Pentober 2026 - Day 28: Cage

Ok so, what is Pentober? Promptober? It's a writing tradition that's been around the web for a while where you write up a short story every day in October based on prompts. Some go for pen and paper, some digital; everyone has their own style. I'll be posting here, and I'll be using the prompts from https://www.topinfiction.com/p/pentober-2026 

House rules are that I vomit-write the story; no planning, just taka taka taka on the keys. I get ONE edit at the end of the draft (if I even have time, lol), then we post it. House rules also say that I get to play catch up and do multiple days separately on one day or combined if work gets wild and I can't write. Get it? Got it? Good! Here we go.

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"Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains". The old quote from philosophy 101 bounced around Emmett's skull; they never thought they would face a Rousseau quote so literally. They were about fifty stories up, between two sheer cliff faces about a hundred feet apart, and surrounded by chains that bridged the gap at every possible angle. They created an erratic spiderweb, clumped and criss-crossed in certain sections, that contained several suspended cages swinging high above an inky black sea.

Emmett had no idea how they got here. The last thing they remembered they were going to sleep in the back of their camper van, in the middle of a cross-country road trip, nearing their next stop: the Grand Canyon. That was three days ago and, since then, they had spend their time on the small ledge they awoke on, eating rations from their pack very slowly, and watching the stars rise and fall.

That was the first thing they noticed: the stars were in the wrong places. As far as Emmett could tell, the positions of constellations had not just shifted, but totally changed. They hadn't transported forward a season, or a month, or a year, but something on the order of centuries. Their laptop had been in the van proper, so they didn't have access to their astrophysics program to confirm, but they were fairly certain. They had their cell on them and it had no reception. It was as if the satellites had vanished. Watching the night sky for regular movement, it seemed like they had. There were no strings of lights passing the night sky at regular intervals.

The question Emmett had was: why? how? what? In that order, but those were existential questions. They had an immediate, practical question: what had appeared in that leftmost cage overnight?

To answer that, they begun by stretching and limbering up; they had been sedentary most of the past few days. They had no idea how slick the chains could be, so they wanted to be as flexible as possible for the tightrope walk they were about to perform.

They took a deep breath and grabbed a chain above their head with both hands and eased a foot off onto a lower chain. The first step send the whole structure swinging and reverberating. Emmett pulled themselves up and over the first chain, hanging onto it like a monorail and shimmying forward across it; this was much more stable.

They neared one of the clumps of chains and realized it was a dead end for their course. They had to hang and lower themselves down onto the chain below, easing themselves down to hang just on that one string of iron with their feet, then slowly wrap themselves around it. They continued to shimmy and, after what felt like hours, reached their target destination. The cage was parallel to them in another cluster of chains. They stretched as far as they could with one hand and were able to pull the cluster just a bit closer and leap out with their other hand to grab the cluster and wrench open the cage door. They peered inside and saw a lock. They picked it up.

Clink. Cling. Clang. Clang. Clang. The chains were popping and unspooling. Emmett clung to the cage for dear life as it dropped further and further to the water below until, with a splash, they were engulfed. They kicked higher and higher to break the surface and, breaking the surface, were no longer in the chasm: they were in a cave. They heard voices far above.