Ott Rising

By Jay Cullis

"Ott Rising" is an adventure novel written by Jay Cullis. An exciting mix of fantasy, sci-fi and suspense, the story is set on a lonely mountain peak surrounded by an ocean of toxic clouds. A peaceful reality is turned on its head when a mysterious event occurs, setting in motion an adventure down into the dangerous, uncharted world beneath the cloud.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Apr 7, 2011
• ISBN: 9781257460687

Book preview

Ott Rising

A story by Jay Cullis

Copyright 2010, Lyradog Press

Raleigh, NC, 27609

Published by Lyradog Books Raleigh, NC

Cover illustration by Patrick Cullis, pcullyphoto.com

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictionally. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2010 by Jay Cullis

All rights reserved.

This story was first published on the web as a serial adventure from November 2009 through July 2010.

Second Printing, February, 2011

www.ottrising.com

eISBN: 978-1-25746-068-7

For Callio, for inspiration.

For David, who listened.

For my mom, for the support.

And for Katy, who pushed the button.

We were born before the wind

Also younger than the sun

Ere the bonnie boat was won as we sailed into the mystic

Hark, now hear the sailors cry

Smell the sea and feel the sky

Let your soul and spirit fly into the mystic.

~ Van Morrison, Into the Mystic

Part 1:

Above the Cloud

Down here, as far from the village as Ott had ever been, the world was silent and still.

No birds chirped or flitted through the trees. No squirrels cracked nuts on the branches. All Ott could hear were he and Twit’s footsteps, the soft clacking of the 40 lengths of tubing as they flopped in her arms, and the dull metallic sounds of his equipment jostling in the bag slung over his shoulder. With every step away from the clean air above – and every step toward the bad air below – it seemed like all the familiar sounds of life were being swallowed up. It was as if down at the end of this meandering path the cloud was doing everything it could to finish the job it had started so long ago.

Ott could not see the shore beyond the trees and the sloping hillside, but he knew it was close. Behind him, Twit kept looking over her shoulder, expecting an adult to be following, shaking a finger, ready to punish the two of them as soon as they caught up. Before Ott and Twit had set off down the path, Twit had imagined it overgrown and hard to follow. She imagined all those abandoned years would have left the path unnavigable, and that she and Ott would have to turn back because it was impassable.

Instead of overgrown with weeds and brush, though, they found the path clear and easy to follow. Nothing grew over it and nothing grew alongside it. The only things that made it a path were the rabbit-sized rocks that had long ago been pushed out of the way by those who had forged their escape up the hill. That, and the scraggly trees in the ever-thinning forest. Few leaves grew on their branches, and any that did were withered and gray.

No one was allowed down this path.

That was a fact taught from the earliest moments in the life of every child born in the village. There was even a lullaby warning that parents sang to their children in the crib – a singsong message telling them to stay up in the village, high above the cloud down below. That same singsong warning was painted on the sign Ott and Twit ignored and passed right by on their way down the path – the sign with the word FORBIDDEN painted in bright red letters on the wooden board.

What goes up must come down, the lullaby goes. What goes down will not ever come up.

• • •

Twit kept craning her neck over Ott’s shoulder, trying to spot the shoreline ahead. It was hard to concentrate on anything other than avoiding the large rocks that were increasingly strewn across the dirt path. She didn’t want to trip. The path was growing steeper with every step, and if she lost her footing and fell, only Ott stood between herself and the long roll down into the mist.

Maybe there isn’t any shoreline, Twit said to her friend who was always several steps ahead of her. It could just be a myth.

Ott laughed. You’ve seen it, Twit, up on the peak, remember? he said. We’ll know it when we see it. We’ve got to be close.

How can you tell? asked Twit, and Ott pointed off into the distance away from the path.

The trees don’t grow down here, he said, and he was right. Twit had been so focused on not tripping she had not noticed that where there had been trees, now there was only the dirty, rocky, scrub-bare hillside. Here and there broken stumps stood like still and quiet guardians. Guarding what though?

And then suddenly Twit ran into Ott’s back, smashing up against the bulbous bag filled with his equipment. She was about to protest, when she realized they had arrived. Over Ott’s shoulder Twit saw only white and blue – the white mist undulating in slow waves, and the brilliant blue of sky cutting the line of the horizon in the distance.

It was quiet, but the mist was all heaving motion. It rolled and swayed and then settled into brief stillness before rearing up in long, thin white tentacles that reached toward the sun like phantasmal fingers. Like a hand reaching to clutch at a tree branch the tendrils seemed to grip at something, but then miss and fall back into the surface of the mist where they dissolved in silence.

The sun felt hot on Twit’s face. A hawk rode a current high above the mist before turning back toward the hillside. She turned and looked back up the path they had come down.

