Lonely Animals

Chapter V: In Death's Own Words

Thirty minutes had passed, with little incident, but we had not reached anywhere. The markers were gone. We looked everywhere, went down every passage. All gone. It was as if the cave did not wish for our return to the surface. Along the way, we had discovered a singular line scratched into the rock in every single chamber and passageway. As there was no other way to go, we followed them, wherever they led. A little while later, we saw it. We were still following the line of symbols in the rock, as if we were dogs following their owner. However, we did not know who our owner was. Yet. I crouched through a small entryway into a larger chamber. Like the smaller chamber earlier, its epicentre was a pool. However, something was off about this pool. I walked towards it, as there was no other way to go. I looked around. Gargantuan stalactites hung from the roof of the chamber. All around, I saw that same stream of symbols- lines, squares, all running across each other. The chamber’s walls gave way to several other, larger passages which, presumably, led deeper into the earth. Staring into one of the dark passageways, I saw it. A sleek, bony figure, almost blending into the darkness. Eli and Jones stood, stunned. It chittered, almost like a bat. Almost. “H-h-hello?” I called. The figure chittered again, and stepped out of the shadows. All the faces in the room were aghast, except the figures’. It turned towards me. I did not meet its gaze, for it had no gaze. It had no face. The only identifiable feature was some sort of mouth, circular in nature, filled with rows upon rows of razor-sharp teeth. It was as if its teeth had teeth. Above that, bleached skin and fur. Its fingers, in all their bony, pale shade, each gave way to a jagged, threatening claw. It screeched. It was the same screech that I had heard in the dream, that the others had heard in the cave, the one that lurked in our waking minds, draining every ounce of sanity. I ran. I ran as far and as fast as possible. I just had to get away from that chamber. Get out of this cave. Get out. The initial screech soon gave way to several, more aggressive and longer-lasting screeches. More were coming. More of those… those indescribable, vile beings that should not have been. I did not hear Eli, or Jones, or anyone else that I could recognise. I saw one shred, one tear of orange. It was a marker. The remnant of a marker. Anything that my mind could cling to that was familiar, was a good sign. If the marker remnant was here, then the rope must be somewhere nearby. A passageway. I rushed into it as the caterwauling got closer. Light! After this time in the dark, my eyes struck light. A ray of familiarity in the dark. The rope was hanging from above. No time to think about the others. I heaved myself up. Grasping the rope, holding on to all that I held dear in life. The inhuman crowd behind me was howling madly, scratching and crying out to my traumatised sensory organs. The light. The sky. So close now. So close. With a final push, I heaved myself up, and landed in the endless fields. My hands were raw and bloodied, but it did not matter. As long as my legs were in working condition, I would not stop moving. I sprinted through the fields, the sunlight showing my darkened eyes shades of purple and green. I kept running, carelessly, with only one sense of direction- away. Away from that cave of nightmares, those inhuman screams. Soon, my legs failed me. I gasped for air, my lungs being free from the torture that they had just faced. I gasped, and I gasped for that sweet, life-giving combination of gases. I fell to my knees, which were now too tired to shake. As my vision faded, my ears went through one last phase of torture- the third degree. The screeches and screams bolted through my mind one last time, then black.

Now, as I lay in this white, sterile bed, I cease to think straight. I feel sickened, chained to a wall. The wall; the experience, the chains; smelted fear. I cannot live without leaving behind some remnant, some account of the abysmal monstrosities that lurk beneath the grounds that man claims to be his own. If there is one last thing that I wish to leave, it is the ill-placed hope that no one else sees these caves with squares and lines, that no one else hears the screeching, and that no one else. Encounters. Those Lonely Animals.

                               -Fin-