When Ladders Traumatize

Part 4

The boy informed him that going into the open space of the loft would be the death of them both. There, the girls were far more aggressive. He had seen a guy have his shirt ripped off of him and the girls took turns kissing him and making him shake.

The poor boy was too young to understand teen love and sexual play. However, given the symptoms of the place, it was safe to assume that the guy being kissed probably was not accepting that of his own free will, not that anyone guy would resist being kissed by any of the women in the loft. They were very beautiful.

As Bret looked about to find an exit, it started to sink in that the only way out of this torture chamber was to cross the loft. From what he could see, there was not much hope of getting by unseen. As far as his informing friend was concerned, staying put was the only way out.

After exploring all options, Bret convinced the little guy to give him space to rest inside the crawl space. As soon as he was in, he felt a cool feeling and his body relaxed back to it’s normal state. It felt great to feel human again. No more pain. No more risk of explosive discharges from all that pressure. Quiet, cool, calm, space to think. Devise a plan.

Crawling about, it became clear that many Halloween costumes and decorations were stored below the loft’s deck. There were too many things to move to successfully make it to the other side where the exit was. There was too much accumulated dust also. They’d soon be sneezing and hacking their lungs out if they tried. Not to mention, many of the wooden planks had splinter that would eventually rip their clothing and skin to pieces from crawling through.

Worse, lighting was very poor and relied on one light bulb that lit the entrance from the black hole to the loft. The loft seemed to only have too sources of light. One was from a sky-view small window and the other from a dangling light bulb.

There was one other guy in the loft, Bret noticed. He was an older teen, maybe even an early twenty year old. He was built like the man of steel. His hair a bit long and his beard nearly fully in, the teen would have easily had the strength to take on anyone else on the grounds and win. Maybe, all that strength was his secret for being in the loft un-harmed. The guy looked at ease playing all manners of flirtation games with the group of gals circling him, eagerly waiting their turn to try and seduce him.

As Bret rounded off his exploration, the teen in the loft manage to pull back from the gals and made his way to a chair in the center of the loft. The girls all gathered around and started to dance around him. He was clearly enjoying his time.

The weird thing about the crawl space below the deck landing, it distorted orientation of space. The boards that made up the platform, from the outside was horizontal with the grown. However, once underneath the platform, they appeared to be at a severe 60 degree angle to horizontal allowing anyone to look into the loft between the cracks and holes in the floorboard.

Weirder still, no matter how far Bret crawled about beneath, the angle never changed and the relative progress across seemed to evaporate. However, nowhere in the space could one fully stand up. There barely was room to sit up fully. Then, to exit the crawl space, the entrance felt barely high enough to allow someone to army crawl out of the gap. The depth of the platform seemed a few feet, but underneath it, you could crawl what felt like the distance of a football field and never quite know where the far walls were.