Sorrow filled me, and perhaps the cave could sense my sorrow, but it did not relent. The cave made it clear that I was not welcome in this place.
So be it.
The entry was mere inches above my head, and so narrow that I had merely to breathe deep and stretch my shoulders wide to brush against the walls. As I stepped inside, the rock walls recoiled, expanding the space just a hair. I kept my body close. While I couldn’t avoid violating this sacred space, I had no desire to increase the cave’s discomfort.
“I am sorry,” I murmured. The gust of wind intensified, then faded to the faintest breeze. Perhaps detente.
I kept my lantern dim. The faintest light was sufficient to illuminate this interior. Every photon danced in the sparkling minerals trapped within the rough and uneven walls. Still the rock strained away from me, but the light, never felt by the dark reaches of the cave, filled it with the beginnings of delight. A rumble, coarse and scolding, rained dust and debris down on my head. Do not attempt to woo me, the cave whispered with every shudder.
“I must use this light to find my way,” I replied.
The rumble faded, and the glimmering of the walls around me seemed to flash and shine. I stepped deeper into the cave.
Here and there, water escaped captivity in the mountain above me and burst forth in determined droplets, reaching cautiously down and then letting go, plummeting into the embrace of the smooth rock floor. Each drop tapped a message to me, but I was not yet able to decipher their code.
Perhaps if I had, things would have gone differently.
After a time, the glimmering of the rock walls dulled. The droplets faded behind me, tapping only to themselves. The breath of the cave was but the faintest whisper, hardly able to dislodge a single strand of my hair. And the walls of the cave pulled in tight ahead of me, huddled so close together that they would not, could not let me through.
“Here, now,” I said. “You know this is where I need to go.”
Stony silence met my words. I extinguished my lamp, and through the narrow crevasse before me I could see just the faintest glow. It pulsed a sickly green, and here the breeze took on the scent of rancid oil, rotten flesh.
“You don’t have to hold on to this,” I whispered. “I can help you, if you’ll let me.”
From deep within the mountain around me, I could feel more than hear a grinding shriek, rock against rock, bone against bone. The crevasse tightened before me, nearly closing entirely.
I adopted a stern tone, chiding and motherly. “You cannot hide from your problems forever. Let me take this burden from you, before it overwhelms you.”
But what happened next caught me off guard. The light, acid and poison and bile, flashed bright enough to blind me, strong enough to wrap bands around me hold me fast. I could not breath. I could not move. The cave cringed in terror, and I was crushed between its cowering walls. “Fear not,” I gasped. “I can help you.” But my strangled words were too faint to hear over the quaking earth.
(This post is part of the 500 Words short story project.)
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