You Got Me (JenLisa)

Chapter 14

When you're scared of falling and you're at 1,512 feet above sea level, it would ultimately feel like the death of you. It would be like riding a ferries wheel and the wagon you were riding on was suspended in midair, just about a mere angle away from the topmost point of the circumference, counterclockwise, because more people were filling in on that one empty wagon below. And when the operator decided to push the button, he had forgotten that somebody's wagon was suspended in midair but decided to make the wheel turn in full speed, anyway. And you screamed with your lungs out and would cry like crazy, and you'd felt like all your intestines and all of your visceral were spilling out from your body you'd soon be wishing for death to just come inside your wagon and take you because you felt like you're already dead anyway,  and there was really no need to prolong your agony.

That was exactly what Jennie was feeling while she and Lisa were on their way to the Mireuksan Mountain. Only, she wasn't screaming and crying loudly like a maniac. She was too scared to open her mouth, anyway. And that was aside from the fact that she felt like puking and opening her mouth to scream would mean that she might actually puke and that would a total shame. Especially when there were two kids riding with them and they didn't look scared or tearing up at all. What a bunch of strong human beings.

The cable car that they were riding on was made of thick fiber glass, rubbers and metals and was loaded with eight people. Four adults, two children and then Jennie and Lisa. They were transported from the Hallyeosudo Cable Car towards the Ropeway, where the observatory was located. Where they were heading.

The cable car ride should only last for ten minutes maximum, having to cover the distance of two kilometers  from the cable car station to the Ropeway. But Jennie already felt like the whole ten-minute ride would last until eternity. Until her heart would stop beating and all her insides were already revealed on the cold floor--dignity included--when in fact they we're still going halfway.

She was keeping her eyes tightly shut and was holding on the side railings for support because she was feeling really dizzy and her knees were wobbling and about to give up any second.

Lisa, on the otherhand, was standing casually beside her. She was leaning on the thick glass nonchalantly and was looking at Jennie with a concern look on her face. She did not even took her camera out to take some snaps because she was more worried about Jennie and the possibility that Jennie might pass out in front of her amd to be honest, she had absolutely no idea what to do if that happens.

"Jen, are you okay?" Lisa asked.

Jennie shook her head. She hadn't said a word eversince she and Lisa hopped inside the cable car. And the worst part of it was that it was really her idea to try the cable car ride because she wanted to see Tongyeong City from a different perspective. She wanted to bravely climb the peak of Mireuksan Mountain when she saw an ad poster about it when they passed by Jungang Market, after she and Lisa had spent an entire hour wasting Lisa's rolls of film all over Dongpirang Village.

"You might want to open your eyes, Jennie," Lisa suggested encouragingly. "The view is breathtaking. You seriously don't want to miss this."

"I c--an't, Lis--a. I'm...basi...phob--ic,” Jennie mumbled incoherrently due to fear. Her breathing was hitching up and down and up and up and plummeting downwards until she could no longer breathe properly.

She was shaking all over. Her head was spinning round and round until she felt like throwing up all over the floor of the cable car. What made her think that she could endure a ten-minute cable ride four hundred and sixty-one meters from the sky when she couldn't even survive being on carnival rides, Jennie didn't know. But she was really looking forward to the adventure the cable car ride would offer her that she had forgotten the one crucial fact that she was basiphobic.