Don's Descent

Don took one last deep breath of the frigid November air, his harness now firmly clasped to the safety belt around his waist. His eyes met the sky, and he took the time to appreciate the morning sun, the sky around it a warm pink shade. He mouthed to himself an old saying he heard from his mother; ‘pink sky in the morning, sailors take warning’. Don then sighs and looks down at his feet, dangling freely on the precipice of the seemingly endless hole he’s preparing to spelunk into. ‘The Gator’s Mouth’ is what the local Floridian’s call it. Or at least he thinks that what they call it… the swamp people were difficult to understand.

Don tenses his calves as he prepares to make the first jump down into the hole. He pushes off the ground with a familiar force, flying downwards for about 10 feet before lightly catching himself on the rock wall with the balls of his feet. His experienced form makes the impact seemingly silent, landing with the greatest of ease. He could land on the soft spot of a newborn baby's head and not even leave a bruise.

Don tenses himself again, exhaling sharply as he pushes himself off of the wall and into the center of the cave. Don whistles calmly as he floats down another 15 feet into the darkness. He lands on the wall with the weight of a loose-leaf notebook. The sun’s warm and comforting light has started to dissipate now that he’s a few meters into the cave. He turns on his headlamp with a cocky flick, still whistling as he peers down into the pit.

Don tenses his calves again, positioning his feet shoulder width apart, as usual. He kicks backwards. A sudden rush of tremendous fear and panic uppercuts Don in the deepest pit of his stomach as his feet slip upwards towards the clouds, the only thing in his view the Ombre sky, one side pink and the other side blue. He flails his arms and legs at breakneck speed, begging to grab onto something. The rope holding him tightens to its fullest extent, and catches Don in the air. His head snaps backwards with a heavy force, his body then slams against the granite wall.

Don floats in the air for a second, his head and legs pointing downwards towards the darkness. He then slowly raises his head up, twisting his balance back to an upright position and catches himself on the wall next to him. He leans against the wall for a moment, hyperventilating. He peers down into the pit and tries to calm his breathing. His face turns red with embarrassment at the thought of his fellow climbers and adventurers finding out he screamed like that while falling only a few feet, and with a safety harness on. Why did he panic this time? He’s fallen before.

Don hears a sort of scratching sound through his deep breaths, and looks up to investigate. His stomach bursts into flames as he sees the rope holding him up, uncurling its own twine about 15 feet above him. Don doesn’t hesitate as he frantically tries to climb the smooth and slick surface of the rock wall. After a few failed attempts to get his footing he grabs onto the rope and starts climbing it slowly. He unleashes a powerful roar with every motion, bearing his teeth and swinging his arms upward as fast as he can. The blood in his biceps and triceps burn like magma as he climbs with all of his might, each exhale containing a spray of spit and blood from the impact. His body explodes into a searing propulsion of monstrous energy. Don didn’t want to die.

Don grabs the rope just inches from the untwining section, and he swings his other arm upwards to grab above it. As he moves his arm again, the other arm holding him up, pained and exhausted from his scorching efforts, lets go.

Don exhales sharply. The arm that was holding him up remains above his head as he falls back down into the pit. His eyes never leave the betrayed section of rope, and he watches it snap with ease as he meets the apex of the rope’s length.

Don is calm. The world feels like it’s in slow motion, he turns his head to the side and watches as the granite wall next to him slowly goes by, like he’s in a glass elevator. ‘What’s going on?’ Don ponders, his body falling into the bottomless pit beneath him, the floor quickly approaching.

Don’s body smacks onto the granite floor with a loud slap of skin and a crunch of bone. The sound echoes, bouncing off the cylindrical walls surrounding him and climbing up to the surface. Don doesn’t hear a thing. Don lays silent on the floor, his cracked skull bleeding profusely, his mangled spine jutting out of his back and touching the granite floor. His legs each extend outward into multiple ends like the frayed end of a rope. Don doesn’t breathe. He doesn’t move. A single beam of light illuminates the corner of his face, his glazed and partially burst eye reflects the sun passing over the hole.

Don ‘s mind, however, races. He can’t move, he can’t speak. How is this possible? Paralysis in his condition? He should be dead. ‘Am I dead?’ Don inquires to himself calmly. Don lays. Don can see out of his left eye, still intact for the most part. The only thing in his blurry vision is the mouth of the pit he’s now at the bottom of. The mouth of the hole, a few hundred feet above him, blinks at him.

Suddenly, the most intense pain Don has ever felt in his life rushes through his body. Pain great enough to tumble Zeus, to force a whimper out of Lucifer. Don can’t react to the pain, he can’t adjust himself or make any of it easier. He can’t even inspect what hurts. It just hurts. Don can only think to himself, his internal monologue unable to form a cohesive thought. All he can think is ‘it hurt’s’.

Don’s pain is suddenly coupled with an unutterable fear. ‘Is this death?’ Don thinks to himself over and over again. Could death just be physical? But your psyche, your soul, carry on forever? Is this what happens? Don’s mind is filled with horrific examples. His father who he had to bury last summer, is he lying wide awake in his coffin? Unable to move? Unable to scream? Unable to cry? What about his climbing instructor who passed from liver cancer 3 years ago? He got cremated.

‘Oh God…’ Don can only think to himself. ‘I know I haven’t been the best I could be… but please…’. Don hesitates in his own mind… ‘if Hell is real, it would be better than this’. Don tries to yell, scream, shout, cry, make any noise, open his mouth… nothing. Don can only scream in his head, but that does not alleviate stress. It does not call for help. All it does is echo through Don’s head, over and over and over and over again.

Don feels a cool and sudden splash on his forehead. Water? A small leak drips single water droplets out of it, every minute or so. Right where Don had slipped on the wall. Every single droplet lands on Don’s forehead. ‘Oh God’ Don thought to himself. ‘Oh God’.

THE END