by Daniel Deisinger
“It’s standard going until we get to The Balcony. We’ll be able to watch…It’s where people would normally watch the sun rise. What it is now, I’m not so sure.”
#
Despite their heavy coats, thick boots, and clumsy gloves, the wind screamed out of the purple-tinted darkness and sliced them to the bone.
They pointed their headlamps at their feet. Each step, each placement of a climbing pole careful and deliberate, stabbing the ends into ancient ice and rock. Kiara led, retracing steps she had made a half-dozen times, though never under such conditions. Suraya followed her, laboring in the extreme altitude. Luke came next, and Brett brought up the end. Every few minutes he would turn and send his headlamp’s cone of light back down the mountain.
On Kiara’s previous climbs, the rising sun had thrown glorious pastels into the sky. The stars had faded against the power of the new day. Their going had gotten easier as the sun rose.
This time the sun never appeared. Dead stars can’t die. Past their headlamps, dark purple limned the edge of the mountain, and they stumbled over hidden rocks.
Hours later they reached The Balcony, and just like every other climber, they stopped to rest at the rock shelf. The other three huddled together against the wind, gasping at oxygen, but Kiara stood. She should have been staring straight into the glorious, bright sun.
Her toes peeked over the edge. Purple swirls and eddies splashed, far below, radiating up at them.
“This is where my husband proposed to me,” Kiara said, back to the other three. She kept her eyes on the rising purple tide. “It was the first time we climbed Everest. We came back on our honeymoon. We’d climb it four more times.”
Her hands hung at her sides like weights. Her eyelids dragged shut. In the unnatural dark she could have drifted to sleep and never awoken, content to let the universe unravel around her.
A glove touched hers. Brett led her away from the edge of The Balcony. “We’ve all lost something,” he said as he pulled her to the other two. “I’m sorry about your husband, Kiara.”
His headlamp bobbed, illuminating blinding white snow and sharp rocks. “I lost my wife. We’ve all lost someone. But we’re going to see them again. Once we get up there.” He pointed toward Everest’s invisible summit. “Now I don’t know about you three, but I’m ready to go.” He turned away. “I want to see my wife again.”
“We can see Antonio again,” Suraya said. “I wish we could have buried him.” She gazed down the mountain. “But he was right. His body became less than atoms long before we reached the summit.”
Luke reached over and squeezed her hand. She smiled at him under her oxygen mask and goggles. “You’ll be able to meet my parents,” she said. “I bet you’d like them. My dad’s brilliant.”
“And you can meet all my brothers,” Luke said.
“And my husband,” Kiara said.
Brett took a few steps up. “But not until we get to the top.”
Luke stood. “To the top then.”
They gathered themselves up. Suraya stared down the rocky slope, and her eyebrows came together. She lifted her goggles off, peering beyond her cone of light, as the wind dug frozen fingers into her eyes. The darkness rippled, like a huge black cape.
She turned to Luke. “Go!” She shouted. He strapped the oxygen mask over his face and grabbed her hand, dragging her up the slope.
Deep snow sucked at their legs. They slammed their poles into the ground. Oxygen hissed down their throats and sweat froze on their skin. Kiara pushed ahead, and Brett grabbed Suraya’s arm. She bent and focused on one foot after the other.
Luke looked over his shoulder. Amid the useless purple light, the Impostor’s face–a blurry dot, miles behind–scarred his vision.
He surged ahead and motioned for Suraya to speed up. She and Brett clawed forward, dislodging stones and ice. Kiara waited close to the first step.
#
“After that is the three steps. Rock walls. We’ll be able to get up them easily, thanks to ladders, climbing ropes, and natural stone stairs. Then we hit the South Summit.”
#
Their headlamps revealed a chunky, rocky wall, tainted in purple. Numerous ropes and ladders rattled in the wind; Kiara grabbed one of the ropes and pulled herself up, using the uneven rock as footholds. She reached a small resting section and pointed out the path for the other three.
Brett reached the wall first, but allowed Suraya to pass him. Her body trembled as if crumbling, but the young woman seized the rope and began to ascend, jamming the toes of her cumbersome boots into small crevices. Kiara grabbed her hand, pulling her up as Luke started to climb.
Brett cast his light behind them, waiting for the Impostor to appear out of the darkness, marching forward as it ignored the wind, altitude, and temperature. The rope smacked against the rock, a signal from Luke. Brett started up.
