Stairway to heaven

Another hour has passed and six times the guards didn't see me doing the same. Both Matthew and Estel finished their exercises and they were just looking at me doing the thrusts with a bored face. It was the five hundredth thrust and I still didn't hit the point. I counted every thrust and remembered which were the closest to the middle. The 400th thrust was almost in the bullseye.

"We are about to go I think." Estel stood up and said.

"Ladies! You have ten minutes! The weather is pretty good! The grass is sharp like ice shards!" The one guy… He always has to be here in those times... He then started laughing and went further down while holding his stomach from laughter.

"So guys. You prepared?" Estel asked and as my 1000th thrust slowly started approaching the plate. I saw the tip piercing the middle and suddenly it vanished. I looked down and my eyes slowly started moving in Estel's side while he was looking away. My arms were also tired and just hung down as well.

"Really…" Really disappointed I murmured under my nose. It was almost a perfect hit…

"What did you say?" Estel didn't hear it properly since it was a murmur.

"No… Nothing…" He looked at me. I saw Marcus already normal because the elf was standing close to the bars. I think Matthew already shrugged it off and he is okay with the thing from yesterday… Marcus is still a little scared but I think it is slowly going past him as well. And I well… It will be hard for me to forget it…

"Is that so? Then… Get yourself in shape." He added while stretching his arms and gasping. "It will take us some time to get up there."

"O-Okay…" Only this came to my mind. Besides me, no one else spoke. Marcus and Matthew were not ready to speak like this. When before we were training with a spear… Marcus only answered while looking at me. He looked me dead in the eye trying to avoid Estel's gaze.

I sat down on the bed and waited those ten minutes out but it felt longer than ten minutes… Much longer. Stress ate me like a shark, a human in the ocean. Flooding me. Am I gonna survive? What's with clothes? How cold will it actually be?

Then men came to our cells and again put the handcuffs on our hands. They felt tighter and a little cooler than before. Not too cold but good enough for the hands to feel better. Then again they felt heavier than last time. I don't know why but it just felt much... Heavier. The freezing weather from today's morning didn't disappear. Well, it was still morning but closer to noon I think. It may be really cold up there… I hope we can survive…

All of the prisoners from these floors slowly started going up the stairs. I saw the light slowly appearing on their bodies as they went higher. Their shirts almost completely shredded shorts and some boots that looked like a random cloth put on your feet.

We all wear the same kind of clothing with colors being the only difference. My own almost getting froze to those dark stairs. Going upstairs felt like a miserable struggle to get us killed. Well, it's the point of this place but still, death from sheer exhaustion isn't a nice thing…

I hope it won't take us long to get there…

"Guys… How long will it take us to go up there?" I asked in the march on the stairs with no words being said. In clear silence.

"Well… The first thing is to get to the tree. And from there a long way up…" Estel quickly answered and afterward there were no more words. Only steps of the cold ground could be heard. We left the hole and I felt a strong wind blowing in my long white hair… A wind of freedom that we will achieve one day. One day… Who knows when a human is truly free. This thought was flying around in my mind as we got to the tree. A stairway that I didn't see before appeared on the left side of it. Since the tree was so big it was probably much larger than a mountain...

I had nothing to say. There were no words being spoken. Only the steps again… Slow but strong. The general in the beginning just levitated on the stairs not even bothering with walking on his own. He is enormous at that… So he alone took the whole width of the stairway.

We went on like this for several minutes and I felt my legs slowly giving up. It hurts with each step. I saw some people falling down the stairway… I can't end up like them so my legs need to push themselves to their utter limits. Another really strong wind blew our way. It made another five or so people fall. Very sad ending for those who fall. But we just went on without even looking at the ends of their miserable lives. While walking I also looked around and saw the other guys, Lupo, Lambert, and Lucas. I hope Lucas is alright… He seems somewhat weird. When I now look at him he seems… Sad. Very sad. Why do I care? He is my brother... But I almost don't know him? Why... No Hayden. Stop. Don't ask questions! I slapped myself in the face to remind me of reality.

"How long?" We were on the stairs for twenty minutes at this point and my legs really slowly started giving up. The cold is slowly starting to pierce my lungs.

"It won't be a short walk… I think when normally we go up it's around an hour or so." Matthew answered faster than Estel this time. He had a harder time here since he had short legs and therefore he has to pull his legs really high to make a step.

Another twenty minutes passed and my legs felt as if they were to kill me before anything else. Around 20 people have fallen at that point. That's a lot of people down there… A lot.

I hope I can make it… It's still like around 20 minutes of this crazy walk.

I'm sweating like an old man at this point. Estel, Matthew, and Marcus don't look very good as well, even Marcus the most energetic of us is slowly starting to have problems. The gaps between stairs were pretty wide so it was scary to walk on them… They are really slippy at that which added an even higher level of dread. We were so high we almost can't see anything under us. The clouds are hiding all of what is under us…

It's really cold now… It feels colder than any winter I have gone through until now. The shoes stopped even protecting me from the cold and the only thing that keeps my body somewhat hot is movement. Nothing else. Probably if I stood in place for a minute I would just die of cold. God… Where are we? What is this forsaken by you mountain? Are you even there? This feels like hell…

Like a blue hell with the cold being so freezing that it almost pierces through my body… Like needles. It's so cold that even the feeling of it faded and a new thing… A thing so cold it's hot. But the feeling stays the same… We are over the clouds and almost in the snowy mountains. I felt emptiness as we got on the floor. We got there. It wasn't 60 minutes but 50. For some unknown reason, it took us much less time… At least that much… If we were to go for another 10 minutes I don't know if it would be possible to survive the cold…

All of us slowly started descending on the mountain. Very slowly… I think because the cold is so strong it's hard to walk in anymore. But we need to keep moving to keep our temperature good and not die because of it. It was my turn to get on the plain. The grass was cyan but more white than blue actually… I then stood on it and it literally broke into pieces as I stepped. With each step being almost like a blade piercing our feet. Not only mine but I see other people's feet bleeding. Almost like glass getting into your feet.

The trees are blue… Stones as well. Everything is cold as hell… What can we do?

"So guys…" The general stood on the grass in his jacket, jeans, and steel sole boots. "We will leave you here. As you know there is no escape. If you try? You die instantly. There is nothing you can do to leave and as most of you know. What you get here is what will be your food for some days and the rest of it will be for even more. So have a good time men." I saw him getting to the ledge and looking down. "Bye!" And he just fell down. Half of the prisoners went to the ledge and looked down, me included. I saw him just casually falling and disappearing behind the clouds.

"God…" I said quietly to myself.

"He always does that! Come on we have to keep moving Hayden if we want to survive!" Marcus shouted from far behind. They were already a little further in the woods… Dark blue woods…