The creature's mandibles scraped against my boot. I felt one of my shoelaces part, the tension snapping against my ankle. I kicked upward, found another handhold, pulled, and kept moving through the burn in my shoulders and the screaming in my ribs and the general sense that my body had filed a formal complaint about the past twelve hours.
Forty feet up. Fifty. The crevasse narrowed as we climbed, the walls squeezing closer until my shoulders brushed stone on both sides. Blair moved above me, her burned tactical suit catching on jagged outcroppings, the remains of her uniform leaving little to imagination where the material had torn.
Sixty feet. The centipede's attacks grew more desperate below, the creature trying to dig through the rock itself to reach us. Each impact sent tremors through the stone that made my grip slip and my heart stop and my internal monologue descend into creative profanity that would have made Addison proud.
