Rope Ladder

“One more rung,” I grunt
“One more.”

“One more rung,” I grunt
“One more.”

My voice echoes off of the weathered cobblestone. The stone is wet, slick with rainwater and moss. Not like below,

I can look down and see the sewers from which I have climbed.

I can see the putrid sewage I was forced to trudge through.

I can smell the refuse, the rancid stench.

I can hear the rats.

Thousands of rats, I haven’t seen them yet but I know. What else could it be? I can hear their claws scraping against their tunnels. Sharpened to a razor’s edge, as they march through their own waste. It sounds like the howl of a demon, the screeching of a thousand banshees. It sounds like my death racing after me. It sounds like all the demons in hell were let loose. They are hungry, I can tell by how they move. They are not searching, they are pursuing. I am not sure what, but I fear the worst. My hands pinch like hell as I lift myself up another time. The air is thick with wet, the humidity is not helping my asthma. My lungs are weak as is and each breath I pull becomes more and more ragged. Full of mucus and inflammation and now
creeping in at a steady pace, panic.

“One more.”

I do not know who damned me. Over the course of a luxurious career full of deception, misdirection, and manipulation I have accrued the appropriate amount of adversaries for a man of my pay grade. So when I awoke in these dank caverns I was only surprised that my knees were intact. This did not keep the fear from setting in fast. I knew that my mortal coil would be
snipped shortly. No man with the courage to take me and place me here would stop short of murder.

But I was wrong, quite wrong. They had no intention of murder, they would let the residents of this moist hell do the grim work.
Yet I have been rescued.

"One more rung," I grunt
"One more."

Whoever sent me this ladder wants me to live, that’s the only reason I am still moving. I was on the verge of letting the vermin overtake me. Exhaustion is an ill description. My blood is lead and my bones are pain. I would much rather die than race through these tunnels for another hour, another moment. Like a hero, I would be taken over by the horde of demons. Remembered like Achilles. But the thought of their claws tearing into my stomach as they eat me alive kills my delusions. No hero dies in waste being eaten from the inside out by filthy creatures of the dark, wet underground.

Who would remember me?

Who knows I am gone?

I’ve been down here for what’s felt like days. When I woke I could hear the encroaching avalanche of scraping and splashing. I knew my death would soon come in the form of scat-covered fiends. Fear is poison and it had pooled in the pit of my stomach. It had crept up my spine and into my skull. Then from a hole in the ceiling of the sewer, of which I was previously unaware, unrolled a ladder. Made of wood and rope. This was the ladder I’m climbing now

Someone sent me this ladder. Maybe God is real and looking out for me. I’ve scorned him for years, yet he still sends me salvation. Tears come to my eyes as the light above gets closer.

“One more.”

“Hello!” I scream, as loud as my lungs permit.

My voice cracked as if I was prepubescent instead of on the brink of exhaustion and death. The only response I receive is from the ladder
when it sways while I climb.
Although I hear something. Not the sound of rats sloshing through sewage and waste, but the sound of human feet on grass. The steps of a man, I can hear his presence. It is my lord come to lift me out of this tomb and bring me home. I hasten my pace, wincing with each rung I pass, leaving
my crimson trail.

“Who is there?” I bellow

The stranger gave no response. It does not matter, whoever it is has rescued me. I forget the tightness in my chest along with the pain in my palms and begin tearing up the long vertical cobblestone hallway. The ladder swings and I clash wildly into the sides of the passageway, but I couldn't care less. In my haste and the now freely flowing state of my hands, I lose my grip and slip. In that brief respite, while clinging to the ladder with only an arm and a leg I heard something else. I heard the sound of a man fervently sawing at Rope.

Not another thought was had until I struck the ground.

I laid there for a moment, my body tangled in false hope. My back certainly shattered and all chance of survival with it. I close my eyes and listen to the movement around me. Ignoring my bones, I hear rats splashing through waves of piss. On their way to devour the now incapacitated individual resting in their domain. Their teeth would tear into me with ease, no remorse or hesitation before their rancid feast. I would soon be full of rodents, tearing and
gnawing until I was nothing more than waste. Waste for them to tear through as they pursue their next victim. I want to cry but I have no tears.

The stampede of mongrels is not far off, maybe a minute at most. Time does not seem to work down here. It is only pursuit and evasion. Chase and run. Fear is poison. I can feel it behind my eyes, I can feel them on the verge of bursting from my head. I am beyond panic. I am beyond tears and moans. I have neither the strength nor the incentive to
rise.

But as if denying me a bitter death, a mess of rope and wood unrolls from earth down into hell.

“One more rung,” I grunt as I rise to my feet.
“One more.”