Tunnels 03, Freefall

that he could clearly see the one he'd just left below him.
    He pulled himself back from the edge and, for a while, just lay there. "Come on," he said eventually, and got to his feet. He took very careful, controlled paces over to the frames. He certainly wasn't going to make any sudden movements after that last jaunt.
    The frames were simple rectangular structures, roughly the size of goal mouths, and were made from what appeared to be the trunks of young trees some ten centimeters in diameter, bound together at each corner. If they were made from wood -- he couldn't tell for certain -- it was blackened and charred as if it had been burnt in a fire. A mesh of thick strands loosely woven together formed the netting strung between the frames. They felt rough and fibrous to the touch, and he suspected they were the skin of some plant, possibly even of the giant fungus itself. As he walked along the line of nets, he could see that many of them were torn, but the one Cal was hung up in seemed to be in reasonable shape.
    Stopping before his brother's body, he forced himself to look at it, then quickly averted his eyes. He bit his lip agitatedly, wondering if he should just go back to Chester. After all, nothing he did now would change anything. He could just leave the body where it was.
    He heard Tam's booming voice as clearly as if the big man was standing right beside him. "Brothers, hah, brothers, my nephews." Tam had uttered these words when Will and Cal, after so many years of being separated, had been reunited in the Jerome family home back in the Colony.
    And just before Tam had sacrificed his life so Will and Cal could escape, Will had made him a promise to look out for Cal.
    "I'm so sorry, Tam," Will said aloud. "I couldn't keep it. I... I let you down."
    "You did your best, m'boy. You couldn't have done anything more," came Uncle Tam's gravelly tones. Although Will knew that the voice was only his imagination working overtime, it gave him a measure of comfort.
    Still he made no move towards Cal's body, debating with himself whether to just leave it as it was.
    "No, I can't do that. It wouldn't be right," Will told himself. With a sigh, he took a step towards the net and began to test whether the frame would take his weight. It creaked a little as he pushed on it with his foot, but it seemed to be firmly secured to the fungus. He got down on all fours and moved carefully over the netting. Cal was in one of the far corners. As the fiber strips shifted under Will's weight, he took it even more slowly. It was daunting because the frame projected so far out into the void. He tried to reassure himself that even if it did give way, then he'd simply drop down to the shelf below. That's if he was lucky.
    He edged closer to his brother's body. Cal was on his front -- Will was so grateful that he was spared the sight of his face. The rope was still tied around the boy's waist, and Will took hold of it and reeled in the loose end. A quick inspection revealed that it had snapped clean through. To divert himself from the enormity of his brother's corpse being only centimeters away, Will began to piece together what must have happened. Cal's body had evidently been caught in the net and the rest of them, he, Chester and Elliott, had swung like a daisy chain onto the ledge below. Cal had acted like an anchor, and he might very well have saved their lives by preventing them from falling further.
    Will held the tattered end of the rope, at a total loss what to do next. With his head and one leg at awkward angles, his brother looked so small and broken. Will reached out and gingerly touched the skin of the boy's forearm with the tip of a single finger, then quickly withdrew his hand again. It felt cold and hard, and nothing like Cal.
    Will's head was filled with vivid flashes of so many moments, as if various scenes from a film had been randomly spliced together. He remembered Cal's laughter as they watched the Black Wind from his bedroom window. This was followed by a flood of other memories from the months they'd spent together in the Colony, including the moment right at the beginning when Cal had collected Will from the Hold to take him home and meet the family he never knew existed.
    "I've let them all down," Will said, in a tense, muted growl through his clenched teeth. "Uncle Tam, Granny Macaulay, even my real mother," he said, remembering how they'd had to leave Sarah, mortally wounded, in the windswept tunnel. "And now