Episode 9

"Doing alright down there, Scarlet?" Moshu Shi then called out.

"I'm fine," she called back quickly. She wasn't at all interested in trying to carry on a conversation. She wanted to use all her attention on the task of climbing. If she made a mistake once, she feared she wouldn't get a chance to make another.

'There are only so many times one can expect to come back from the dead.'

The wind howled past them in a horrible way, causing the structure to sway. She resolved to cling to it like a spider. Just then, she graded the front of her across a piece of metal, causing it to catch on her incision. The pain from it made her give out a yelp. She all but stopped climbing and just held herself there.

'Son of a bitch, that hurt!'

She was trying to keep from letting tears escape her as a bead of blood ran down her chest causing it to itch, but she dared not let go to scratch that itch. Looking up, she saw that the others hadn't realized that she had stopped climbing and that she was being left behind. She felt a panic begin to rise in her. She fought the impulse to hastily climb after them.

'Just take your time and keep climbing.' And so, she forced herself to continue the climb.

Her chest felt like it was on fire, her knee had a deep, sharp ache and she could feel her arms growing weaker the further they went. But she knew there was no stopping and no going back, and so she pushed herself ever forward.

Finally, their salvation was in sight, a platform connected to a set of complete stairs that wrapped up around the column. She felt both a sense of relief and a boost of strength overcome her.

'But don't get too excited. Don't need to be that person who died on the home stretch. The climb isn't done until you're really done.'

Her fingers wrapped around the edge of the platform, and with the last of her strength, she pulled herself up. She quickly rolled herself over to her back and laid there catching her breath. Suddenly, she heard a laugh ring out from Moshu Shi.

"Whooooohooo, yeah, this is what it feels like to be alive!" he shouted out.

She thought him crazy. 'Right, until you fall to your death.'

He walked over and knelt down over her, a slightly disturbing smile on his face. "Aren't you glad we met?"

She sat up, moving out from underneath him, and leaned against the pillar. "More or less," she answered.

He laughed again.

"We will stay here until morning," Andriw interjected.

She was relieved to hear that. She didn't think her body could handle anymore at that moment. Her legs and arms felt like rubber, her knee felt like it was swollen, and her chest still stung. She just sat there a moment, watching her crimson hair get caught up on the wind. It was going to be a cold night spent up in the air. Looking down at herself, she slowly began to unzip her jacket to examine the damage to her incision. She'd torn a few stitches as she had suspected but that wasn't the only thing that she found. Deep red veins had begun to spread across her, starting at her wound.

She simply sat there looking at the red veins spreading like an array of tributaries across her skin. She could feel a tinge of fear rising in her throat and without realizing it she had wiggled her loose tooth so much that she heard one of the roots snap. She instantly cradled her mouth, a look of shock on her face.

She stared hard down at the ground far below, a good part of her wanting to scale back down, and travel through Junker's Brim, into the Scavenger Lands, find that doctor that had brought her back, and force him to tell her what he did to her and explain what was happening to her now. But she remembered the maddened look on his face. She would get no answers from him. At best, all that trouble would be rewarded with unanswerable riddles.

She zipped her jacket up to the very top before she relocated herself by the base of the stairs. She didn't much trust the structure they were on, but she could do nothing to improve her situation. After eating a few protein bars she'd picked up from the store in the Scavenger Lands, she pulled her hood over her head, wrapped the blanket she usually slept on tight around her, and curled up with her back against the column. It was going to be a long cold night and she knew it.