Can’t turn back now, said Ott, setting his bag down on the path near the lapping mist.

You’re really going to do this? Twit asked. You’re really going down in there?

Ott smiled. No doubt, he said, pulling the drawstring loose on his overstuffed bag.

• • •

As Ott was rooting around in his bag for the various, necessary pieces of equipment, the cloud seemed to slip away slowly, receding down the hillside if only slightly.

Twit ventured a few steps down the trail, inching closer to the frothy curl of the edge. She didn’t want to get too close, but she also could not help wanting a closer look. What she saw reminded her of the baby snakes she and Ott would sometimes catch rippling across the surface of the retention pond up in the hills. Except these snakes were white and made of a toxic effervescence.

As she stood and marveled at the sight, the snake-like tendrils crept up the hillside toward her. Twit took a step back as the misty fingers reached toward her toes. They scurried around her sandals as if they were alive, like bugs rushing to avoid being stepped on. She took another few quick steps backwards, almost tripping over Ott still crouched on the path.

It’s moving, she whispered as the cloud ebbed away, back down the hillside.

Ott and Twit had seen the cloud before when Mr. Henrikson had taken the twelve-year-olds up to the peak above Ravenala – a right of passage looked forward to by all young students. There was a small observatory up there – basically an antique telescope perched inside a small hut. There they had peered out over the world, over the sea of clouds that stretched white in three-hundred and sixty degrees – white reaching to the blue line of the horizon in every direction. Mr. Henrikson had used that field trip as an opportunity to explain the history of the cloud, how people had fled into the hills and mountains of the world as the cloud had risen. He said that for many years the cloud had remained where it was – that it had stopped rising and that there was nothing to fear so long as people stayed out of it. Up on the peak, the cloud was beautiful, serene – something the children had marveled at from a distance.

Down here though, at the shoreline it was so close, so real – so dangerous. As much as she wanted to look up into that brilliant, beautiful blue of the sky, her eyes kept drawing downward into the mystery of everything that lay below the white surface.

Ott was talking out loud, going on about things Mr. Henrikson had explained in class. Twit was listening, but all she could really hear was the voice in her head telling her to turn around, telling her to run back up the path to Ravenala, to run back up to the things she knew were true and leave where it lay whatever resided down below.

I don’t know about this, she said, trailing off into a whisper. Ott tested every new device he unpacked from his bag with a tug or a pull, and then laid it out in a precise setup in the dirt. Each unfamiliar thing he brought out seemed like a combiZnation of three other familiar things squeezed together or held by string.

Twit you can’t go back now, said Ott, not looking up from his task. I need you – I can’t go down there alone.

Then maybe you should have talked someone else into doing this, she said, but quickly forgot her line of thought as Ott pulled a large, spherical glass bowl out of the bag. It caught the light of the sun in a brilliant flash. What is that? Twit asked.

• • •

It’s called a fidge bowl, said Ott, holding up the shiny glass dome and then putting it over his head. It didn’t quite balance on his mop of straw –blonde hair, but Twit got the point.It’ll keep the mist out of my face, he said, his voice muffled and distant from inside the glass.

"A fidge bowl? said Twit, amazed – and a little suspicious. Where’d you get it?"

And this keeps the bad air out of the bowl, Ott said, handing Twit a j-shaped piece of plastic.

You made this yourself? Twit asked, turning the home-made contraption in her hands. Where’d you get all this stuff?

Ott looked away and dug back into his bag. Junkman said I could use it, he said, barely louder than a whisper.

What? said Twit. He hardly says anything that anyone can understand. You’re lying!

He said I could borrow it, said Ott. "I’m going to take it back to him when we’re done. He will not even notice it’s gone.

You’re incredible, said Twit. And incredibly stupid AND selfish enough to steal from a crazy old trash man!

At least somebody’s using it! said Ott, trying his best to defend himself. At least it’s not sitting around getting rusty in the junk heap.

Twit’s lips were pursed together, her arms crossed in front of her. He could tell she was about to turn and go. Please don’t leave, Ott whispered.

Anger electrified Twit with every word Ott said. He had hatched his plan all by himself, stolen what he needed from an adult, and dragged her down here as his accomplice.

You’re gonna suffocate down there, she said. And I’m gonna be sitting up here all by myself waiting for you to come back up, and I’m gonna have to be the one who has to go back up there and tell everyone how stupid you were.

She took a deep breath and could taste the acidity of the mist riding on the air. There’s a reason we’re not supposed to go down there, Ott, she said turning away, furious.

But in turning, Twit faced herself toward the white sea of mist that spread out in front of her. As her eyes dropped into its swirling white tendrils Twit again felt its pull.

I’m sorry, Twit, said Ott. But don’t you want to know what’s down there as bad as I do?

