Fractured | Tobias Eaton ✓

19 | Afraid of Heights

"Alright, are you gonna keep standing there all night or get to climbing?" His voice is tense and I can't help but wonder why.

I don't respond but I do keep climbing. The higher we get the more my arms ache and the harder it is for me to hold onto the ladder. It's painfully thin and rusty so each time I touch it, the paint disintegrates and probably goes inside my palms. I push that thought away as I grip each rung so tight my knuckles crack and turn whiter than normal.

Four seems keen on talking–maybe to distract me from the height but I can't really listen to him. "What do you think the point of the game is, Rita?" He's always using my name, I don't hate it, but nobody really addresses me by name except him.

"I want to say fun, but I don't think that's the answer you're looking for," He snorts, "Is it teamwork perhaps? I'm not too confident it is."

"Why's that?"

I shrug as I climb up, "Eric seems pretty set on making us all hate one another. It's working by the way."

This time when Four laughs, it sounds like a choking sound. I almost glance down before seeing how high up we are and then I force my eyes back onto my hands. "Teamwork used to be a priority, can't have our only option for an army divided, can we?" I don't really know what he's implying.

"I guess not, holy fucking–" The wind knocks into me and I shriek. "I thought I wasn't afraid of heights, wow." I chuckled dryly, wishing I never did this.

"Welcome to the club." I think he mumbles under his breath but I just keep climbing. My joints still ache from choking Russ out and now they feel like they're being boiled. "Now tell me," I can hear him now, "What do you think a learning strategy has to do with..." I hear him take a deep breath, I'm doing the same thing–panicking. "bravery?"

My brain scrambles for a moment as I realize he's afraid of heights. Why would he willingly follow me up here? "I don't have enough brainpower for this right now, I'm focusing on not looking down, I'm sorry."

"It's okay, you're fine, Rita."

I can't help but curse again once I see the platform right above us. "I don't wanna look around now. I think I'll vomit again." This makes Four chuckles and in turn, so do I. I try to speed up the last stretch and when one of the rungs comes loose under my hand, I panic.

Sliding down a few rungs, Four has to push his hand against my back to stop me from falling completely. There are three layers separating his hand from my skin but I feel like I've been branded with his touch. I squeeze my eyes shut and wrap my arm through a rung, catching my breath.

"You okay?" I shake my head, "Just breathe. Don't even think about it." I'm so glad he doesn't say the word, the height, the drop, death. We're nearly pressed up to one another, he's leaning back pretty far to accommodate for my slip. "Can you keep going? We can go back down."

"No, we have to keep going now. Might as well." He pats my back and I take my time, not going at a snail's pace but taking extra care to test each rung before putting my weight on it. We make it to the top, an equally precarious platform with a railing missing on the front half is what we're met with. "Great," I mutter and push against the remaining railing.

It holds and so I put my back to it and crouch, Four mirrors my stance. I have my eyes squeezed shut and my hand wrapped around the bar behind us. "You okay?" He asks again, what was that? The third time he's made sure I was fine? I still don't know how to answer.

"I will be, just–give me a second." I take a few deep breaths and start by opening my eyes and looking at what's directly across from me, a building, then I slowly lower my eyes, never looking right below us. "Okay, I think I'm good now." Four nods and watches me as I slowly rise into standing. The wind is pushing at me but my grip on the railing is iron tight.

I scan the surrounding area for any light, I can see our group at the carousel, still bickering, I presume. The building blocks any useful views and I hate it, "Shit, we have to go higher."

Four shakes his head, "It's fine, let's just–get down."

"I've got to overcome this fear somehow," I look up and sure enough I see somewhere I can stand in order to get a good look around, "I'll be careful, just... be ready to catch me so you guys don't have to scrape me off the pavement."

I feel a bit bad for my poor attempt at humor as I force myself to climb higher. Without Four behind me, I feel way less safe.

"God, Rita, you're crazy."

"Don't follow me, it's okay, you don't have to," I say and pull myself up further.

Four sighs, "Yea, I do."

The next few steps up I take, I feel how secure this section seems and let myself relax a tiny bit. I try to enjoy the cool air and how alert it makes me. I love the night air, I always have. It's not so bad when I think about it like that. Up here it's so much cooler but my jacket keeps me nice and warm.

Only my face is cold. I have to twist myself to look out again and sure enough, I can see the skyline. The Hub stands out to me, it's a bright beacon of light toward the top with its red lights illuminating the night sky. I scan the area, only sparing a short second glance at each section until I notice something funny.

"I see light," I wrap my arm around the rungs and point, Four's hanging on the other side of this faux ladder, right in line with my face. He turns his head, face pale from his fear. "Where is that?"

"The park, at the end of the pier. Makes sense that Eric would choose there, it's surrounded by those plains but there are trees right around it so they can hide. The perfect place for an ambush."

When I turn back to grab the rung, I see how close we are. It knocks the breath out of me. I've never been in someone's personal space like this before. It's not uncomfortable though. I think the mutual fear of plummeting to our deaths forms some sort of kinship between us. Even with our drastic physical differences, I notice a lot of myself in Four.

"You wanna go down first?" I nod and begin climbing down a bit quicker than before, he follows right after me. It's just like when we were coming up, everything was going smoothly, then I felt it. The slightest shift in the metal but our eyes meet before it even happens.

Weird intuition of mine. Wish it was a bit quicker with the pick-up time. The bar beneath my foot snaps loose and flies to the ground so quick it steals the breath right from my lungs. I feel that sense of panic returning as I do my best to get a hold of the bars again. "Shit, Four!" I shout, looking up for him but he's gone.

Did he fall and I didn't notice? Oh, please, let me live. I pray that I will be granted a quick death but then... "Hold on! I have an idea!" Four, he's up there in the darkness, I can just barely make him out now.

"Hurry, I'm gonna fall!" I can't believe I have the energy to yell up at him but I'm quickly losing my hold on the ladder. Then another tiny shift in the metal, then it moves some more and for a second–I think I'm doomed but then, the entire structure is moving. I feel a sliver of hope that I might survive and then I remember.

This thing is a massive circle and I'm gonna come down on the ground at some point. I force my eyes open as the burn in my arms becomes almost unbearable. If I don't time the jump right, I'm fucked. I will die. That thought sobers me up enough to formulate a plan. I'm lucky enough that there is no car behind me, so I have ample room to maybe miss my time to jump right.

As the ground grows larger, I ready myself. I have to hit the ground running so I don't get crushed by the next car over. When it's time, I swing myself and barely make the jump, stumbling for a few feet before running a bit further and then collapsing onto the grass.