Kiara crawled over the edge, then reached down for Suraya. Another steep slope waited for the young woman, and her stomach turned to liquid. Luke reached the edge a minute later, and he rested on his hands and knees, chest heaving. Kiara pulled Brett up, and urged them forward.
Every swing of her pick chopped through deep snow. The other three traced the path, legs sore and raw.
They kept glancing back, and held their breath every time.
Kiara sped up. The other cones bobbed behind her.
They caught up when she reached the second step. Their headlamps illuminated a portion of the wall, and a metal ladder. Luke went first. His headlamp glinted off the ladder, and the light rose by half feet until it disappeared. A moment later it shined down at them from the top.
Suraya’s rapid breaths sucked down stale oxygen. One of the lamps fell over her, and Brett waved her forward, holding out his hand.
For a moment, her shadow became an immense cape of darkness. Down the mountain the encroaching purple gleamed. As the sea rose, the rock and snow they had just traversed unraveled into more nothing to fill the sea.
The last mountain floated down a river of drowned stars. It lacked lighthouse or captain, and soon it too would sink underneath.
Suraya’s boots slid over rock and ice. She grabbed the ladder and found it secured to the mountain. Her hands squeezed around each rung and each foot stomped down. Her headlight bobbed, shining up at nothing. Sweat crept down her neck.
Luke helped her at the top. Brett went up next, and then Kiara. As the others peered down at her, her cone stopped and turned.
A gap expanded in the rising purple, fluttering like a huge, never-ending flag. Brett rattled the ladder. Kiara didn’t turn away; the gap in the sea grew.
Footsteps crunched in the snow behind her.
Suraya took the mask from her face. Wind scoured her lips and cheeks and swarmed up her nose. “Kiara!” She placed it back and drew in a breath. She tore it off again. “Kiara!”
The universe spun. Stars spiraled around Suraya’s vision, and she reached for them. A pair of hands on her shoulders kept her steady as she shut her eyes and pressed the mask back, breathing until the stars disappeared again.
A few moments later Kiara appeared. Brett hauled her up, and she pointed the way toward the last step.
Brett stood next to the top of the ladder as the other three moved on. It rattled in the wind.
Maybe it didn’t need the ladder–perhaps the Impostor would just rear over him, fathomless cloak turning it into a black-static apex atop a flowing, empty pyramid. Like the first time it appeared before him, Brett stumbled and turned away.
He chased the others. Kiara pushed to the front through the snow toward the third step, and Brett focused on her. His lamp illuminated Luke’s feet, whose lamp in turn illuminated Suraya’s. Suraya kept hers pointed toward Kiara.
When they reached the third wall, their headlamps revealed a smaller obstacle than the first two steps. Kiara grabbed the attached climbing ropes, and Suraya followed. As Brett climbed last, the light shining down at him shifted, pointing behind him.
He leapt up, clinging to the wall and the ropes. He wedged his hands and feet into holds, straining, and when he got close the other three grabbed his coat and pulled. They didn’t speak or rest. The south summit, a small peak they had to pass to reach the top, came into view a few minutes later.
Kiara drove her pole through ice and snow, again moving beyond the other headlamps.
Suraya pushed her way forward. The space between each breath hurt her chest.
Luke, behind her, willed her faster.
Brett trailed them. He tried not to look back.
Kiara halted at the South Summit. She checked the oxygen left in her tank, as she had every other time she’d reached the South Summit, but it didn’t matter. Her heart pounded when the dome of rock came into view–they didn’t have too much left.
She panted until the others joined her. They found her resting, and gained a bit of energy.
#
“The cornice traverse. One step to the left and it’s an eight-thousand foot drop. One step to the right and it’s ten. After that we get to the Hillary step, a twelve meter rock wall. It’s worse than the first three.”
#
They stood on the knife edge of the mountain. A step in either direction fell off the mountain’s thin, sharp spine into advancing oblivion.
“Make sure to know exactly where you’re stepping,” Kiara said. “I know we all want to run, but it’s too dangerous. We have plenty of time.”
“I’m not so sure,” Brett said, pointing. The purple tide shimmered, closer than before–it spread beyond the edge of sight, and curled around no horizon. A whimper came from Suraya’s mask.
“Don’t panic,” Kiara said. “It can’t catch us if we keep moving.”
“It can’t,” Brett said.
