Chapter 18* What I didn’t Expect
The air is dank and moist, the crushing silence pressing into me, making me feel like I was trapped. Sweat beads on every inch of exposed skin, and I felt like I was back in that bog, unable to breath or make a sound. Next to me, Sam’s breath hitches sometimes. He is obviously experiencing the same claustrophobia as I am.
“Do you think he is in this mountain?” I whisper to Sam.
“Truthfully? No.”
“Then we should get out of here.”
“The map says they’re all connected. We just have to keep going.”
I bite down on my protests and continue walking. The ground is rock beneath my feet, a little slippery, so I have to be careful not to fall. The one torch we have is just a feeble beam of light in the oppressing darkness.
An hour passes. Apart from making a few twists and turns, nothing has changed. I am about to suggest we take a rest when I catch sight of an opening, a crevice, in front of us. Just a slit in a solid rock wall.
“Shit,” I swear. “Turn back?”
“Go through,” Sam says firmly. Sighing, I squeeze my body into it, wriggling here and there. But then Sam catches my arm. “What?”
“I’ll go first. There might be snakes or something.” I’m a little touched- okay, maybe a lot- but I just turn my head away and nod, averting his eyes.
“S-Sure. You do that.”
He does, slipping in with some difficulty. The crack is really small. I shine the torch for him, and after a few minutes he manages to struggle his way into the gap.
“Everything alright?”
“Yes,” he replied, his voice a little muffled. “I can’t see anything though. Pass me the torch and the backpack, I’ll shine some light on you.” Pushing the things through the crack, I wait until a beam of light lit up, and proceed to attempt to get my body through. It is a tough fit, but everything is going fine, until I hear a giggle.
“Sam?” I freeze. “Is that you?”
“Me what?”
“Did you laugh?”
“No,” he replies, confused. Goosebumps raise the hair on the nape of my neck and I resume my struggles with renewed energy. When I finally get through, I can’t see a thing, so I lunge blindly in the dark for Sam.
Colliding with a body, I start to relax, thinking that it is Sam, but then I hear Sam’s voice behind me.
“Kayla? Where are you?”
“Ahh!” Letting out a piercing scream, I backtrack, colliding with yet another body. This one is warm and soft, but I still push it roughly away. I hear a grunt.
“What the heck has gotten into you?”
“Sam?” I say nervously. A sigh sounds, one I recognize as Sam’s. Leaping for him, I latch myself onto him and refuse to let go. My back feels so exposed, but his arms wrap around me, soothing my racing nerves a little.
“What’s wrong, Kayla?”
“There’s something there,” I murmur, squeezing my eyes shut. “I hit someone just now.” Sam doesn’t say anything, processing the information, but his body is rigid and stiff.
“Let me get the torch,” he says. Reluctantly, I let go of him, only holding his hand. He fumbles around for the torch and illuminates up the space, shining it at the place where I’d been standing, where there was…
Nothing.
“I don’t understand,” I say, letting go of his hand. “It was right the-”
And then, I heard another giggle. Jumping about fifteen feet into the air, I grab Sam again, fear pounding through me like a poison.
“Did you hear that?”
“Hear what?” Sam says, a little frustrated.
“The giggle!”
“What giggle? Look, Kayla, I don’t know why, but you’re hallucinating, okay? Let’s just move on.”
“Fine,” I grumble, letting go of his hand roughly and grabbing the backpack. We make our way forward in the darkness, with nothing but that flimsy bit of light to guide us.
Finally, we reach another dark opening. The smell of ammonia is so strong it threatens to push me over, ammonia from bat droppings. They were abundant in this cave. Nearer to the entrance, the floor was ammonia free, but now, I am almost ankle deep in bat shit. It is- without comparison- the most disgusting thing I have ever experienced in my whole life.
And it only got better. The dark opening reaches up to my knees, and we have to crawl in order to get through. With a grunt, I volunteer to go first, but Sam, as usual, takes my place. He gets down on his hands and knees, and slides gracefully through the gap. I hear a grunt, then nothing. Pushing the backpack through, I stick one leg through and find it hanging in midair.
Probably just a ledge, I thought. Sam probably fell and was somewhere down at the bottom. I stick my other leg through and slide, holding my breath.
The moment I am through, I am falling. My first thought is: I’m right. It is a ledge. But are ledges so high that you’re still falling after five seconds?
Instantly, I knew what fate has met Sam. And this time, there is nowhere to run. This time, there is nothing I can do.
And the question of what was waiting down below was such a terrifying prospect I couldn’t even scream.
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