“Fuck off, brain,” he mumbled again. But the fight was lost this time. The distraction in front of him and his near starvation in the days before had weakened him, and the voice continued in its unremitting glee.
He leaned carefully over the cliff’s edge. Below him was that solid rock wall, sheer to the violent breakers and whitecaps two hundred feet below. It was a straight drop, but upon closer inspection he saw it was jagged and rife with possible footholds.
Suddenly full of a new kind of fear, Obe turned on his knees, lay on his stomach, and pushed his feet over the edge. He slid gently backward until his knees and then his thighs hung out over the impossible emptiness. One leg reached down, hoping for a wide, strong ledge that his eyes might have missed, but found only the wall itself.
He slid out further. His stomach smothered the sharp cliff’s edge and his arms pressed flat against on the solid ground under his torso. His knees and bare feet scraped uselessly against the rock wall as he moved one leg left and right, feeling for anything with his outstretched toes. There were smooth dips and rough cracks, but nothing to hold his weight.
Why the hell didn’t I just find a safe place to go down first? he thought.
There is no safe way down, his infernal other voice contended. Don’t you see it’s not enough to merely find them? You need to sacrifice yourself to them as well. They’re no different than the gangs who nearly killed you in the blue sector. They’re no different than the women who will one day-
“Shut… the fuck… up.” His true voice was firm and controlled. He had learned to be direct against this inner demon, and it quickly scurried away into the rearmost chambers of his psyche, chastised into allowing him a few moments of peace.
He pushed again with his arms and slid out another inch. Then, still reaching with naked toes, he found a small pocket to his right. It was wide enough for only one foot, but it was deep. He nudged himself over as carefully as he could and examined it blindly with his toes. Yes, it would probably serve.
He held the edge of the cliff with one hand and pushed outward one more time with the other. His chest scraped on the rock edge, but his hold did not slip. He stood, surprised and relieved, with his right foot wedged deep into a small crevasse.
Slowly, carefully, and carrying great buckets of flowing fear and excitement, Obe began his descent.
He found more cracks and pits and stepped carefully into each one. One step at a time he neared the water. His feet were bare, and the climb soon became painful even for his now callused soles. Worse, he knew the rocks near the bottom would be slick from the spray of the sea.
It took him twenty long minutes to reach halfway. It took twice that time to halve the distance again. With his heart racing and his grip weakening, falling soon seemed inevitable. His legs, sculpted for endurance and strain as they were, became weary, and the wet rocks and cold air began to numb his toes. Some twenty feet from the water, a foot slipped, a hand gave way, and Obe dropped down the side of the cliff, tumbling like a dropped marionette.
He skidded once against the wall, his chest suffering a brutal scrape. Then he splashed sideways into the water and the right side of his head slammed onto a boulder just below the surface.
Obe coughed and wheezed, grabbing the stone behemoth for security as the waves began to push and suck at him in repeated attacks. Hot blood coated the side of his face and neck. Distantly, he wondered if he had just killed himself.
In seconds his vision fuzzed over. In a minute he was too dizzy to feel the rhythm of the waves. He knew if he passed out he would drown, so he clutched the rock with all his strength and willed himself to stay alert.
Lining lining, his mind offered, and he was vaguely aware that this was his good side, his useful side.
Silver lining. He saw the shimmering moonlight in the next swell of ocean water. It was warped and grotesque, but it was beautiful too.
Cloudy silver… silver lining.
Obe shook his head but this only worsened his vertigo. He forced himself to focus on the rock. He bobbed up and down in the heaving sea and felt a piece of seaweed or maybe a dying fish flapping against his new wound.
He reached up and touched it, but no seaweed was there, only his own ripped flesh. The gash just above his cheekbone was so deep it was open all the way to the bone. Blood poured from it, coating his whole torso now.
He closed his eyes and then snapped them open again. The cliffs around him spun in all directions. There was no way to tell which way was up.
He felt the back of his head smack against the rock. It sent a fresh shot of pain to the gash in his face and he wondered if feeling pain was good or, bad.
None of this is good, his mind offered. He didn’t know which side of himself had spoken.
The cliffs swirled and spun and rocked. He closed his eyes again, and instantly the awful sensation intensified. He forced them open and saw he was already leaning drastically to one side. He was falling over, falling into the sea, falling off the top of the cliff.
He lifted his hand to the wound, but his movement was slow and clumsy. He had trouble finding the spot, then when he did his finger jabbed hard up under the flap of flesh and he rubbed smooth bone with his prodding fingertip.
It doesn’t hurt, he thought. That’s good, right?
Then a soft, faraway shout came from above him. He saw human figures- or were they monsters of the sea? No. The men in the black jumpsuits. Standing at the mouth of their cave. Ten feet above him. Eighty feet away. Reaching and stretching their mile-long arms toward him.
Their silhouettes shimmered in the orange firelight behind them. Obe wanted to call out for help, but his open mouth only swallowed a great flood of seawater. Blood poured through his fingers, down his arm, onto and over the rock, and finally into the black water, but he didn’t know any of this. He only knew he was dying, and that was probably a very good thing after all.
Finally, the image of the men above him tilted far to the left and upside down. Then there was only black.
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Woman Scorned Page 36