10 Feet

I was almost there. Just one more step, one more reach, and I would succeed. I would do what I had trained and prepared for my whole life. I would be rich. I could have everything that I’d ever only dreamed of.

But… I was hesitating.

All my life, I’d been training for this moment. Before I could walk, I was pulling myself up and across rocks and boulders, soldiering my way on with twice as much determination as anyone ten times my age. People assumed that it was because of my father’s legacy, but there was something more, something that didn’t just stem from an attempt to follow in my late father’s footsteps. There was a calling, a force that I couldn’t comprehend, telling me to climb.

The Rock Climbing Competition, or the RoCCo for short-- It was the rock climbing world’s most closely guarded secret. Either you heard about it from one of the recruiters or your family, or you didn’t know it existed, aside from shady whispers in dark alleys that you tried hard to forget.

The RoCCo was just what it sounded like-- a rock climbing competition. The athletes who participated in it were the best of the best, many of which had been training for the climb since childhood. After all, it was easily the toughest race to ever exist.

Athletes had to climb up a nearly flat rock face, using outdated harnesses whose ropes were held into the wall by failing nails and the will of God. The climb was nearly half a mile practically straight up, and the miniscule handholds crumbling or avalanches of rocks shooting toward the competitors were common occurrences. Aside from the unknown places the sponsors got the prize money from, the RoCCo was so underground because people died. People like my father.

The RoCCo happened once every five years, making today the twenty-fifth anniversary of my dad’s death. I don’t remember what happened that day, though I must have been there, watching from the sidelines with my uncle. I can imagine it though.

The cheering of the crowd echoes in my ears, though it’s fainter now that I am so high up. I wonder if it is what my father heard too, moments before he fell.

Everyone who participates in the RoCCo knows the risks, but has decided that the impossible won’t happen, or that the possible gain is worth it despite the very real possibility of death. That’s what my father had decided: he needed money, and if the RoCCo could supply it, then he needed to take that chance.

He had easily been the most prospective athlete: the one everyone placed their bets on. I know what he looks like from pictures, and I can say that I would have placed my bets on him too. With a slim, muscled body, he looks exactly like you’d expect from a winner.

In the first place by a huge margin, he was just about ten feet from the top when it happened. I’ve pieced together a clear picture of the moment from the plethora of stories I’ve collected about him over the years. Everything that could have gone wrong did, and in one simple second, everything changed.

As he strained to pull himself up another inch, the handhold he had been gripping with just the tips of his fingers gave out. With a sharp intake of breath he fell, feet grating down the rock face, struggling to reorient himself before the ropes jerked tight and he was stopped.

That never happened.

The nails below him couldn’t take his weight as he fell, so they popped out, one after the other after the other. It was a perfect storm of all the terrible things, and he fell, leaving me an orphan with too-big shoes to fill. I was raised by my uncle, and started rock climbing professionally myself, waiting for the day when I could finish what my father had started: winning the RoCCo.

So, here I am, nearly at the top of the cliff, about to win. I should be looking up, reaching toward victory, ready to grasp it in my calloused, bloody hands. But I’m not.

I’m looking down.

A crack has blossomed on the ledge the person in second place is grasping, the first sign of a fall. I know he’s noticed it too, as he’s frantically searching around for something else to grab onto before it gives out. He needs to find something soon, otherwise he will certainly die.

There is always the one path that’s worse than the others, and the one harness that’s more deadly. This guy happened to get the bad deal of both, and we both know that the rusty nails that hold his rope to the rock are just about falling out. If he falls, he will die, just like my dad, and just like so many others before him.

I could help him, but I’m so close… so close to my goal, the goal I’ve been training my whole life to complete. If I help him, the person in third will move up, and it’ll be over, just like that. I won’t get another chance to win this race, as by the time the next RoCCo rolls around, I’ll likely be too old to compete. If I tap out now, that’s it. The dream of mine, it’ll be done, no do-overs!

I bite my lower lip, trying to decide what to do, what action to take. The second placer is desperate now, and I can feel the terror that must be coursing through him from my position ten feet above him.

Then he stops, and looks up, and I know he’s seen me hesitating. I suck in a breath as his deep, pleading eyes find mine.

“Help me,” he croaks out. His breath is coming out short and fast now, and his arms are trembling as he tries not to jostle the handhold. “Help… me…”

I think of my father, and my lifelong goal. I open my mouth, ready to tell him no. He knew the rules, he knew the risks. He knew that he couldn’t expect help, and that death was fairly likely. If he dies, it wouldn’t be my fault, and I’d be the only one who knew that I could have done something to save him.

But something stops me, and I feel my throat constrict.

“Please…” he says again, and in the sunlight his eyes flash a bright, brilliant green, dazzling me, and making me pause.

How many people got a chance like this, to save someone else’s life? To keep their light shining steadily, to know that somewhere out there, this person’s friends and family are going about their daily lives, not torn up over the loss of a loved one? I was gifted with this chance of a lifetime, and it was something that I couldn’t for the life of me throw away.

I looked up again, one last time, towards the sweet victory that I would never achieve, and took a deep breath. Third place was catching up, and soon he’d over take me and win, claiming the one million for himself.

Sure, I wouldn’t win. But that was okay.

Smiling softly to myself, I let myself down the ten feet to the formerly Second Place. I held out my hand, looking into his surprised, yet so grateful, eyes.

“Grab tight, and don’t let go.”