The Cave

After getting turned around in a cave that seems very much alive can a spelunker get out with his life?

He stumbled over yet another rock.

He had been more than five miles into this damn cave when the batteries in his flashlight started to give out. The light, his only lifeline, began flickering, causing him to lose sight for short moments, seeming to blink with him.

Another five miles in and the batteries went out completely, causing his very first unpleasant encounter with the pebbly, jagged ground beneath him. This was more than he wanted to know of the earth beneath his feet – the stale, salty taste of the rocks (and god only knows what else) churned his stomach.

That had been his sign to turn back and he followed it, going back to where he remembered leaving the sun in exchange for this eternal darkness.

Unwilling to stumble again he opted for crawling on the ground like an animal.

He could not see his hands as he crawled over the ridged and uneven earth. Now he knew how the blind felt. The rough ground tore up his hands and knees, leaving flesh and blood behind – dinner for whatever carnivorous creatures called this home.

The lessening smell of sulfur and ash led him out of the cave’s depths and nearer to the constant sound of the river, something he had earlier taken for granted, but thankfully not ignored; this simple sound gave him hope that he would not die here.

He followed the sound, water splashing on the hard calcium and lime as it rushed from the waterfall he had camped at the night before though it seemed like it had been weeks before.

The sound got louder; he was getting closer; he could already feel the cold wind he had cursed the night before, yet longed to feel now.

The ground was starting to level off now and the pain lessened as he felt something smooth and cool on his bleeding, aching hands; this was sand, he remembered it from the first three miles in.

He crawled faster; he wanted out, to never again be apart of the night.

Next he came upon a large patch of grass cold and wet.

How such sweet grass had come to dwell within this desolate place was beyond him, but it was not something he would even attempt to fathom as he struggled with his escape.

Not as he had hoped, the sun had gone to rest in this part of the world and, the moon, though bright and full, did little to relieve the prison’s haunting darkness as he climbed over the hardened stalactite wall that nature had long ago erected in a valiant attempt to erase something so unnatural and hellish.

The sharp points jabbed at his already severely wounded body drawing more blood, as he finally rolled off to freedom.

That was this cursed place’s intent - The tyrant of a world more powerful than human hands, to keep its’ victims; those like him, who had been fortunate enough to escape (though that was undoubtedly few) and those who found their only companions to be carnivorous animals, no one knew to exist. And the bones, accumulating from nowhere, filled the core of this hellish chasm.

This living rock somehow filled itself and now, these nameless bodies found themselves in its’ heart, its pit, melded together in mass graves to endure the unending night.

Somehow as he ran for dear life a deep, daunting laugh shook the ground beneath him, emanating from a blindingly dead world…

Author's Note

Ignore grammar problems please

Reviews

[Skelasoldier]

Interresting short story.....you could turn this into a book if you wanted to, love the choice of words you use and the imagery displayed, keep up the excellent work :D