Going into the dark pit, all-concealing fog, or Negative Space Wedgie? Good thing they clipped on this tether, wait, why's it going slack? Where's the other end of the line!?
This typically functions as Foreshadowing, allowing the (surviving) characters to get an idea of how dangerous the unknown is without giving them too much information.
Compare Horse Returns Without Rider. Contrast Cut the Safety Rope, which is when a tethered person cuts the line themselves to save others (or themselves), and Ankle Drag for another way to foreshadow a threat. Often employed in a Monster Delay, might imply Nothing Is Scarier.
Examples:
Film
- In The Mist after the mist descends the group in the grocery store sends a man out with a cord tied to his waist. Something grabs him and tries dragging the line upwards but the group manages to yank it back, covered in blood.
Literature
- In the first chapter of the Galactic Consul cycle by Evgeny Filenko, the protagonist's space freighter suffers a malfunction while in hyperspace, so the captain has to send one of his two mates out onto the hull to perform emergency repairs. The protagonist, being the other mate, secures his colleague with a flexible steel tether from inside the airlock, communicating via timed tugs... before the rope is mysteriously cut in the middle, leaving the first mate adrift in hyperspace.
Live Action TV
- Stargate SG-1: In "The Torment of Tantalus" the military in 1945 managed to manually dial the gate and then sent someone through wearing a diving suit, but then the gate closed on his air hose and they shelved it for decades. Subverted when SG-1 goes to the planet (without tethers, as usual) and finds the guy still alive, if a bit nutty from 50 years of isolation.
- Stranger Things: In "The Body", Hawkins Lab sends scientist Shepard into the Upside Down via the gate, with him wearing a hazmat suit and attached to a cable. Through the radio, Shepard states that there's something else in the Upside Down, and frantically tells them to pull him back in. However, the monster gets Shepard before they're able to rescue him, and by the time they're able to reel the cable back in, nothing is attached to it except a bloodied piece of his hazmat suit.
- In WandaVision S.W.O.R.D. tries sending an agent into Westview through the sewers, wearing a hazmat suit and trailing a tether. Crossing the Hex causes his suit to turn into a beekeeper's suit and the tether to detach and get reeled back as a kid's jumprope.
Tabletop Games
- Call of Cthulhu supplement Terror from the Stars, adventure "The Pits of Bendal Dolum". In one of the buildings is a hole with a tunnel leading down to an underground chamber. If an investigator is brave enough to climb down a rope to the chamber, a large monster will fly by and swallow them. This leaves only the slime-covered sliced-off end of the rope for the investigator's companions to pull back up.
Video Games
- Persona 4: When the protagonist, Yosuke, and Chie decide to make their first actual trip into the TV world, Yosuke has a rope tied around his waist and has Chie hold onto it from the other side of the television. The rope snaps within seconds of the two boys entering the TV.
Web Original
- Bedtime Stories (YouTube Channel): This happens often when it comes to mysterious disappearances or missing persons cases. These are just two of the more prominent examples.
- In "Secrets of Celle Neues Rathaus", two US Navy divers sent to investigate the titular building's flooded basement never return to the surface, and all that's left of them are their tether lines. Given what the Nazis were doing there, it's very likely they were killed.
- In "There is Something in the Woods", Eric Lewis, a hiker climbing Mount Rainier with two other men, was the last in line to be tethered to a safety harness, as they were exploring the mountain during a harsh snowstorm. When his two companions made it through to safety, they were puzzled when Eric didn't appear, despite having caught glimpses of him only seconds prior. When they get to his last known location, all they find is a cut tether, with his footprints just disappearing not too far. Later searches find his backpack and a snow shovel, but as for the man himself, there was no trace.
- Inverted in the SCP Foundation story Audio/Telemetry Log Epsilon-12-1555
. The tether is never broken; however, it extends far beyond its original length as a symptom of the eldritch nature of SCP-1555's inner workings, and when the last survivor attempts to follow it back out, it leads straight into a tiny hole in a wall.
- Ben 10: Alien Force: Ben is sent into the Null Void with a high-tech tether that is supposedly indestructible. Ben reaches the end of the tether as soon as he encounters the episode's villain, resulting in him snapping it himself and leaving Gwen and Kevin to reel in the frayed remains with no information on what's happened to him.
- A variant in the Rugrats episode, "The Wild Wild West". Tommy, Chuckie, and Susie pretend to be cowboys and a cowgirl as they pursue Angelica to retrieve stolen ice cream coupons from her. At one point, Chuckie worries about separating from Tommy and Susie, so Susie pulls Chuckie's shoelaces out of his shoes and ties them together to use as a rope so they can stay together. Unbeknownst to the trio, Angelica hides behind a tree and uses her Cynthia safety scissors to cut the shoelace, causing Chuckie to get separated from Tommy and Susie.
Real Life
- The Greek story of the Cylonian Affair goes that people who participated in a coup attempt in Athens sought asylum in Athena's temple. Once a fair trial was promised to them, they tied a rope to the altar and went while holding it. Then, the rope broke by itself, which was taken to be a sign of the goddess revoking her protection, and the guys were Torn Apart by the Mob (A more prosaic variant simply speaks of them being killed without a trial as soon as they exited the temple). In any case, it is said that Athena did show some signs of major displeasure, leading to the entire city needing to be cleansed. The chief perpetrator was banished, and his family was considered tainted for centuries after.
