Ciara's Mum pulled into a parking lot of a maybe three-story building with a wooden design on the outside. I couldn't see through the windows, but I could see that there weren't that many people based on how many cars there were outside the building. There was only around three other cars, parked close to the building. One small green car, one navi range rover, and an average sized white car.

Ciara's Mum pulled into a parking space in front of the building. I was close enough to see a little inside the building. I saw a small café area with tables and a counter of baked goods. Pies, sausage rolls, cakes, and biscuits. I couldn't see much of what was in the back, but I saw what I assumed to be a coffee machine and a fridge full of cold drinks.

We got out of the car and Ciara's Mum took the bag out of the boot, slinging it over her shoulder. I looked over to the other three cars and saw a family leaving. My guess was that business was still slow for a lot of places. COVID-19 hadn't affected us as badly as it had other countries, in fact, Australia was quite lucky and Western Australia hadn't had any cases since the lockdown began four weeks ago. But people still didn't seem to be going out as much. Shopping centres weren't as populated, cinemas were practically empty apart from workers, in cafés and restaurants only a few tables were in use and places such as this one only had a few people visiting at a time.

Our Prime Minister Aven Dickinson – or Avdo for short – had refused to use any vaccine from another country. He had tried to say that he was simply being strict on what was coming into the country, but the entire nation was upset. That was why the Clark Corporation was developing their own vaccine. In fact, they said that they were going to try and develop a miracle cure all at the same time. I highly doubted that was possible, but the head of the Corporation, Seth Clark, was confident in his supposed discovery. He claimed to have found something that would change the world.

I pushed my thoughts aside and followed Ciara's Mum and Dane. Once you got inside there was a small room with only two walls. The outside wall and on opposite it with a desk in front of it and a door. The inside was painted in blue and to my right there was the café I had seen outside. To my left I could already see the wooden walls lined with fake rocks and the irregular shapes in the centre of the room, also covered in fake rocks.

We went up to the front desk and Ciara's Mum hit the bell on the counter so that an employee would come out and help us. We waited a few seconds before a young girl in a black polo shirt with the buildings logo on it came out with a big smile on her face.

"Hi, I'm Ariana," Ciara's Mum said. "I've already booked us in."

The girl behind the counter nodded and started to look through the system for an Ariana Pozza.

"Two adults and three kids?" The girl asked.

Ciara's Mum nodded and the girl took out some neon yellow wrist bands and harnesses and gave them to us. We were directed to go through to our left and set up where we felt comfortable. I wrapped the yellow wrist band around my wrist and followed the other's into a large room. I hadn't really seen all of it upon entering. The rock walls gradually got taller and taller as they wrapped around the room, and I could see a small corridor in the back to the bathrooms and most likely the café as well.

The first six rock walls were for kids under twelve by the looks of their height. The seventh one was a little less than a story high and the rocks were red, orange, and yellow. I looked up at it, feeling slightly uncomfortable even from the ground. I'd never been a massive fan of heights. I could handle them if I knew I was safe, but even on year six camp with my group went to the flying fox I was still a little scared the rope would snap.

I pulled the harness up my legs and tightened it. I was quite small in all directions, so I had to tighten it a fair amount. If the girls at Sacredooka could see how it looked they would have been freaking out. There were a bunch of girls from school that had repeatedly accused me of having an eating disorder, which I did not. But I was bony, short, and had very little muscle, and the only explanation that the girls could ever come up with was anorexia. I had never really liked being thought of as that, mainly because girls would say I was pathetic for doing that to myself. If that was how they treated someone who wasn't anorexic though, I didn't even want to imagine how people with actual eating disorders felt.

There were a few loose bits of the harness dangling down from my waist, but there wasn't anything to tuck them into, so I'd have to deal with it. Ciara offered to spot for Zak as he tried to climb the wall while Dane and Ciara's Mum set up themselves on the eleventh wall.

"I'm going to get higher than both of you," Zak smiled smugly.

"What makes you think that?" Ciara asked as she clipped herself up. "I've got more experience."

"Yes, but I've got more height," Zak smiled at mine and Ciara's glares. "Sorry ladies, this is a sport where height helps."

I rolled my eyes. "Bet you you'll have gotten the lowest."

"Oh, it's on, Flora," Zak smiled and turned to start climbing.

Ciara started to pull on the rope as Zak made his way up the wall. Zak was right about height being helpful, he could reach for rocks that were way out of our reach. Although an issue he hadn't accounted for was that height proportioned out. He struggled to get a grip on a few of the rocks and sometimes it looked like his foot might slip off of them. But he persisted and nearly made it to halfway up, but sadly for him, the rocks were a bit too small for him to be able to latch onto.

Ciara smirked and helped ease him down to the ground. She had been here before and probably other places as well. She had way more experience and had probably already managed to get higher on the wall than Zak had.

"Alright Flo," Ciara held the rope towards me after unclipping it from Zak's harness, "you're up."

I attached myself to the rope and put a little chalk on my hands, helping with the sweat that had started to form. I took a deep breath and looked up at the wall. It looked a lot taller and way more daunting now that I had to climb it. But there was no way I was going to let Zak be right. I had to get at least up to halfway or higher.

I stepped onto the lowest rock and pushed myself up to grab onto one of the higher ones. I had seen Zak's approach of pulling himself up and then stepping, but I did not have the confidence to even try that. So instead, I chose to standard step and grab strategy. It was my first-time rock climbing and I felt more afraid than I'd like to admit.

I managed to get what looked like a metre or so off the ground when I started to feel really anxious. But I knew for a fact that I still had a bit to go before I reached halfway. So, I grit my teeth and pushed myself up on shaking legs.

"Come on Flo!" Ciara called out.

