It is difficult to describe the feeling of (accidentally) pouring the venom of the 3rd most poisonous snake in the world down your throat, but I will endeavor.
The second it touches the back of my throat, the world goes swirly with pain, and I feel like my insides erupting into flames while being stabbed by thousands of little knives. Something makes its way up my throat, and I try to hold it back, but the force is too great and a waterfall of blood comes hurtling out my mouth onto the ground before me. I'm retching and gagging and clawing at my stomach, but it's no use, I can't think straight and everything's going spotty. Neo's shouting something, but I can barely hear him because every part of my body, ears included, is exploding in pain. My stomach and organs are imploding in on themselves, twisting round and round and then untangling itself a million times in a second. My lungs feel like they're going to pop any moment now. My neck's melting off and my throat's gone at this point. My vision darkens completely, and the last thing I feel is the cold, hard ground as I keel over, and then I slip out of consciousness.
***
"…ord! Sword!"
My eyes jerk open. Neo is in my face, staring down at me.
"Neo?" I choke.
My mouth feels like I've been gargling with sand paper and every bone in my body aches.
"You're finally awake," he gasped, falling back onto his heels in surprise. "You have no idea. Your chest was burning hot, and I could barely feel your heart…"
He showed me his hands, which were bright red from trying to revive me.
"Well," I breathe, coughing and then spitting out the last drops of blood mixed in my saliva. "I'm alive, thanks to you."
"You mean my encouragement?"
"That was encouragement? If that's your idea of encouragement then you clearly can't even encourage the piss out of a drunk man."
"Hey…"
After we stopped bickering, I was able to test out my new body, after getting a few sips of water from our rationed reserves.
Let me tell you now, it feels amazing. Imagine all your childhood dreams of punching through walls and jumping tens of feet into the air suddenly come true. Yeah, that's what it felt like to me.
For the first time, I easily went past Neo's record, and every time I pulled myself upwards was effortless. It almost felt like I was flying. And then, before I knew, I was looking at the rocky roof that we hadn't seen in all the one and a half weeks we had been stuck in this hole.
Ceiling…? Why the f*ck is there a ceiling?
Instantly, I want to fall right back down, and my heart begins to hammer in my chest. Surely, there has to be some way up…? I hang from a stalagmite on the ceiling with one hand effortlessly, literally just for the fun of it, and look all around, calming myself. Sure enough, about twenty feet below the ceiling, on the opposite side of the pit, there is a faint light coming from a corridor obscured from below by a ledge.
Bingo.
Swinging myself back and forth before letting go, I hurl myself across the full diameter of the pit, soaring past the tiny hole the food basket came down from, and then grab ahold of the edge of the ledge.
This. Is. Awesome. I feel like I could take on an army? Is this what it feels like to have the body of a frontline hero, who fights the Skathers day and night?
The corridor is extremely short, with only a wooden door with a single, sad, flickering light next to it that cast a ghostly glow on the rocky walls. Finally. Our freedom.
***
"You found the exit?" Neo asked, exploding to his feet. "How far up?"
"About…" I think for a second. "About four hundred feet up."
"…crazy."
"I know, right?"
I clench my fingers and feel the strength between them. If there was a human arm in my hand, it'd probably be splintering right now.
"So, when are we planning on getting out of here?" Neo asked, rubbing his hands, which were covered in bloody blisters like mine.
I look at him.
"What, you want to stay? I'm not tired."
"So right now?"
"Anything stopping us? Or do you feel some sense of connection to this shithole?"
"Fair point," he smiles. "Let's go."
He heads for the wall, eyes quickly finding the route we've painstakingly planned out over the last one and a half weeks, but just before he does I remember something I wanted to tell him, and catch his shoulder.
"Huh?"
"Neo," I say. "Before we get out of here, I wanted to say something."
He turns back to me, listening.
"…I'm sure, in the future, this won't be the last of our struggles. I was just hoping, y'know…"
And suddenly I forget what the hell I was gonna say. Good going, Rei- Sword. I'll just improvise.
"…that we'll, uh, stick together for all the rest of this."
The cave is dark, cold and damp, and I can barely see his face in the dim blue glisten of chrona in the air, but I know he's smiling.
"Of course," he says, and we shake hands.
In the freezing air, his hand is warm.
***
Suffering through hell and back was worth it, after all. Firing up a four-hundred foot almost-smooth rock wall was something that would only be possible in my dreams just a few weeks ago. I scoff. It's ironic that the only way I was able to get so much stronger was through the very people that I want to beat up so badly right now.
Those motherfuckers behind this stupid 'Project Pharo'. Someday, I'll get back at you.
"Let's go," Neo says, and I nod.
We begin the ascent, Neo going ahead of me, because if he fell I could catch him with one hand. When we're about a hundred feet up, Neo starts running out of strength. We both agree that it would be better if I carried him on my back while we continue the ascent, and I anticlimactically pull us up over the ledge that led the exit a few minutes after that.
We rest before the door that leads to god knows where for a little while, taking in the fact that we were finally leaving this hellhole behind, and Neo leans over the edge, yelling mocking curses down at the pit and the insects. We kick the doors off their hinges together, and then as soon as we step through a pang of pain courses through my head again.
"Number 224 'Sword' and 225 'Neo' have become the fourth participants to complete the first mission. Their rankings will be changed to 007 and 008".