FirstLineFiction beta

from Contest #7

She's a local.

That's how we had originally found out about the park just a few miles south of downtown college town.  Now after half a year of exploring the park, it was a new semester and we were there again to enjoy the tail end of the summer weather, in the few days’ vacation between working summer jobs and the beginning of fall semester classes.

 We were all grouped around the railing to the overlook and the park in the background. Rachael had grabbed everyone’s cameras and we were forming in a group pose for the group picture. It ended up with the guys sitting on the rail trying not to get the kneeling ladies below them muddy from the wet mud acquired throughout the day’s adventures and mishaps. It had rained recently, making the ground very muddy and hard to overcome trekking up and down the hills. Everyone’s clothes were drenched with mud.

After a minute or so, everyone settled for the picture. I glanced around and truly smiled at how everyone was seated, just in time for the flash to freeze the moment in time. It developed to be one of my better pictures. I don’t often take decent pictures most of the time. Very not photogenic. I look retarded in them. But anyway, back to why I was smiling.

Ashley was kneeling in front of Aaron, who had an open crush on her, everyone knew it. To their left, David was standing behind Natalie, the only other woman there who did not get constantly frustrated and into an argument with him (Ashley was the other). Next to them posed Alison and Kevin, who at one point were involved with each other, although everyone I’ve talked to is under the impression as strictly friends with benefits. I personally doubt Alison is capable of being anything other than a booty call. But you shouldn’t worry for Kevin, because of the fact he’s transformed into a passion-seeking player, not really concerned with maintaining an intimate relationship but instead concentrating on the drinking and partying and novelty of college. And women. And as I said before, Alison was known to be a jersey chasing whore, content to be with a guy so long as he was an athlete (Kevin swam). Go draw your own conclusions about them.

Further down the line were paired Melissa and Chris, the newest and most inexperienced people to caving and the group of friends. They were the guests of this caving expedition. They held the opposite end border of the group, and Lauren and I contained the group from spilling out the other side. I had invited Lauren on the adventure, and at the time had a somewhat clandestine crush on her. She didn’t know, to my own awareness, that I considered my attraction at the level of crush instead of admiration.

And Rachael, the lone picture taker, had tagged along for the trip.

It was about 4:30 in the afternoon when we paused to take the picture. We still had two hours until dusk, and about an hour and a half of further exploring open to us.

We all grouped together to decide where to go next, and the three most experienced cavers mutually agreed to explore the old paths where there were rumored to be silos. Alison quickly agreed with Lauren, Kevin and me, so the other seven, still undecided, followed in acceptance to explore our at-that-point virgin territory. The irony of our four agreeing with each other might possibly be approached later, as this story is developing much more than I originally thought. The characters are now two dimensional.

Kevin, Lauren and I started off going west-southwest, leading the rest of the group by a couple dozen yards. Soon, we found a path leading south-southwest and Kevin and I submitted to Lauren’s authority as the lifelong native resident of the town. We, at this point, had basically lost the rest of the group. I pointed this out to Lauren, so we stopped and took a break along the side of the path to wait for the rest to catch up. Kevin went and started climbing a hill in boredom and Lauren

jogged down a rock lined creek a few dozen yards back. I had a bunch of pent up energy and I don’t know exactly why, but I wanted to climb a tree. Maybe it was part of some deep rooted psychological mating ritual to prove my worthiness to Lauren. But I wanted to climb a tree, and so I did.

You will understand the pointless psychological analysis later in this story. Promise. I won’t let you down there. I ended up getting about 7 feet up that tree before the group caught up. They weren’t as far behind us as I thought.

After Alison snapped a picture (I didn’t realize until it was too late), I dropped from the tree and landed a bit harder on my feet than I wanted. Lauren and Kevin were a dozen yards further down the path, and I had to jog a bit harder than lightly to catch up with them.

I became aware of the spider habitat we had trespassed upon when one spider’s web clothes-lined me from just below my nose. Aaron would later explain that he witnessed me trying to impersonate the infamous Matrix knee-bend move. Let me repeat the keyword for that statement for emphasis: Trying.

Severely creeped out and extremely paranoid of the supernatural spiders able to string webs across many yards distance, I jogged fast and warily to Kevin and Lauren as they just turned off the path towards a tall concrete structure in the middle of the forest overgrowth.

I felt my jeans catch the thorns of some plant branches while I trudged to the worn down and abandoned silo, as I realized what the concrete structure used to be.

Finally I got past the overgrowth, and there was a five or so foot gap in the perimeter, like a border separating the silo and the weeds. As the rest of the party caught up, I, along with Kevin and Lauren, walked around and found a hole that looked like an entrance into the worn down and aged hollow concrete cylinder. As I passed thru the hole, I realized the side was just like a concrete PVC pipe with about a half-foot thick wall.

The inside of the shell was illuminated by a circular hole in the ceiling through which the sun was able to reflect off the curved walls and gave the area a dirty grayish aura. As I stepped through the hole, I felt the object crush under my shoe and I heard glass shatter. I looked at my foot and saw the remnants of beer bottles mixed amongst the rocks and leaves that covered the floor. A shadow moved behind me and I stepped to the side as Kevin scrambled into the cave-like structure. Lauren hurriedly stepped up and over the ledge into the silo, but as she was bringing her left foot through I saw it snag on the rough concrete.

“Whoa!” she exhaled, losing her balance and I, out of instinct, stuck my arm out as she began to fall. I caught her just above her stomach and almost fell with her to the rocky ground. But she was able to regain her balance with the extra half second, and instantly she was still across her stomach.

