Another speed-writing exercise. Challenge Modifiers: No Similes or Metaphors, One Independent Clause Per Sentence.

When the shaking stopped, Mara opened her eyes. The jungle was gone. So was Jeramie. At least, it might have been Jeramie. The thing that chased her had been huge. It bled electricity and uprooted trees. She had assumed that Jeramie was already dead. The vaguely humanoid thing must have trampled him on its way to her. But the frantic look of recognition in its screaming yellow eyes made her wonder if something far less logical had taken place behind her.

The terrain around her was barren unto the serrated horizon. Geometric shapes thrust from the obsidian ground. She leaned on one of them, finding it cold and frictionless. Silence engulfed the sound of her breathing. This place was wrong. It felt too real. Her eyes slid off the sky. They found only the mountain, and nothing above.

Mara shook her head. A few locks of her hair fell out. She glanced behind her. Nothing remained of the hole that had been torn through space. She hoped there would be another to take her back to the jungle.

Her eyes rose to the mountaintop once again. It was the tallest thing in the universe. She might be hallucinating. She might have hit her head on a rock in the jungle. She didn’t care. The summit was too significant to ignore. She began walking toward it.

Hours passed, or days. Mara felt no time. The walk became a climb. Even on the smooth, faceted surface she did not slip. There was only the mountain. There was only the mechanism. There was only up.

Cables emerged from the rock. They ran toward the summit and out of sight. They hummed with such violence they hurt to touch. Mara held onto them nonetheless. She kept climbing. She became the climb. She became the cables and the mountain. From far away, she knew where the wires converged. Had Jeramie been here already?

Mara’s hands burned from the vibration. She pulled herself forward, less woman and more machine. There was no more stone. The wires pulsed in time with her heartbeat. She no longer needed to breathe.

“NO.”

It was the only word in existence. It was the only voice. There was nothing to recognize. Something hit Mara in the stomach. She gasped, exhaling atmosphere. Her eyes found a clear sky. She shut them tight. The sun hurt.

Mara opened her eyes for the second time. Or was it the first? The jungle surrounded her. She lay where the torn air had been, bruised and panting. Jeramie was gone. The thing that might have been Jeramie was gone. There was only a wide swath cut through the trees where it had chased her.

Mara stood on unsteady legs. The only place to go was back to their camp. She hoped she wouldn’t have to carry Jeramie back to the beach again. She hoped he was still alive and human. She packed some loose dirt onto the searing burns on her palms. It would be a long walk downhill.