Darkness Dissolves When the Door Opens

The HFW

A few miles had passed inside the quiet, yet very loud truck full of bloodied people. Himari touched Jules’ shoulder and revealed a little souvenir she took from the Cathedral. It was the key to the dungeon’s cells, and one for the dungeon’s main door.

The tape player on the truck sang the newest American country song, which wasn’t familiar for all six of them. The song was full of spirit, and some of the locals even hummed along with the melody. Jules and the others on the other hand, just tried to sleep. They closed their eyes, hugging their own bodies, jerked right and left, stumbled upon each other, but nothing made them sleep. 

The journey was very long. They passed mountains after mountains, taking dirt roads after dirt roads, almost crashing to the small gutter on the side of the crops field almost every time. No Japanese truck or checkpoint all the way until their destination, though.

The road ended up in the middle of a rainforest, plastered from the outside world, chambered, kept. The shades from the trees hid the already blending cave from aerial views.

The trucks stopped at one random part of the jungle. Crests of hills created an enchanting background to the place, but the mysterious cave in the middle of it all added a strange, creepy aesthetic presentation for the panorama.

The sun was rising. The sunlight barely scratched the ground, shadowed by the towering trees and hills.

“Go down,” said the resistance leader while he helped an injured man. 

Everyone got down, stepping on the thousands of brown leaves on the ground. The smell was fresh, natural, alive. 

The cave in the middle of it was probably twenty meters in width. It looked like a literal cave with nothing but bat shits inside.

Jules helped Himari down. The seven of them followed the resistance leader toward the cave. Jules didn’t ask a single thing about the place. Instead, he asked this:

“What’s your name?”

The man grumbled. He answered the question several seconds later. “Why asking?”

“Just curious, you know.”

He didn’t. He walked faster and entered the damp cave first. The other resistances were hauling down crates and supplies from the Cathedral.

One of the men, who walked aside him, fused his match and lighted the big torch and handed it to him. The stalactites and stalagmites formed on the roof and from the ground, stabbing the very humid air. As expected, the ceiling of the cave was covered with sleeping bats, but they were not awakened by the loud steps of dozens of men walking here and there and making loud echoes everywhere.

“There’s a lot of activities here,” Hal said. “The bats are used to it.”

They proceeded until they were probably two hundred meters from the entrance. The air was really thin and the smell got worse and worse every inch of their footsteps, but the resistance leader suddenly halted. He stared at one particular wall, which was just a normal wall behind two align stalagmites

The resistance leader reached for the left stalagmite.

“Is he pressing something?” Blake asked.

And no one needed to ask him because twenty seconds later, the wall moved. The ground trembled like an occurring earthquake. Gravels shook left and right and hit their knees. One large piece of the wall was removed from its previous area, revealing the dark, gloomy passageway toward the blackness. It was so dark that even the torch’s fire was defeated by the pitch black air looking like bleak steam.