Vine Slayer

If only her arm was longer.

Or if she could extend the ledge.

Sweeping the phone light about, Anna considered her options. What about stacking sheets of plaster from broken seals and slowly stepping it outwards? But then what would counter balance it from just tipping over and falling into the shaft once she stepped out onto it?

The light shined upon the one leftover ulna.

She considered the shape of the bone. About ten inches in length, the trochlear notch formed a natural groove and hook with the olecranon process. Picking it up by the wrist she extended it out to the lowest rung. Bone clacked against bone as the crude grappling hook made the connection. Anna tested her weight, pulling back hard.

Silence.

This was it. Her one chance.

12%. Anna opened her images shortcut and began scrolling, taking one last look at the photos. Family. Friends. Home.

She was determined she would make it home.

Setting the phone once more on the ledge to shine up, Anna took a long deep breath. Strangling the ulna’s wrist with both hands, she slowly eased forward off the ledge, minimizing her kinetics as much as possible to reduce the strain on both the grappling hook and the rung.

Anna swung down to the bottom of the arc with startlingly fast speed. She dangled there, held from falling only by the ulna.

Quickly she began to pull herself up, straining, her arms already exhausted.

Anna pulled, made it halfway, then fell back down, muscles burning with refusal.

“Come on!” she told herself.

The ulna answered with a hairline crack running down its length.

Seconds remained. Do or die.

Anna pulled again, body surging with adrenaline. With her last full measure of strength she pulled herself up to the bottom rung, grabbing hold with one hand then the other. Bicycling her legs for momentum she painstakingly swung her body upwards, grabbing hold of the next rung. Then the next.

Sweating, panting profusely, Anna slid herself through the ladder to sit on the bottom rung. She leaned against an upright, hugging it, immensely grateful.

“Anna! Are you down there?!”

“Maybe,” she answered softly. It felt as if someone had taken her body and put it through an old-fashioned hand-crank laundry press, leaving her body stretched thin with exhaustion while uncomfortably damp with perspiration.

“Anna?!”

“Yes!”

“The ladder’s anchor up here is starting to crack!”

No rest. Never. Why?!

Anna pushed herself to climb despite her body’s demands not to. Determination or death. That was the choice. Or as the stylus would probably chime in, death or death magic. It was now silent, spent too. In some ways the lack of its snide attitude was both appreciated and missed.

Climbing the ladder was nearly impossible.

Anna’s body was beyond its limit. To think she had come this far for the ladder to suddenly fail and plunge her into the pit of the shaft? Such a thought was emotionally devastating.

Physically and mentally she was done, but somehow she found enough to just keep climbing a little more.

Far below, the meager light from her cell phone finally cut out. 0%.

She had just lost a piece of home.

Pitch black.

Anna reached up blindly, fumbling for the next rung. This one was loose. She would have to push up more on her feet and strain for the one above that.

SNAP!

The rung beneath her suddenly gave out. Anna screamed as she dropped down to the next, which snapped as well, dumping her. Her body twisted, hands missing the next, then the next as her fall accelerated.

Her fingertips brushed stone. She gripped at the hand hold, pain shooting through her fingers, as she held herself, suspended by one hand, the other groping to find anything else to take hold of. Her fingers found an upright, then worked towards a rung.

“Anna, hold on!”

Holding on wouldn’t last long. Not strained like this.

Something slapped Anna sharply in the back of the head. It felt dirty and damp.

“Anna! Can you see the vine?! As soon as you take hold, yell! I will pull!”

She could feel it resting against her shoulder. The problem was somehow taking hold of it which would require letting go of either the rung or the stone. She couldn’t do either. She could sense that the only thing keeping her from falling to her death was by holding on with both hands.

Suddenly the vine moved. Or rather, a small piece of it did.

Anna felt a tendril curling around her shoulder, then another near her hip. Was the vine… cautiously feeling her out?

Wait.

“Clayton! Is it carnivorous?!”

“...Maybe?!”

The vine moved with surprising speed, wrapping about Anna’s upper torso and right leg, gripping tightly.

She screamed.

Suddenly she was being hauled up the shaft, screaming all the way.

Sunrise broke at the top of the shaft.

Anna’s momentum did not brake. The vine continued to pull, dragging up over the ledge and face down across the forest floor, forcing her to taste leaves and dirt. She rolled face up just as a large shadow loomed overhead.

Thwack!

Thwack-thwack!

Clayton beat repeatedly upon the thick vine, doubled handed with an edged rock. The vine shuddered to a halt as syrupy, dark green chlorophyll sprayed all over like a garden hose with a major leak.

“Let- her- go!”

Clayton continued to beat on the wounded vine with each exclamation, increasingly hosed down by the dark venous chlorophyll, his face contorted like some kind of axe murderer. The vine finally had enough and released Anna from its grip, rapidly slithering away, trailing chlorophyll in its wake.

“Come on!” Clayton shouted, grabbing Anna abruptly by the arm and hauling her up on wobbly legs to escape. “Now is not the time to rest!”

Fresh reinforcement vines had other plans. They snaked out from the underbrush, attempting to trap the pair between them and the vertical shaft.

Clayton hurled his rock at the closest one, then stooped to scoop up a thick, fallen tree branch.

“Come at me!” be roared, eyes wide, daring the vines to make the first move. They couldn’t hear him.

The first vine darted in for the attack, low to the ground. It received an adolescent frenzied overhead wallop from the branch club, stunning it. Another vine joined the fray, rising up waist high like a coiled cobra, preparing to strike.

“Rahhhhh!” Clayton swung widely for the grand slam.

THUNK!

The branch hit the vine squarely, spinning its leading tendrils around in a dizzying twist, sending green foliage flying. The vine dropped limp.

The others that had begun to encircle the pair hesitated, uncertain if this meal was worth the squeeze.

Clayton didn’t afford them a moment. He charged, chopping left and right, smashing them mercilessly, leveraging their hesitation. Anna just stood back, watching with her mouth open as the young vine slayer went on a rampage, beating down one vine after another. They tried to gang up on him but they were quickly overcome.

When the branch finally broke with a snap, Clayton kept pressing his vicious assault, slashing with the sharp, mangled end, repeatedly bellowing his battle cry.

One which every witch hunter in the forest likely heard.