Kiara’s heart beat in her throat as she led the way up the cornice traverse, chopping deep snow out of the way. She cursed the wind, checking on the other three every minute. Luke and Brett matched her, but Suraya lagged behind. The young woman kept glancing over her shoulder instead of watching her feet, and Kiara waited for a muffled scream to pierce the frozen air.
During Kiara’s first time to the summit, the height and driving wind had swelled her fear and almost forced her to retreat, yet the unadventurous young woman behind Brett didn’t stop. Kiara pushed a pile of snow and it tumbled down the mountain, melting to nothing.
They neared the Hillary step. Kiara took careful paces until the wall of rock appeared. Again her finger traced a path, indicating the numerous fixed ropes, rattling in the orphan wind, and pointed at Brett.
He edged past her and attached a carabiner to one of the climbing ropes, and dug his feet and hands into holds in the rock. Kiara and Luke huddled close as he climbed beyond their headlamps and Suraya’s ate into the darkness behind them.
And soon Suraya remained. Three lamps pointed down almost forty feet above her, and she looked back, finding dirty snow and cracked rock instead of a creature come to take her. The Hillary step blocked the wind. Her headlamp provided the only light besides an omnipresent purple tint. Sound, sight, and the feeling in her fingers slipped away, into the encroaching purple sea.
She stood motionless. A thin slice of ground shined white. Both sides fell away, and purple light glittered off the ice.
Someone approached. She backed up, pressing herself against the rock. She shut her eyes, and her stomach turned at the memory of the face and what hid inside the cloak. The rocks bit cold teeth into her back. It will stand before her, reach for her, and pull her into its cloak, and she will become less than atoms, like everything else.
Would it be so bad?
“Suraya!”
Three lights illuminated her. It had been Luke’s voice. He had held her, comforted her. She had tended his wounds. He had pulled her. She had pushed him.
She slipped a carabiner over the climbing line, and grabbed hold of the sharp rocks. Each inch pushed the air from her lungs. Her hand slipped halfway.
She landed on a small outcropping. Her chest heaved, her arms fell dead at her sides, and the oxygen spitting into her mouth deafened her. She closed her eyes–purple bloomed under her eyelids.
A hand grabbed her arm and she shocked awake. Kiara’s eyes burned in Suraya’s headlamp. “Up,” the older woman said, and Suraya shook her head.
“Tired. Can’t breathe.”
“I didn’t ask.” Kiara pulled. “I said up.” Suraya didn’t move, clinging to the climbing rope. “Are you going to fail Antonio? He brought us all the way to the base of this mountain. He told us to outlive the universe. Don’t you want to see him again?”
“I can’t do it,” Suraya said, gasping for every word. “Altitude sickness. …Barely see.”
“You don’t need to see,” Kiara said. “If you think I’m just going to leave you here, then you deserve a slap across the face. Maybe that’ll get the blood flowing to your brain.” She pointed her headlamp down the slope. “Look.”
The purple sea climbed closer. Violet waves crashed against each other. It swallowed matter, light, and darkness as it rose, mutating it all into void.
“You want that to catch you?” Kiara asked. “And let down all the people who helped us get here? Do you really want to make us see your face among the black static? No.” She shook Suraya. “Climb.”
Suraya nodded, forcing breath in and out. Kiara aligned her. Small handholds hid from her light. The ropes trembled. Hands pulled her over the lip, and Luke’s warm arms circled her.
They sat for a moment and made sure they all still existed.
#
“After that, it’s an open and exposed climb to the summit.
“We go as soon as we’re ready. As long as we’re rested, there’s nothing stopping us. Don’t conserve your energy. There’s no reason to leave anything for the climb back down. Like Antonio said, all we have to do is get to the center.”
#
Large, loose rocks and tangled climbing ropes bounced in the wind. “We’re almost there. There aren’t any more obstacles. We just climb. We’ve been doing it for days. We’re almost there.” Kiara grunted, stepping over a boulder. “Almost there.”
“Kiara….”
She expected four standing there instead of three. Brett, Luke, and Suraya pointed up.
Purple tinted the black far over their heads. A smooth surface, like the inside of a bubble, curled around them in every direction.
Kiara’s heart stopped. Her headlamp lit her feet. She’d worn her boots up and down the world’s mountains. She’d stood in this spot before.
She started climbing. “Ladies and gentlemen,” she said over her shoulder, “to the top of the universe.” After a dead moment, movement began behind her. Boots struck rock.
