The Climb by Mark M Perry

Author:Mark M Perry
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Mark Perry
Published: 2021-12-13T00:00:00+00:00

“That's a unique fragrance. Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me.”

Huh? That voice.

“Now this…is one for the books!”

An electrical whine stirs, bulbs line the roof of the dining hall, and a spark flickers before steadily offering illumination.

“Man, are you for real? Sleeping on the job?”

Marc sits up at attention from a slumped position in the wooden dining chair. “Ugh,” he moans, squinting, shielding his eyes the best he could with the raising of a forearm. And that's bright. His vision cleared enough to make out the owner of the voice standing before him.

Sebastian tosses an object underhand, and it clatters onto Marc's lap. “Ya lose somethin’?”

Marc's hands knew exactly what they were. He affixes his glasses across his nose. “Thank you.” Though a tad smudged, Marc's vision is without blur nor haze. He looks above, along the roof in surprise of fluorescent bulb work installation. “I wasn’t sleeping.” Was I?

Sebastian's focus darts in examination of Marc's current well-being. He notices the slits on Marc's hoodie and jeans. “Who's blood?” Sebastian hummed. “I heard some loud clashing, then windows breaking and thought, Sebastian, someone else is having more fun than you are.” He points at the flapping curtains and hole left where a window should be. “See! I haven’t even broken anything, intentionally, since the front door.”

Marc, unphased by Sebastian's jests, looks over his exposed forearm in utter surprise. His eyes widened and brows raised high. I see the rended cotton fabric. I see the dampened, half-dried blood but no wound. Not on my forearm. He stands spinning, analyzing. No wounds on my legs. Stopping again, Marc looks at Sebastian. “It was my blood, but—” He stood speechless, not knowing the exact words to explain it.

Walking toward Ms. Stumpp at the far end of the table, Sebastian crosses his arms. “Well, it's a good thing I came to check on you.” He tilts his head, looking at the corpse. “Hey look, you found Pedro's mother.” He shakes his head. “Tsk-tsk. Fighting in the dark happens more than average for us, but only when there isn’t an available light switch.” He points back at the wall closest to the spiral staircase, letting out an uncontrolled laughter. “Ha! So you got your ass kicked in the dark! How embarrassing, ha! I just can’t—”

“Yeah, super funny.” Marc parses his lips, staring at the referenced light switches on the wall. A light switch—I didn’t even consider it to be an option.

Sebastian's laugh degrades into a lingered chuckling. “I see why you needed a nap. It's good to know your soul's preinstalled with enhanced healing.”

Marc looks down at his smartwatch, checking the time. “I was out…four minutes.” But what if I did not earn the chance to do so? Would I be pressing on with the mission with the wounds I had? Would I have died? “Nevertheless, he got away.” The boy digs out his smartphone, following the prompts to begin the process of pairing to his smartwatch.

“Anyway,” Sebastian scoffs trying to hide an impressed expression, “I chased a couple of them into the floors above.

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