I took a deep shaky breath before I dared continue any higher. It felt like I had been up there for ten minutes, but in reality, I knew it was probably only three or four. I started to use my arms to pull myself higher when the rocks began to be too high for me to step onto. I almost got up to where Zak was when a real problem occurred. The rocks were too high for me too step onto, and there were no rock's close enough for me to grab onto.

I reached to the closest rock on my right, but it was centimetres out of my reached. I didn't need to look down to know Zak was wearing a smug smile. I bit my lip, unsure of what I needed to do to get higher. Ciara was only a little taller than me and also wouldn't be able to reach this rock, but she had definitely made it higher. I just needed to think of what she would do to get there.

I thought it over and I couldn't quite figure it out, until I thought back to the things I'd done in my dreams. And even in real life. The bin stunt, climbing onto the Hungry Jack's, climbing out of a rip in the ground. It could all be applied to rock climbing. But those were when my adrenaline was running high, and my fight or flight instincts had kicked in. This wasn't a particularly dangerous situation. I had to think of how exactly I'd done those things. They had all required an amount of agility I didn't know I possessed. I wasn't even entirely sure if it was just my dreams that gave me that. But I'd jumped onto those bins before the dreams. I could do this.

I looked to my left and saw a rock, lower than the ones on my right but still a little too high for me to step onto without stretching myself into a painful position. But if I didn't step, I didn't have to be in such a position at all. I thought back to the Hungry Jack's, and how it almost threw me off the building, but I'd used the momentum to swing right back onto the roof. It was risky, but Ciara was holding the rope and this time, there was no chance of injury.

Carefully, I tried to pull myself up using my arms a few times to get them used to doing so. This would be a big one. I moved my right leg to where my left leg had been and left the other one dangling.

"Flora just give up already," I heard Zak shout. "There is no way you can get any higher!"

No. I smiled at the thought of Zak watching as I pulled this trick off. He was not going to the satisfaction of me giving up before I got higher than him. So, I bent my knee and straightened my arms. Taking another deep breath, I quickly pulled myself up and jumped at the same time, swinging my legs forward and dropping them onto two rocks. I lifted my left arm to grab a higher rock and used it to pull myself up and out of the horizontal position.

"Woohoo!" I heard Ciara cheer. "Go Flora!"

From then on, it was quite easy to make it too halfway. I even climbed a little higher, just to annoy Zak. I leant back on the ropes and gave Ciara a thumbs up. She started to slowly bring me down and I let out a shaky sigh of relief.

When I made it to the ground, I gave Ciara a high five. Zak looked mildly frustrated, but I just smiled at him and held out my hand.

"Hey, it was a struggle," I said.

He rolled his eyes. "I suppose you deserve it for that stunt you pulled," he let a smile form on his face. "I didn't think you had it in you."

"I'm full of surprises."

"You bet," Ciara joined in, unclipping herself. "Where'd you learn how to do that?"

Shit. Think of something fast. "I um," I racked my brain for any sort of realistic answer, "I don't know. I just really wanted to get higher than Zak."

I hoped that would satisfy Ciara, but she narrowed her eyes a little bit, looking at me with newfound interest.

"So, it was almost, instinctual?" she asked, a hint of excitement and curiosity in her voice.

"Yeah, I guess," I smiled and clipped myself to spot for her as she climbed.

I had been right; she navigated the bottom half of the wall with ease. An ease I was envious of. I had seen her trip over quite a few times, mainly because other people didn't notice her or her own lack of coordination. So, clearly navigating the ground wasn't something she was good at but climbing a wall with so much skill that reminded me of Spiderman was something she was good at. It was once she reached where I had struggled that she paused. I held the rope tightly and watched as she worked out what the best strategy was.

Eventually, she made her choice. I was slightly shocked by it, but thoroughly impressed at the same time. She went for a different approach to mine, and instead of swinging to get her feet higher, she jumped and grabbed onto some rocks, using her whole body to stop from falling off. I glanced over and saw Zak's jaw had hit the ground in shock. In the span of maybe ten minutes, he had watched both of his best friends pull crazy stunts to get higher. I was quite happy with that fact.

I continued to pull the rope as Ciara climbed, but she was doing at almost too quickly for me to keep up with her. She was surprisingly speedy and after making it most of the way up she started to struggle, the rock's being a bit small for even her to hold. But she powered through and made it to the top of the wall.

Zak started clapping in astonishment and I stood with my mouth ajar in awe at how well she had done. Looked like she was almost as full of surprises as I was. I brought her back down to the ground and gave her a massive high five. For making it up the whole wall, she definitely deserved it.

We tried a few other walls before Ciara's Mum told us it was time for lunch. We all went into the café area and sat us down at a table next to the windows.

"So, what would you guys like?" Ciara's Mum asked. "Sandwich, pie, sausage roll, quiche, wrap, salad?"

I thought about it. Everything sounded nice, but I wasn't entirely sure which one seemed nicer. I looked at Ciara to see what she answered and hoped it was something I might like as well.

"The cheese and beef pies here are nice," Ciara turned to Zak and me. "I suggest you try them," she winked.

I mentally thanked her for noticing our confusion and went along with it.

"Sure," I nodded to Ciara's Mum, "I'll have what Ciara's having."

Ciara's Mum looked to Zak who nodded as a signal of agreement. She smiled and her and Dane went up to the counter to order. They were there for a few minutes waiting for someone to appear behind the counter. The three of us were left at the table and talked while they waited. After a few seconds Zak left to go to the bathroom.

I glanced out of the window, and something caught my eye. A group of irises in the bush in front of the window. Dedication to friendship. Sticking together through it all. I smiled and glanced at Ciara.