The path Gia and Vonn had picked out for everyone to follow, was way more difficult than they had thought. With so many deep creva.s.ses to cross, and Tom not being able to see where he was going, they had to keep a much closer eye on him. The rope they had tied to everyone had already come in handy several times.By midday, they were all tired and grumpy.
"Can we get back down on the beach?" asked Mikey, glancing towards the water.
"No, sorry. There"s no beach to walk on, or we would be down there," said Gia.
"How far before we get to the lizard folk cleft?" asked Carla, glancing ahead of them, towards their destination.
The mountains that held the skeleton of some giant beast was obscured by clouds, so she hadn"t freaked out, which made Gia happy, but the cleft they were heading towards seemed so far away.
"Maybe if we turn to head straight there, across these giant boulders, instead of going around the foot of the mountains, we would get there faster," suggested Vonn.
"Why haven"t we been doing that from the beginning?" asked Tom.
"Because it looks to be even rougher," said Gia. "Though, we might as well give it a try. If one of the clefts is too deep, we can detour around it."
"Alright. Let"s get going," said Carla, standing up and helping Tom to his feet.
"Wow, mom. Your legs are doing so much better than when we first started," said Mikey with a grin.
"I think all of this walking has really helped, but I must admit, I"ll be glad when we get some where we can call home. I miss those slow lazy days where the worst I had to worry about was making a hot cup of tea."
"You"ve never had one of those!" laughed Tom. "How can you miss something you"ve never had?"
"I can dream!" snorted Carla, which ended up making her laugh too.
Hearing them tease each other, and laugh, cheered Gia up. Getting up and moving so early had made it harder on everyone, but every step got them closer to their destination, wherever that was. Glancing at Vonn, they shared a smile.
"Why is the water going away?" asked Mikey, looking out at the water.
They all turned towards the sea, and saw that the water had receded for what seemed miles, exposing the ocean floor. Creatures were flopping around, and the sea gra.s.ses lay limp as the water left it exposed to the air.
"That"s odd," said Vonn, taking a step towards the water. "I"ve never seen such a thing!"
"We could walk on the beach now!" said Carla.
"No, wait, what"s that?" asked Gia, pointing at the horizon. It looked like a wall was rushing towards them.
"It"s the water!" exclaimed Vonn, stepping back and looking at the mountains behind them before turning back to the water. "We need to get to higher ground!"
"What? Why? Don"t you think that"s silly?" asked Tom, as they all started moving towards the mountain behind them and pulled him along.
"Dad! The water"s coming, run!" cried Gia, as the water got closer, and seemed to climb even higher!
Reaching the rocks at the bottom of the cliff on the mountain, Vonn started pushing Carla to climb. Mikey wasted no time scrambling up while Gia tried to get her dad to start climbing. He carefully found hand holds and foot holds, but didn"t have the strength to pull himself up.
"Climb, Gia," said Tom. "You guys can pull me up with the rope."
Vonn nodded at her, and Gia started climbing. She didn"t hesitate in reaching up or straightening her legs to reach the next rock to grab. Her entire focus was climbing as high as she could before that water hit them. Reaching a flat outcrop, she turned to glance behind her and her breath caught in her throat. The water had hit the coast and was rushing towards them. Vonn reached the outcrop with her, and they rushed to pull both her parents up with the rope.
With her hands aching, she finally managed to grab her mom"s arm and jerked her up over the edge, reaching for her dad"s arm when the water hit the wall. Vonn gave one last ma.s.sive tug, and Tom rushed up at them with the water just behind him. Gia screamed, sucking in water and scrambled at the rock, trying to find something to grab as the water washed her back over the edge.
There was nothing but water! She couldn"t see anything, and she couldn"t breathe!
A sharp tug around her waist caught her by surprise, and she was suddenly slammed against the side of the cliff, hanging by the rope as the water receded back to the sea. Blinking, she looked around trying to get her bearings. Gia saw that she was hanging from the cliff they had climbed, and both her parents and Vonn hung below her, where they were all attached by the rope. Glancing up, she saw that Mikey had climbed even higher and secured the rope to a tree above them. His grinning face brought her immediate relief.