Looking into the mist, Twit noticed objects seeming to form, but they would disappear before she could confirm what she had seen with a second glance. As much as she wanted to walk back up the hill, she could not. Going down into the mist was crazy, but wanting to know what was down there was decidedly not crazy – everyone she knew wondered about what was left behind. Ott was the only person she knew who had the courage and tenacity to actually try and figure it out.

OK, she finally said. What do you want me to do?

• • •

Ott jumped into motion with a startling speed, and Twit realized this was something he had practiced. Many times. While it was a stupid, crazy idea to go down into the mist, it was comforting – however mildly – to know that Ott had put a lot of time and thought into his plan. As he handed her various bits of equipment, he explained things he had read about in books in the library – amazing things about the history of the world before the mist had risen.

Ott said that once there had been so much water that it gathered in enormous pools a million times the size of Ravenala’s retention pond. There had been so much water, Ott said, that people had explored entire worlds underneath the water. People used special equipment to help them breathe under water – something called a scuba.

Twit thought that was a pretty silly word.

It’s where I got the idea for this, he said, holding up the plastic, j-shaped piece for her to see before affixing one end of it to the long flexible tube. Inside here is a small gate that opens when I’m breathing in. When I breathe out it closes, and opens a vent that lets the bad air out of the bowl.

Twit marveled at her friend’s genius. Ott might only be 12 years old, but he had to be the smartest person she had ever meet – maybe even smarter than Mr. Henrikson.

Whatever you do, Twit – whatever happens – don’t let go of that end of the tube, said Ott. Keep it above the surface of the mist. When the coils run out, tug three times and I’ll stop going down.

Tug three times and you’ll come back up? Twit repeated. Ott smiled.

Good luck, said Twit. Be careful.

Ott nodded and put the rubbery end of the j-shaped piece in his mouth. He pulled the fidge bowl down over his head, wrapped a rubber sheath around his neck and tied it snugly around the rim of the bowl. Then he gave her the thumbs up. Twit tried to smile but all she could manage was a little wave.

Ott turned and stepped down to the edge of the mist. As he did, the fog suddenly rushed up to cover his feet up to his ankles. He paused for a second, then took another step and it was at his knees. Two more steps and he was up to his waist. Twit could tell he was trying to feel ahead with his feet obscured below the mist. Another two steps and all Twit could see was Ott’s head floating inside the glass fidgebowl on the surface of the mist.

He turned to take one last look. He waved and Twit thought she could see a smile on his face.

Then he was gone.

• • •

Twit watched Ott’s head disappear below the surface of the mist and felt the fear immediately swallow her up. Where Ott was fearless, Twit was the opposite – easily frightened, self-conscious, guilt-ridden. They were – in many ways – the perfect pair, complementing each others weaknesses. They had been friends since first meeting when their class came together for school.

As the first lengths of green tube pulled softly through her lightly clenched fingers, Twit told herself that she had confidence in Ott.

She could not help but worry, though, that it felt like the beginning of the end for their friendship. The worry inside of her was almost too much, and what was painfully obvious was that she would not be here if it were not for Ott.

The tube began to move a little faster now as Ott made his way down the hill. Several feet would pull out and then stop before moving again, slowly, deliberately.

Then she heard the first crack sounding up through the mist. It was a sharp and deliberate noise, like an axe hitting a tree. She wanted to call out to Ott, but stopped herself. It could have been anything. It also could have been Ott – maybe he fell down, maybe he’s cracked the fidge bowl on a rock.

But the tube started moving again, slowly. A few more feet and there came another crack, louder now, like two rocks smacking against each other. The tube stopped moving completely.

What was he doing down there?

The tube started pulling out again and Twit could feel the weight of his footsteps as he moved. The tube would pull quickly then slacken, then pull quickly again as Ott’s weight shifted with each footstep.

Crack! Crack!

Two more times and now Twit’s worry was starting to eat her up. Her mind filled with images of the zombies and monsters that kids talked about roaming through the mist. She thought of all the things that could go wrong down there.

And then she tugged – three times – on the tube. She wanted Ott to come back up. This was getting silly.

CRACK!

Three more tugs, but the tube did not stop moving. Three more tugs – he wasn’t paying attention to her. Twit looked down at the coil of tubing at her feet. Ott had maybe fifteen more feet before there was no choice about ignoring her. She pulled three more times on the tube, harder this time.

And then up through the mist came a horrible noise, a roar that sounded like some primeval animal howling in rage. It sounded like a ghost screaming in the night, followed by a loud, hollow explosion.

OTT! she screamed down into the mist. OTT!

• • •

Ott felt with the toe of his sandal, found a solid, steady spot, and took one last step down into the mist. His head dropped below the surface and instantly he could not see anything. It was disconcerting – the opposite of a black night, though the result was the same.

Blind.

Lost.

Dizzy.