Halfway up the stairs the insanity gave way to some reason: how was he going to escape the lighthouse? He raised his hand to push his glasses back up on the bridge of his nose, the focus getting better as he did so. Hanging haphazardly off the banister of the stairwell was a coil of fairly thick rope.
"I need you," he said as he struggled to remove the thing from the banister.
He couldn't hear the voice of the boy outside telling his companion to leave. Nor did he even know that within seconds a burning cigarette was tossed right into the gas leak he had caused, but that mattered little to none when he fell backwards onto the steps with the uncoiled rope on his lap.
Suddenly, the mixture went to flames quickly, and hit the gas source just as he scrambled up again and ran farther and farther up the lighthouse tower. Splintered wood and debris flew out every which way, the foundation barely withstanding the blast from the explosion. This Dorian heard, without a doubt, and his screams were covered by the sound of the excrutiatingly louder sound of shattering glass and furniture being burned and blown to pieces. His instincts were running the show now, and Dorian was practically clawing his way up to the very top to protect himself from flames that could follow up with the remaining gas lingering. If there was any left.
Dorian's shoulder hit the door and the boy, rather frenzied by the wild look in his eyes and the tears mixed with dust tortured his poor eyes. But the silver lining of the moment was revealed, considering he wasn't a mass of body parts charred to a crisp.
"Ha. Hahahaha!" he couldn't help the laughing cry that left his mouth. He kissed his hands, hugged his legs. He was alive, still alive, he would be able to take another breath, another twenty. Hell, he could tap dance at this point, but... he was on the top of a very large tower. And the stairs weren't an option.
Dorian started to straighten out the tangled rope. He couldn't tell if it would be long enough. At closer inspection, he wasn't even sure he would be able to climb down. He was no athlete. Maybe a fool, at this point, like most jocks in his view, but not nearly as strong. He let one leg straighten as he rested his arm on the other, his hand shaking the piece of rope in his hands. Dorian must have blinked thousands of times in an attempt to get himself into a calmer state. He needed to tuck away the instinct for now, use reason to get himself out of this scrape alive. There wasn't going to be another way to do this, no second chance. So he had to plan this out, and fast. He could smell the smoke from the burning remains of the blown apart room and it was telling him time was running out.
There was a railing outside the glass frame of the top room of the lighthouse. A door was just a few feet away, and he dragged the rope along with him in one hand as he used the other to open the door. The wind blew hard this high. A bug smacked into the left lens of Dorian's glasses, and he wiped it away with the sleeve of his shirt. He needed to focus. He had to do this.
The railing was slippery from the ocean mist as he took hold tight with one hand. The rope was sliding behind him as he pulled it, and he had to brace himself before he looked down.
A mess of flames and debris was what had been left over from the gas explosion. The foundation and some of the framing had survived, but it was charred black and still smoking heavily. Dorian drew in a sharp breath. His plan was to climb down from the top of this tower with the rope, somehow managing to make it to the undamaged ground between the burned part of the building and the ocean cliff. The perfect spot was inches away, and he kneeled close to it to inspect the metal bar bolted to the ledge. The bottom was rusted and the bolt was as well.
"This is just perfect," he murmured sarcastically to himself. The next bar was too close to a burning chunk of wood, might have been a table, and the one beside that was too close to the edge of the cliff. One powerful gust of wind could send him plummeting into fire, the other into a watery grave. The books
Robinson Crusoe and
Treasure Island came to mind when he caught sight of the crashing waves. He would just have to try it out on the rusted rod.
"Here goes nothing," he sighed as he pressed his body to the ledge and used both hands to tie the rope. Dorian was kicking himself for ditching the boy scouts at an early age as he tried to remember what knot was the most stable. He ended up just tying three random patterns consectuively, making a rather odd looking mess of rope around the rusted bar. He tugged at it, using all the force he could, admitably it wasn't much with his scrawny arms.
Just as he was about to slide down from the ledge, his hands clutching tight to the rope, he started to contemplate all he had done. Or failed to do. It seemed all he would do was run from everything. He thought it lead him no where, save maybe a ledge of a very, very high lighthouse tower.
He couldn't laugh at the lame joke he thought up. He knew he wasn't funny.
He shifted so that his feet dangled off of the ledge and, with both hands still on the rope, he shoved off.
"Oh fuck!"
He hadn't gripped tight enough at first, and his hands began to slide as his body dropped quickly. All of his might was used to stop him from plummeting to his death. His palms burned while he tightened his fists against the rope to steady himself.
"Gah!" he squeezed his eyes shut at the pain he felt in his hands, but he held on.
The fall nearly brought him halfway down the rope. He opened his eyes and looked down.
"Oh damn. Oh, damnit!"
Dorian's rope was short, by quite a few feet. If he made it down, he would have to trust that he could make the jump without getting seriously injured, or worse. He shuffled down the rope as quick as he could, and soon he was near the end.
If he could survive this, he wanted to get revenge. Like Edmond Dantes, in
The Count of Monte Cristo, he wanted to enact his revenge upon the ones who did him wrong, and maybe more people who were evil. He didn't know exactly who, but that wasn't important as he was dangling from a rope.
What mattered now was this jump.
Dorian let out a squeal, girly and high-pitched when he finally let go of the rope. The fall felt tremendously long, but in actuality he was on the ground within seconds. And he was alive. The rather sharp pain in his leg made him sure of that.
He would have begun to celebrate right then if he wasn't paranoid that the assailant or assailants were still around. Trying to ignore the pain he felt in his leg, he moved as fast as he could into the brush. He disappeared.
((Continued in Home))