The Climb

The wind was ice-cold and the snow was getting into her boots, but she trudged on, determined to make it through. “Everyone okay back there?” she called over her shoulder.

“Yep!” “All good!” “We’re fine!” “Peachy!” came the various iterations of her own voice. Hope was still trying to get used to that. She’d borrowed a lot of powers over the years, but cloning was new. Okay, so technically it wasn’t cloning per se, it was…duplicate projecting? She shrugged as she pressed forward up the side of the mountain. Same difference, really. It amounted to a whole squad of backup Hopes climbing on the slope right behind her.

At last, they all crested the top. The primary Hope took a minute to catch her breath after the climb; it looked like her other selves were doing the same thing. Then she looked around. They were at the edge of a wide plateau, facing a high rock wall.

“Right,” she said, “Everyone remember the time we went out for the cheer team?”

The Hopes groaned collectively, but nevertheless, they managed it. After some climbing, no little amount of awkwardness, and more than a few muffled yelps of “My eye!” , Hope Prime finally got herself lifted up to the top of the wall.

“Oh, darn,” she said, peeking over. “The castle’s abandoned. The lawn, garden, whatever they call it over here, it’s all gone wild. Weeds everywhere. No one’s been here for ages. Which means the Shiny Power Gem’s not here either.”

“Really?” “Darn!” “That sucks!” “What’d we come out here for?” chorused the pile of Hopes down below her.

“Wait!” Hope Prime called. “Give me a boost! I just saw-” she was unceremoniously heaved up over the wall and onto the overgrown parade ground.

“Ow!” she protested in her turn. Then she remembered, scrambled to her feet, and ran across to a small pile of rocks near the ruins of the door. She tore quickly at the little cairn, trying not to think about whether it was an ancient burial spot. Sure enough, the brief glimpse she’d seen before hadn’t been wrong. Just underneath the rocks, there it lay, glowing the brightest shade of mauve she’d ever seen.

“I found it!” she said, lifting the Shiny Power Gem aloft. “I found it, you guys!”

The Hope clones set up a cheer. Hope herself was already thinking past them. This was her chance. This meant she wouldn’t have to keep working as a babysitter, doomed to forever borrow other people’s powers to mind other people’s kids. This gave her power of her own.

This was going to be fun.

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Editorial Note: this story came about based on a prompt from

Scoot

: “The snow fell heavy on our hopes”. I admit I went rather literal with it. In any event, you can find more stories in the world of Edison City here, or on my Amazon author page. Thanks for reading!