'The Tenacious Climb'

The Corridor was not too dark, and it's ends were closed with two sealed of metallic doors, that I can't even dare to open up.

For dimensions, it must be a Thirty-five feet long corridor, with a height not more than a foot more than my own height.

'But, If those two were not the way to the other side- which was it?'- I wondered.

Suddenly, I felt a whiff of cold air coming from somewhere.

I looked around, but not a single way of cool air coming down could be found, Not to mention, there was no ventilators near me in that corridors.

As I examined the walls, they were clean and a bit damp, with a certain humidity engulfed into them.

Eventually, I looked the floor- and found something strange.

A part of the floor was extremely dusty, and a type of moss had covered the place upto a certain area.

"Heh, I got you.", A prediction struck my mind- and I looked up immediately-

And guess what I found-

A hatch.

It was loose enough, and crooked from it's sides, meaning the air was coming down from here.

I pulled the hatch down, and a flurry of dust and decayed vegetation came down- which must have been stopped by the hatch after all these years.

"Sh*t! These heck got into my eyes.", I held my eyes as some particles even found their ways into my eyes.

Clearing my eyes for a while- I looked up through the dusty and long duct going up through the spiderwebs and dead leaves struck on them.

As from the bottom, where I was- I can well deduct the fact that this was a drainage duct of the wall, and if I can climb this somehow, I would end up on the top of the wall, where the sentries usually keep a stroll gaurd over the wall's perimeter.

I had two choices now, Either go back and take the conventional way to go through the wall- loosing the time and initiative I have; or Just climb up this vein of exit on my luck- and go over the wall; taking the direct route to reach the Bridge.

.

.

I took a look on my watch.

Time was ticking past, as it ticked past eternally; all the way.

"Heh...", I took a deep sigh; and decided to climb.

Tightening the straps of my bag and equipment- I took a deep breath; And-- jumped up in the duct, Grabbing the rusty metallic bars embedded on the duct's surface for support- and started climbing up.

It was a bad idea.

I soon found the bars were too rusty to hold my weight, and were always under a crumbling stance whenever I moved my hands from one bar to another.

I wonder how those smugglers of the Dark ages moved their goods from this kind of way.

Not to mention, Smuggling was the only way of getting goods into an Sagittarian-occupied cities like, Calcutta.

Not many, but no too less survived to tell tales about the era- which seemingly, everyone fears even to hear.

Afterall- Who can imagine the Human supremacy fading before our own eyes, A world with pain and agony; where We, humans are no other than a bunch of ruckus.

In my past life, I have a snippet of the era indeed- But, I am fortunate; I took my breath in a Resistance City.

-Something the people of the present will never know, what it is to be born in a place beyond which, All things blur down to Death and Cruciation of Life; which fortunate enough-

People of this era- see less and more less by each moment passing by.

.

.

"Heck!"

I slipped a bar, as it cracked into the crumbles of rusty metal; making me near to fall off the whole distance I came up.

"Heh...You seem to be delusional. Raiden", I said to myself, and as I had already covered half of the way up- I decided to try some another technique instead of this crap of iron bar climbings.

I would have climbed up effortlessly, if one of my hands weren't crapped in such a way- that it hurted like death; everytime I tried pulling myself up by the conventional climbing technique of clutching the cracks in the wall and support structure.

But, I decided to something else.

Tenaciously effortful, but effective.

I continued the climb, pushing my legs on one of the vertical walls, while staying up in betwern by using the extra force in pushing my back against the opposite wall; hence barely, climbing without almost no use of Hands.

But yeah- it was tenacious; as I said before.

As I neared the end of the vertical duct, My whole body was already seeming to have a crumble with the narrow exception of my hands.

"Heh, It's finally- over", I sighed; as I finally got my hands and feet on the particularly strong and fine climbing bars attached to the narrower end of the duct wall, enabling my body to finally take a rest; after all that painful business.

But, Rest seemed far to achieve for me- still yet.

I heard the sound of gaurds moving close over the duct's hatch, which seemingly was a overflow checker of the walls; constructed in accordance to drain any water on the space over the walls, which are enough wide to say to be five times more wider than a Medival fort wall.

I carefully waited for few moments, observing any movements over the wall by hearing or seeing through the slender vents of the sliding cover that topped the duct.

As the Sound of the steps faded, I grabbed my last bit of climbing energy to silently slide open the duct cover, partially jammed up with crap and concrete over the years of wear and weathering.

I budged my head up slowly, peeking over the surroundings for a problem.

And Problem budged up, as best the budge up at the wrong place and time.

Suddenly, I felt a strong hand at the back of my head.

Am I caught?