Chapter 28: Surface At Last
After feeling the boy's arms wrap around his neck, Hope grabbed onto the metal rungs he happened to come across in the dark. He turned and started to climb up the ladder.
The rungs coldly met his hands and scratched his palms with rust. With each ascend, it crumbled beneath his fingers as fragments trickled down below as they climbed in the confined darkness.
"So...where are we going now...sir..?"
"Sector Two."
Hope slightly paused. The echoes didn't carry as they used to. He hesitantly reached to the sides and behind and felt that the darkness had shrunk.
'Ah...Tight spaces.'
That thought strangely made his heart throb heavily in his ears like a loud drum.
Hope shook his head from the feeling and moved his sweaty palm up ten inches till he found the next rung. He moved his left leg as well and repeated the same process for the other side.
"Oh...." The boy replied with a groggy voice. "My dad and I were going...there too."
Hope blinked at the tone of his voice. The boy was being carried away again by sleep, and not by Hope's help this time.
"What's your name, kid?"