Cragged

Caught on a ledge in nature, a pinkie keeps Carl afloat. The cliff is jagged and biting him with its million ton teeth. Below fades to mist, a pitch ago there were trees. The crack has shriveled into a face. Free climbing in an untarnished place. Searching with his right hand for something to hold, the fog surrounds him now swallowing him whole. He scours the stone for a nub, and looks right, balancing on the tips of his toes. 100, 200, 300 feet up only 50 short meters to the very top.

Carl is a cast of one out here, he thinks about home and his calves burn. Return to now they howl at him, return to this point, this point of no return. The cramping comes and he switches his hands, now left to his left the struggle begins. Weight off a foot a wet breeze drifts in and catches him. Now both left appendages swing out like a door and his right holds on to the crag swaying back back then forth. A moment of fear enters his eyes and Carl pins himself against the granite and feels the sky cry. First at his feet the wetness forms and creeps up his leg, he has been warned. A wet cliff is no place for any living man so he moves quick to ascend this canyon grand. Swiftly his lefts connect. He pulls to avoid the impending fog. A droplet from above now trickles down the wall into the crack where he lets his hand fall. He places it there and prays it will hold, knowing his time might have come this far from home. One slip away from being alone on a cliff no one's ever been shown. Only nature will weep for this man who has failed.

And so it does, the rain begins to pour, Carl looks out and sees nothing but dull grey. He might have cried, he might have sweat, he might still have had hope that his grip would not slip. All of that was masked in a deluge of pain. Carl lets out an ever echoing scream.