With a cough, she reached for the rock behind her and tried to get a grip. She could hear those below her starting to groan and cough.
"Grab the rock, so we can climb," she called out with a hoa.r.s.e voice.
"Gia, are you alright?" called Vonn, sounding weak.
Find authorized novels in Webnovel，faster updates, better experience，Please click for visiting.
"I have a nasty headache, but yeah, I think I"m fine," she said, clinging to the wall, trying to ignore the pain of the rope around her middle.
"I"m bleeding, I think," called Tom. "I can"t seem to get a good grip on the rock, it"s too slippery."
"Just try, dear," called Carla, her voice heavily tinged with pain.
"I"m climbing up," called Vonn, as some of the weight was relieved. "Tom must have hit his head, because he"s bleeding like crazy. Nothing too serious, though, I think. Here, put your hand here, and your foot…"
Gia listened as he coached her father to climb up the rock face. Once they got to Carla, he started to do the same with her. With each step, the weight was removed from her waist a little more, and Gia could breath a little easier. She didn"t realize she was crying until they reached her.
"Are you hurt bad, Gia?" asked Carla, looking at her with worry.
"We need to get to the top, so we can check everyone," said Vonn, giving Gia an encouraging look from her right. "Go on, Gia. You can climb now."
She nodded, looking up at the tree above them that Mikey had tied them to and started climbing. She tried not to think about anything else. There was only the next handhold and the next foot hold. Even the sounds of grunting and moans from the others as they climbed was tuned out as she drew closer to that tree.
"No, Gia, climb here, not the tree," said Mikey, reaching out to point to the side of the tree.
She blinked her eyes a few times, trying to comprehend what he had meant, then nodded and changed her course. The others were following her, she knew.
Reaching the top, Mikey helped pull her onto the wide ledge and she rolled over onto her back to get out of the way as Carla"s hand reached up to climb over.
"It"s amazing… what you can… do when… death is the… only other option…" panted Carla, crawling past Gia to collapse against the wall.
Next came Tom, coached by Vonn. Once they were all on the cliff, Mikey cheered.
"Did you guys see that wall? The water was so high! It had all sorts of fish and huge monsters in it, too! If you look, you can even see one of those things with tentacles on the rocks below, where it got stuck after the water left! It"s huge!" exclaimed Mikey.
"Son, I"m glad you"re excited, but I think this rope is about to cut me in two. Think you could help take it off?" asked Tom, picking at the knot at his waist.
"Oh! Sure!" said Mikey, turning and starting to try to untie it. "The rope"s all wet and it"s too tight. I can"t get it."
"Here," said Gia, with a groan. She struggled to sit up, feeling pain all around her middle from her own rope. She ignored it to start working on her dad"s knot. It took her ten minutes to get the rope worked loose enough for the knot to let go. Once he was free, she turned to her mom. Vonn was trying to work on his own, but when she was done with her mom"s, Gia crawled over to help him with his. Then they both worked on hers.
"I"m bruised all around my middle," whispered Carla, holding her shirt up to show the deep purple and black coloring. "My back kind of hurts, too."
"I don"t know if I"m bruised, but I certainly feel like I may be," said Tom. "I don"t even know how I managed to climb that. My hands and feet are shaking so bad I would drop anything I tried to pick up."
"We"re all bruised," said Vonn. "I shouldn"t have tied the ropes like that, but it seemed to have worked. We"ll all be sore for a while, but we should be okay."
Gia wasn"t sure about that as she lay back down. Her entire belly felt like it was on fire, where the rope had cut into her.
"Is anyone hungry?" asked Mikey, reaching into his bag for a ration bar, but everyone groaned. With a shrug he bit into his with relish, making sure to shove a sliver into his pouch for Sprout, his Limcheez.