Bob put the egg in his pocket and started climbing the ladder.
I followed right behind him. Nerves twisted in my stomach.
We climbed for a couple of minutes until we reached a square door. He opened it and we climbed out.
It was dark.
"Follow me," he whispered.
I walked behind him. My eyes adjusted to the darkness quickly.
We left the basement or whatever it was and started up the stairs. My heart pounded like drums.
On the stairs we stopped at the first window. Bob opened it slowly, looked outside, and turned to me as he took off the backpack.
"Start climbing the tower from here," Bob said, handing me the bag. "Don't look back. Look up and keep climbing until you reach the roof. Plant the bombs and come back down the same way. It will be easy like that. All right?"
I took the backpack. "Yes sir." I put it on. My legs were shaking.
He helped me up through the window even though I did not need it.
I looked outside. We were still close to the ground. The street was empty, but I could hear monsters in the distance making destructive sounds, with a lot of smoke rising from the buildings.
"Go," Bob said.
I started climbing. I looked up and did not look back.
I began counting the floors to calm my nerves. "Three…"
"Thirty…"
"Forty…"
"Fifty…" Just five floors left to the target, and I only grew more nervous.
I reached the balcony, and my heart pounded even harder as I realized how scared I was of heights. I could not look down. My heart slammed against my rib cage. I felt like I was going to have a heart attack.
Now I had to get the backpack so I could take out the first bomb, plant it in the corner, then put the backpack on again and do the same in the other three corners.
But I was too scared to lift even one hand off the glass. I might drop the bombs.
"I have to do this. They're counting on me."
I started talking to myself, trying to convince myself. But I just could not take my hand off. This was the first time using my wall-climbing ability on the 55th floor of the tallest building in the city, and my previous record was my own room's ceiling.
I tried to free one hand but accidentally looked down. Then I looked up again right away. I could not move. My heart pounded wildly. After seeing what was below, I could not move at all.
I could see inside the building because it was all glass.
I could not move a finger. I just hung there, shaking, waiting for courage to come. But it did not.
Through the glass I was clinging to, I could see the stairs inside the tower.
Suddenly, someone opened the stairwell door. My heart stopped.
He saw me immediately and froze, just as shocked as I was. He was the enemy. I knew it.
He raised his hand at once, aiming his palm at me, and fired. I did not even see what he shot.
[You died.] The blue screen appeared in front of me with red words.
I opened my eyes again and sat up, breathing hard.
"Leo, Leo, are you okay?"
My vision blurred, then cleared.
"Can you hear me?" Bob said.
"What happened?"
"We need to go. We don't have time."
The system screen appeared in front of me. It was not from my spider system. It was from the tutorial gate system.
[You died.]
[Your 2nd try started now.]
[You have infinite tries.]
[You can't go back until you finish the tutorial.]
"We don't have time, let's go." He helped me get up.
Just like the first time, we went into the tunnels until he showed me the weapons wall. The same weapons were highlighted. I chose them again.
"Okay, let's start with the daggers," Bob said.
"I already know how to use them."
"Show me," he said.
I threw the dagger, but it did not stick. It hit the wall and fell to the floor.
"Good technique. Do it again."
I tried again, but it still did not stick. "What the fuck is wrong with this shit?"
"Yo, take it easy. We can't move until you hit it ten times in a row. Come on, do it again."
"I don't need that for what we're gonna do, so why do I have to?" I said.
"Maybe we don't need it for what we're doing now, but we won't just be doing one thing," he said. "We're not moving from here until you do it ten times in a row."
It took me less time than last time. Then we moved on to the pistols.
After that, we started walking through the tunnels again toward the entrance to the city tower.
Scoob showed me again how to use the spider bombs until Bob came back. "It's clear."
And we went to that window.
The first time I died because I was scared of heights. I was still scared of heights. I just had to not look down.
I climbed. My heart pounded hard. I could not control it. I kept moving across the tower's glass until I reached the roof. I did not look down. I was shaking as I tried to grab the backpack from my back.
The backpack slipped from my grip and fell. "Fuck."
I looked down. I saw Bob staring up at me as the backpack passed him and hit the ground.
It exploded, killing Bob. The blast was so powerful it shattered all the tower's glass. I fell fast, glass shards cutting my face.
[You died.]
"Shit, here we go again."