We both looked down my arm simultaneously and I removed it, severing the physical contact between her and I. Embarrassed, I muttered a quiet apology and glanced up to her face. She was gazing at my face, her features soft and here brilliant blue eyes warm as we made eye contact. “Don’t be,” she whispered.

“Hey dude look a these drawings!” Kevin yelled from the opposite side of the wall. We looked up and took a step as the rest of the group found the entrance and stepped through. There were a lot of gasps in awe of the silo.

After a minute, Alison yelled “group picture!” and handed her red digital camera to Rachael, who only mildly protested.

There was also a “guy only” picture and a “girl only” picture before the troop overthrew the commander. After almost two minutes looking in the corner-less silo, I slipped back out into the sun. I felt crowded in the enclosed cell, and the bright light and many colors of the woods outside were a relief.

I looked around and saw trees, different types and sizes, scattered around the silo. As I looked at them, they gave the impression of sentinels standing guard over their fortress. Or watchtowers, keeping a constant eye on everything, so it all stayed in its rightful place. In some places the trees had a full five or six feet space from the silo. But I also saw three trees that had a gap less than about eighteen inches.

One of the three trees stood at attention half way round the circular construction. Two grew together, almost like partners standing back-to-back in a duel. Even their branches wove and entwined with each other. I heard a second pair of feet displacing the debris on the ground as I walked to the brotherly trees.

Silence now the only motion around us, I started climbing the tree nearest the silo, able to use the rough bark of the tree nearest the silo, able to use the rough bark of the tree as foot and hand grips. When I got a few feet off the ground, I heard Chris and Kevin talking loudly with Alison and David. The tree I was climbing began to bend under my weight. I climbed another foot and the tree was leaning to the point my back was pressed against the concrete wall. I heard Aaron call my name and looked down the eight feet to the ground and saw the whole company, except Natalie and Rachael, standing around below me. And in Lauren’s case, literally below me.

I nodded to them and continued on my way up the tree and stopped keeping track of the conversations below. Soon enough, I reached the top side of the silo and with only a small amount of difficulty pulled my body weight over the edge and onto the gently sloping roof embedded with rocky concrete. I stood up and walked to look in the skylight to the inside floor of the silo, almost twenty feet below.

I retreated away from the hole in a spell of dizziness and heard Lauren’s voice call my name. I went back to the edge of the silo and saw Lauren already fifteen feet up the tree. After a few more seconds she was within reach of my stretched hand, and with only a little more effort than before, we were able to get her safely on top.

She gasped at the view of nature around us and looked down at me, her blue eyes sending a strange spark across the air when we made eye contact. We stayed the way we were for a few seconds longer than necessary, before Lauren got up and walked around the silo, taking in the different views. She stopped on the other side of the sky light, almost in the midpoint of the sky light and edge of the roof.

“Hey Nathan, come here and look at this,” she spoke quietly. I barely heard her. But barely means I did, and obey I also did. Hey, I’m a softy for blonds. Get over it. I was next to her in only a few seconds, and she reached out with her hand to take mine. With our connected hands, she pointed in the distance to the skyline. “Do you see it?” she whispered. Her hand was warm. I wasn’t really focusing on much more than the contact between us. All I saw in front of me was the skyline. It looked cool, but not unusual. I turned my head to try and figure where she was looking.

Our eyes connected and half a second later we were kissing, her mouth crushing mine, her arms becoming vices around my waist. I mirrored her actions, pulling her to me as if we were trying to merge both our bodies into one unified form. We purposely fell, slow and in control, to the floor of the roof while still trying to merge our torsos into a single form. Somehow we ended up with me on my back and Lauren roaming her hands up and down and across my chest. At the same time, my own hands could not find a comfortable resting place on her warm back.

My hands, after half a minute, found the gap between the top of her jeans and bottom of her shirt. My fingers met bare skin, and Lauren’s sharp intake of breath literally took my own away, our mouths were so locked together. So I inhaled through my nose. Lauren’s back felt comfortably warm through her shirt. From the senses attacking my fingers, she was burning hot under it. But I was impervious to the heat and was lost in the soft, smooth feel of her skin.

Taking her cue from me, Lauren’s hands made a steady trail down quickly to my waistline, and effortlessly lifted my shirt up and off my body. Her cold hands were surprisingly awakening as they made a quick once over before they were back at my belt, fumbling with its buckle. She broke her mouth away from mine and trailed kisses down my chest and naval to keep me distracted, I guess, although I was plenty distracted with just the mind-awing situation I’d found myself in.

“Hey, you two! What are you doing up there? You’ve been up there for five minutes, we’re about to leave!” Kevin’s voice broke into our spell, coming up through the sky light. “Are you guys okay? Need me to come up?”

“No!” Lauren and I both shouted as we fell apart of each other. I rebuckled my beltas she straightened her shirt. We caught each other’s eye and immediately looked away, embarrassed. I felt a rush of frustration. Even when Kevin wasn’t seen or involved in what I was doing, he still managed to get in between me and the girl in which I was interested.

I took a deep breath and let it go. I realized I had an opening, and a little more than a fat chance, with Lauren. It wasn’t worth letting Kevin get to me and ruin my attitude and subsequently opportunity. And now it was more important to get off the roof. I quickly went to my route up, and distractedly followed it in reverse. I dropped the last five feet, forgetting there weren’t branches that low. I looked up and saw Lauren mimicking my actions. She too, fell the last five feet and stumbled into me. She quickly gained composure and led the group back to the cars, our trip finished.

When we got to her car, my ride back, I checked my phone for missed calls.

I had one new text message. From Lauren.

“We need to talk tonight, your place?”

back to Contest #7