Later they called her name again. Luke pointed the way they had come, rigid in the wind. The purple sea had risen over the Hillary step, gnawing at the mountain; murky purple filled the air. She nodded, and resumed climbing, pushing rocks aside. The rocks thinned out, giving way to sheets of snow. The mountain’s knife edge narrowed, and the group’s movement slowed again.
The bubble of reality shrank, and angry waves tossed above them, like the surface of the sea below. Kiara tossed her head and charged forward. The large rock signaling the final rise to the summit came into view.
The other three found her triumphant, one leg propped on the rock, pointing the way to freedom, and they gained speed.
They reached the top of the universe a few minutes later. Their headlamps revealed a tightening purple void in every direction. A figure blocked them.
Its endless cloak merged into the sea around them. Within the folds black trees rose among red sky, trunks disappearing into space. Red leaves fluttered down from infinity, fading to nothing. White silhouettes, walking in a slow, dreamy parade, passed through it all, failing to disturb the sparse, crimson underbrush. They passed through each other, ignored each other; when they passed from view another always took its place, for all purposes identical–the same, without change, equal among the afterlife of universes.
The vision collapsed as the figure shut its cloak. Kiara and the others still stood atop Everest, mere feet below the summit.
It didn’t shake in the wind, and its black-static face outshone every other light in the universe. The bubble had shrunk farther while they stood entranced. Purple fists swung at their feet.
“Get out,” Kiara said, forcing each word, “of our way.”
They stared at the ground. The wind sliced across them. “You aren’t going to stop us. You can’t stop us!” Kiara said. “It doesn’t matter what you say! It doesn’t matter who you show us!”
“Look, then, Kiara Kasun,” her husband’s voice said. She squeezed her eyes shut as tears burned behind them.
“Luke, what are you waiting for?” Luke’s oldest brother said.
“Just get over here,” his youngest brother said. “You’re so close.” Luke pressed a hand over his eyes.
“Darling,” Brett’s wife said. “I am a queen here. I have power. If I speak, others listen. Join me. Rule with me.”
“Erika would never say such a thing,” Brett said, but his mind screamed to look.
“Suraya. Please.” Antonio’s voice struck her, and Suraya pressed her face against Luke. “I once said your name means star. There are no stars here. Be my star. Please.” She shook in Luke’s arms. Antonio had squeezed her hand as he died, gasping at thin air. “It’s not so bad, this place. There is only one possibility. There’s nothing to fear. There’s no dread. The universe lives your life for you.”
“Impostor,” Brett said. “It’s lying. It just wants to finish its dinner.”
“What do we do?” Suraya asked.
“What Antonio told us to do,” Luke said.
“I was a fool,” Antonio’s voice said. “We scientists–so foolish. We dismember astounding things into slush and scrap, and lay them behind glass for others to peer at.”
“We came all the way up here,” Kiara said. “And we’re going to do what we meant to do.” She snapped her eyes open, baring her teeth. The black static atop the Impostor crackled and roared.
Her husband’s face melted into Brett’s wife’s. It flashed between Luke’s brothers’. It became Suraya’s parents, the faces of their friends and family, and then Antonio’s, before cycling through all the humans it and the purple sea had taken, billions of faces, faster and faster until they blended to static.
A bubble expanded in her brain as she walked forward. “How could you think frightening us would make us do what you want?”
The black cloak swung over them; it swallowed their light. A moment later Kiara struck the Impostor, knocking it back.
Her fingers, her legs, her face all numbed. Her light reappeared as the Impostor pitched backward off Everest’s summit. Her fingers frayed at the ends, unraveling into purple strands.
The other three rushed to her. “Jump,” Kiara gasped. Air fled from her lungs. A long red path appeared before her, winding between dark trunks. “Jump! Jump!”
They jumped up, into the center of the bubble, as it collapsed onto them; they fluttered down forever. They fell through darkness until it turned to black trees, and they spun among other red leaves toward brilliant white figures.
Daniel Deisinger lives in Minnesota and writes for work and fun. His work has appeared in over a dozen publications, including Castabout Literature, Defenestration Magazine, Flash Fiction Magazine, Ripples in Space, The Book Smuggler’s Den, and Coffin Bell Journal. His twitter is @Danny_Deisinger, and his website is saturdaystory-Time.weebly.com.
