As I turn around, I choke on my words.

There's no mountain behind us. Just the same dry flat plain that we saw when we first got to the mountain. What's going on? This can't be right; this couldn't have all been for nothing!

All but one of us vocalized our questions, denials, and anger. There must be an explanation for this. Something, someone must have an answer-

...

When my mind comes back from its daydream, I realize I'm at the base of a mountain. There are six others here with me, but I don't know any of them. I turn around, only to see a dry flat plain behind me with nothing in the distance. What's going on? "Um." Before I can get a word out, I hear a voice in my head.

You have all been brought here for a great opportunity. Bring this boulder to the top of the mountain. It is very important that the Gods get it by week's end.