Chapter 10
Chapter 10: The Mountains
The mountain rose before Jacob like a shattered tooth, its jagged slopes clawing at a sky that seemed too close, too heavy. After the sterile quiet of the underground bunker, the wind here howled with a desperate loneliness, carrying grit that stung his eyes and coated his tongue. He had spent an hour circling the base, searching for a path, before finding a set of rusted handholds bolted into the rock—a maintenance route, hidden but deliberate, like everything else in this place.
The climb was brutal. His muscles screamed from the cold of the tundra and the weeks of walking before it, but he forced himself upward, hand over hand, foot over precarious foot. The rock was brittle, crumbling under his grip, and more than once he nearly plunged into the mist below. But the handholds continued, unwavering, a silent guide. He thought of the compass in his pocket, the one that always pointed east, and wondered what it would do now that he was climbing toward the top of the world.
Halfway up, he found a ledge with a metal hatch set into the stone. It was old, pitted with rust, but unsealed. He pried it open with a grunt and crawled inside a narrow tunnel that sloped upward at a gentle angle. The air inside was stale and warm, a stark contrast to the biting wind outside. He followed the tunnel for what felt like an hour, his footsteps echoing in the dark, until he emerged into a small, circular room.
Keep reading "Chapter 10: The Mountains"
Open the same story in AIBookCraft. Later chapters may require an active subscription.
Free on iOS & Android · No signup to read