Climbing! Plus a little bit of cave.

"You guys, I think I've got a sunburn," Tyler yelled up.  It was almost 100 degrees out, and they were crawling up the surface of a vertical skillet.  

"Awww. Does baby want us to kiss it better?" Kyler yelled down.  Tyler never wore sunblock or brought enough water.  

"You can kiss my ass better, Ky!  Fuck you.  This is why Britney dumped you."  

"Yeah, she probably wants a douchebag with melanoma instead."

"Fuck you!  The cancer'll make my dick even bigger."  

"Won't matter when they have to chop it off." 

An outsider could easily miss the affection in the Fuck Yous.

"Hey, uh...shouldn't we be at the top by now?"  Skyler called down to his friends from the lead position.  Nobody said anything for a moment.  He could sense the other three looking at one another.  

"No, Skyler.  We should be where we are."  Guyler finally called back up at him.  Skyler thought he heard him say something else, but it might have just been a bird.  Yeah, probably a bird.

"But my map clearly showed --" 

"Just keep going," Guyler sighed up to him.

[Insert something involving the mechanics of belaying here]

Skyler rolled his eyes and kept looking for the next ledge.   He'd mapped out the climb before they left for the weekend.  Smith Rock was only 600 feet.   Even if they'd gotten stuck and had to backtrack, they should've been done by 4 at the latest.  It was quarter to 5 now.  But of course, none of these dumb-asses wanted to pause and consider that something might be off.  He didn't know why he still climbed with them.  He'd met plenty of cool people at the climbing gym who seemed like they'd be great to climb with.  But here he was with his college buddies, like always.  The other three had given up on music and gone into Fintech and they'd been having the same six conversations about crypto, AI, and working out for the last 3 years.   Skyler was the only one still trying to make it.  

Below him, the other 3 -ylers restarted conversation #4, a contentious argument about Creatine brands.  Skyler ignored them.

They finally reached the top after another half hour.  Guyler resisted the urge to point out that it was still there even though they'd arrived late.  Skyler must've been butt-hurt since he hadn't said anything for the last half hour.  He watched the butt-hurt one scanning for a ledge to hoist himself over.  Skyler always took too long, passing over adequate ledges in search of the perfect one.   Meanwhile, the rest of them had to wait for him, frying in the sun.  He muttered "Just pick one, Goldilocks" softly enough that he was pretty sure Skyler couldn't hear.

He looked back up and saw Skyler had made it over.  He climbed up and was about to grab the first perfectly acceptable ledge when he saw a hand reach down to him.  Did Skyler really not trust Guyler to do it himself?  Whatever.  He grabbed the hand and was dragged up over the edge. 

The rest of his body registered it before his brain did.  He reflexively shuddered and got that feeling in his feet like when you stand too close to the edge and look down.  He wasn't looking down; he was looking around a large crevice about seven feet tall and twice as wide.  He couldn't tell how deep it went.  This wasn't possible.  He'd seen the sky over the edge just before Skyler had pulled him over.  There was no more rock left.  

"Woah, Skyler. What the fuck is --"  Wait.  Where was Skyler? Did he...go in further to explore the crevice?  The fuck? He was normally so cautious, and he'd definitely want to freak out at the rest of them about this.  "Sky, are you crazy?  Get the fuck back here!"  He yelled into the darkness.  He jumped when he heard movement from behind him and whipped around.

"Bro...uh...what the fuck?" Kyler was standing up after hoisting himself over the edge, his head flicking back and forth.  Guyler just just lifted his upturned palms and shrugged. "We were...we were at the top.  I saw it." 

"Yeah."

"But this...isn't..."

"Yeah."

"Hey, can I have some of you guys' water? I think my bottle has a leak and -- uh...what the fuck?"  A red-faced Tyler finished hoisting himself over, and the same conversation repeated, more-or-less.

"Must've been some kinda optical illusion," Tyler concluded.  "Sky, did you see anything about a crevice up here when you were research -- uh, where's Skyler?"  

"He went in deeper to explore."

"...."

"Yeah, I know.  I tried calling him, but he couldn't hear me.  It must go deep."

"Just like my big fat cancer d--"

"Ty. Shut up."  He opened his backpack and tossed his friend a bottle of water and a tube of aloe vera.  "You look like a boiled crab."  Cancer is the Greek word for crab.  Guyler heard the thought in Skyler's voice.  Skyler would've absolutely pointed it out if he were here.  Like he was the only person who knew shit.

The three shouted for Skyler a few more times and still got no response.  Then they all stretched their sore muscles and looked around the visible parts of the crevice and didn't make eye contact.

"Bro, this is so not like him," Kyler finally voiced it.  "This is crazy reckless.  This could be a cougar den.  Ty, shut it."  He saw the imminent joke in his friend's smirk.  Tyler didn't even try to play coy about it;  just dropped the smirk and nodded.  

The three spent another couple minutes kicking pebbles off the edge and futzing with stuff in their packs to burn off nervous energy.  

