Who Am I? » [Stucky]

114. L'appel Du Vide

Steve's piercing blue eyes locked on Sam and he raised the Walkie-talkie to his mouth.

"Tony, where do we go from here?"

Through the poorly transmitted feed, the clacking of fingers dancing over the keyboard inputting immense calculations was audible. Then came the reply: "If you look to your six o'clock you'll see there's a slight drop off onto a flatter portion of mountain, like a ledge. A ledge of about five metres squared. Can you see it?"

Sam gave the go ahead and the pair of them wandered to the precipice and stared over and gawked at the staggering cavernous rift beneath them. There was a significant change in sound as the wind became clearly audible, wailing out a discordant tune as it zoomed through tight gaps and cramped spaces, in a swirling gale force that could match a hurricane. It was a fifty metre drop onto solid rock, only lightly cushioned by the snow. And in the jet black night, their landing spot was only just visible. Beyond that tiny target, lay a valley, with an unforeseeable bottom masked by clouds.

"Yeah, Tony... I don't think you've checked the height of the drop on this one..." Sam spoke into the walkie-talkie.

Steve felt himself bristle with sickness as he calculated the height. It made his stomach clench as he imagined stepping off the edge. All it would take was a tiny stumble on an irregular craggy rock or a slippery surface to send him tumbling to his doom: condemned to an icy grave. Though it was the sole thing he feared the most in that moment, his brain defiantly urged him to conduct the means to his suicide... The call of the void was whispering to him, nattering in his ear, urging him do it. His feet remained planted to the ground, but he envisioned himself leaping and spread-eagling to his death.

"Almost tempting isn't it?" Sam murmured from behind him, feeling the same reaction to the perilous fall that was certain to kill them both unaided by a device to catch them or slow them. "L'appel du vide, the French call it. Call of the void. It's that little devil sitting on your shoulder tell you to take the jump... We all get it, it's the human fight or flight instinct. It's that question: what if?" Sam whispered closely, not daring to inch any closer, Steve serving as his only restriction from accessing the very edge.

"You could jump," Steve sharply blurted. "You have your wings."

"Nah." Sam shook his head, his nose crinkling is disagreement. "Those winds that have gathered down there would probably tear the things clean off."

"I don't want to die," Steve said quite quickly, explaining his surface-seeming death wish. "But I really am compelled to jump. Just to see what would happen. I mean, I know I'd die but-"

His thoughts were cut short by Tony radioing back in.

"Right, from here I can see that there's a pretty significant drop. If you fellas move to the right hand side of the ledge there should be a ladder. I imagine its probably hidden by snow and is probably quite icy and treacherous, but it's your only option. That or you two jump."

"I'll be honest with you Tony, right now we're both feeling the injudicious need to jump," Steve agreed, eyeing the drop once more before toeing the edge and seeking out the aforementioned ladder.

The found it. The blasted thing was rusted, weather-beaten from seventy years of winters. Winters that had eaten away at the metal and eroded it until it had formed a rusted crust, which seemed to crumble at the touch. Rungs had slipped loose, some of which were dangling askew, others had fallen clean off. There was no cage to seal them in against the ladder, just open space and the onslaught of the wind. The ladder appeared to be peeling from the wall in places, the bolts having sheared straight through and sections were coming away.