Hell Above
2022
It wasn’t a very cinematic scream. I didn’t drop to my knees, raise my arms as if I were nailed to a cross, turn my head to the heavens and let out a prolonged “no”. All I remember was spit bubbling in my throat as a guttural, overwhelming release of emotion escaped my mouth, turning into fine mist as soon as it left my body.
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I found myself sprawled across the crystalline snow, my heart thumping like a fist against the door of the unforgiving tundra below, begging for mercy. But I should have known by now, that at this altitude, mercy is merely a dead man’s myth.
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It took an excruciating amount of energy to pick my head up and face the jagged cliffside towering over my helpless body. I started at it through frozen eyelashes, and it stared back with a cruel and unwavering stoicism. Suddenly, I felt another wave of rage and despair coursing through my shriveling veins, and I let out another broken scream at the mountain. Not a single pebble fell for me. The cliff observed in silence, almost mockingly, as if it were watching a toddler throw a tantrum over nothing.
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My soul bled for this mountain. I gave it my heart, my body, and my sanity. And what did I get in return? The corpses of friends, refusing to rot in the frozen air, forever stuck on the peak of the world where not even mother nature would dare take them back.