"Could he...I mean, guys, I think he might not be OK."  Tyler finally spoke their fears.  The other two said nothing, so Tyler cleared his throat and spoke again, more softly, eyes on the floor.  "I...uh...should we go after him?"  His bros looked at him, startled.  Tyler never suggested a course of action.  He always waited for Skyler to propose one that Guyler would shoot down and then decide something slightly different that the group would go with. 

Kyler and Guyler looked at each other and nodded.  

"Yeah, you're right.  He must need help."  The three pulled out their flashlights and slowly gathered up their packs.  Kyler placed one of his jerky packs on the ground.  Tyler stared at it.

"So they'll know we're in here..."  Kyler didn't have to finish the thought.  Tyler just made an "Mm" sound.

The three stood there looking at one another for a second.  Guyler stepped forward, and the other two followed him into the shadows.  

They walked closely huddled with their heads slightly bowed, anticipating the space would narrow in on them, but after walking for a minute, there was still plenty of room.  This thing was huge.  How come no one at the climbing gym had told them about it when they mentioned they were coming out here?  This would be a hot spot to check out.  

After another minute, there was still plenty of space to move freely.  They could barely see anything in the flashlight beams, but they hadn't stepped in any scat or gotten any other danger signals. They scanned their flashlights around the edges and listened for Tyler's voice, but there was no sign of him.  They kept walking in silence.

The further they went, the less it felt like they could comment on how long they'd been walking.  Guyler was about to say how weird it was that it didn't smell musty but decided not to.  They kept moving with their flashlights pointed forward, illuminating nothing.  

After a ten-minute eternity, there was dim light beyond the flashlight beams.  The three picked up the pace and started shouting out Skyler's name again.  Still no response.  The light got brighter until they found themselves at an opening in the rock face.  They all looked down and realized they were looking at the same angle they'd approached the crevice from.  Nobody said anything for a moment.

"Did we just make a fucking loop?" Kyler's voice was an octave higher than his normal fratty baritone.  

"What do you think?"  Guyler snapped.  

"Then where's my fucking jerky pack?"

"Uh, I dunno.  Probably elves.  Or, you know, a thing called the wind."  Kyler took an aggressive step toward his friend.

"Guys," they both looked at Tyler.  "what happened to Sky?" 

The three slowly made their way back down the rock face, only speaking as needed to coordinate their movements.  It took even longer to get down than it'd taken them to get up, and it was well after dark when they reached the ground.  

"We really doing this?"

"Yep, guess we are."  

They hooked themselves in and started up the rock face.  

"This feels so much better than last time.  Can't believe we ever did this in that heat."  Tyler called down to the other two.  It was seventy-eight and slightly overcast.  

"Totally," Guyler called up from the bottom.  

It feels fucking weird as hell, and you fuckers both know it, Kyler thought but didn't say.  They didn't talk like that to each other anymore.  

It had been an intense year for all three of them.  Kyler's Fintech consulting firm collapsed after a whistle blower revealed that it was a front for a raw-milk smuggling ring.  He was humiliated and outraged at first, but a couple months ago, he'd opened one of his old Powerpoint drafts and had laughed hysterically at every single "mission-critical action item" he'd bulleted.  He should've figured out it was a scam sooner.  

He worked as a supervisor at a moving company now.  The pay was a lot less, but it was great to get so much exercise on the job.  He wasn't as disciplined about working out these days.

Guyler still worked in Fintech, but he was working remote from a small town in central Washington now.  It was the only place he could afford a big enough parcel of land for Skyler's Asses, the abused donkey rescue he'd started after a ketamine overdose and a brief stint in what was probably a low-grade cult. (He'd taken Skyler's loss the hardest).  In the beginning, Tyler and Kyler had many late-night text convos about whether they should call a wellness check on their friend, but now they each had favorite donkeys whom they sponsored and visited at least once a month.  

Tyler ended up getting promoted to the VP of Fintech Strategy at his startup.  He got rich from their IPO plus unloading his crypto holdings at the exact right moment.  Not crazy rich, but rich enough to quit his job and roam the state in an RV for the last few months.  He'd briefly settled down in John Day when he got into a passionately tumultuous relationship with a retired dispatch worker named Deb.  It seemed like they might get married, but then one day she took off without saying a word, and Tyler had returned to the road.  He acted like he was over it, but the other two were pretty sure he was still devastated. 

Kyler and Guyler had both done some online dating and had hooked up with each other a few times during Guyler's ketamine phase, but neither had found anything long-term.  A lot of women rejected Kyler because of his job, and Guyler was too focused on the donkeys to get serious with anyone.  

Just past 5:30, Tyler saw the overcast sky close in over the top rim of Smith Rock.  He paused for a second and took a deep breath before reaching for a ledge to hoist himself over on.  It took him a couple tries because his hands were shaking so bad.  He closed his eyes as he pulled himself up and took one more deep breath before opening them.  

When they'd told the search and rescue team where they'd last seen Skyler, the head search guy assured them that they'd gotten mixed up; there were only a couple of very shallow crevices at lower points on the rock face.  They must have been in one of those.

"The medical establishment hasn't accepted Temporary Cave-Madness as a real condition yet, but you boys know the truth about TCM now," he'd told them somberly.  They'd just nodded back at him.

The searchers didn't find Skyler in either of those narrow crevices, of course.  They scoured the ground below the rock for days and sent up drones to scan the rock face, but they never even found his pack.  The most likely scenario, the investigators finally concluded, was that he'd fallen into the river and been carried  downstream.  Guyler and Kyler seemed to accept this explanation, but Tyler knew there were too many people at the rock that day for someone not to have seen him fall.  Besides, the Crooked River wasn't that big; his body would've washed up somewhere by now.  

 Tyler opened his eyes and took in the wide crevice, just as he remembered it.  Kyler and Guyler soon joined him.  They all stood in awe for a moment.  

"Uh...shall we, gentlemen?" Guyler asked, looking toward the shadows.  They all pulled out their flashlights and proceeded into what would have to be a remarkably consistent TCM hallucination.  Their tentative steps soon accelerated; they knew what to expect this time.  It only took them about six or seven minutes to reach the light again.  It was much brighter now; the sun had come out, and there didn't seem to be a cloud left in the sky.  It still didn't make any sense that they could end up in the exact same place without making any turns or coming out of a separate tunnel opening.  Nobody was going to challenge the layout of a crevice that didn't apparently exist, though.  

They sat on the floor in a circle and each unzipped their packs.  Tyler pulled out two airplane bottles of tequila and one can of ginger ale (for Guyler).  Kyler pulled out three tea-light candles, lit them, and placed one in front of each of them.  Guyler pulled off his shirt (it'd gotten a lot hotter with the sun out).  Then, he gingerly took out a Fender Stratocaster, Skyler's favorite guitar, and placed it face-up in the center of the candles.  They cracked open their beverages and sat in silence while they watched the candles burn.

After about twenty minutes, Tyler looked at the other two.  They silently agreed that the ceremony could end now.  They blew out their candles, gathered up their empties, and started to pull out their gear.  Tyler, who was sitting closest to the edge, walked over toward it as he was pulling out his gear.  He accidentally kicked some piece of trash he hadn't noticed, and it went flying over the edge.  He glanced down to enjoy the view one last time.

"Woah.  You OK, Ty?"  Someone asked.  Guyler.  It was Guyler.  He and Kyler were both looking at Tyler with wide eyes.  He must have made a noise.  It must have been distressing.  Tyler shook his head to gather himself.

"Uh...yeah.  Yeah, sorry.  Got hit with a dizzy spell looking over the edge."  They were both walking over toward him, but he met them half way and corralled them away from the edge.  

"Hey...uh...you know what?  Let's uh...let's stand out of the sun for a second.  And, actually...I think we should do the loop one more time.  Get a few more minutes of shade before we get scorched on the rock face."  

The other two shrugged.  They doubted it'd make a difference, but Tyler seemed agitated, and this might help him calm down.  

As the three set off back into the shadows, Tyler did seem to calm down a bit, but there was a still a weird vibe lingering from his earlier outburst.

"Hey, Ty.  When'd you start worrying about sun exposure, huh?"  Kyler hoped it would lighten the mood.  Tyler play-punched his shoulder.

"Better late than never, right?" 

"I guess we'll find out from your dermatologist in twenty years."  Kyler play-punched him back and they all chuckled.  

"Hey," Guyler interjected, "did you guys know cancer is the Greek word for crab?"

"Yeah, doesn't everybody know that?" 

"That sounds like something Skyler would've told us."  They could hear the smile in Tyler's voice as he said it.  The other two hummed in agreement.  Tyler was more relaxed now.  He was pretty sure everything would be OK as long as they didn't see the Fender and three half-burned tea lights on the floor when they reached the opening again.  He just needed to come up with a plausible explanation for the other two about why they weren't there.  

At the foot of Smith Rock, a dazed young man was wiping the sweat from his forehead while he talked to the cops.  

"No, I didn't see them fall."  He was still too in shock to cry.  "I just...turned around when I got to the top, and they weren't....there.  At all.  I didn't even feel the rope tug."  They'd airlifted him back down after a fellow climber with a satellite phone watched him collapse and go briefly catatonic.

"Mmm...you ever heard of temporary cliff-top madness, boy?  The medical establishment hasn't accepted it yet...."

The young man nodded like he was listening.  He was actually focused on a spot slightly to the cop's right, where a package of jerky had suddenly landed, like it'd just fallen out of the sky.  That made about as much sense as anything else that'd happened today.  He could almost make out the brand name from here.  It looked like the one Kyler always bought.  Fitting.  One of the paramedics kicked it out of the way as they were wheeling the three gurneys up to the ambulance to load the body bags.