The Cave – Part Six

To quickly recap: Friends Eve and Sara were rock climbing and stumbled across a fissure in the rocks. They checked inside and discovered a large cave with primitive drawings on its walls. As they venture deeper inside there’s a tremor, causing a cave in that traps them inside.

Having little choice, they go further into the cave, hoping to find another way out. They come to another chamber, this one with mosaics embedded in the walls, and then find themselves following a ledge alongside a chasm. With little food and water remaining, things aren’t looking good for the pair.

Sara hadn’t felt thirsty before, but now that she knew their water supply was almost gone, she felt a raging thirst.

The two women were exhausted, and stretched out as best they could to try and get some sleep. This time, however, they left the light on, but turned it down as low as they could make it without turning it off.

Sara slept fitfully, awareness of their lack of water, the desperateness of their situation, keeping her from relaxing fully. But at some point she must have dropped off for a bit because she woke with a start to find herself alone in the chamber.

“Eve?” she called, scrambling to her feet. “Eve? Where are you?”

Her heart was pounding, and she took deep breaths to keep from panicking. The situation was enough without adding panic to it.

“Eve?” she called again. Where could she have gone? It didn’t seem likely she’d have gone back, but why would she go forward alone?

“Eve, where are you?”

Sara turned up the brightness of her light and played it over the arched opening they’d entered through, and then in the opposite direction to the opening beyond.

“Eve? Talk to me?”

What if she’d gone forward and gotten hurt? Or worse, gone back and fallen off the ledge?

“Eve!” Sara called out, a little more sharply than she intended.

“Oh, stop your caterwauling,” Eve said, emerging from the dark tunnel ahead. “I’m right here.”

Sara wanted to chide her for her thoughtlessness, but bit back the angry words. “You had me worried,” she said instead.

“For crying out loud, I was only gone a minute or two. I was checking ahead a bit.”

“Did you find anything?”

“Not really,” Eve said with a shrug. “If you’re done with your hissy fit, we should get going.”

She turned and led the way into the passage. Sara stared at her back, filled with misgivings. Something was happening to Eve and it wasn’t anything good. It had started in the cave with the mosaics. Something more than just being mesmerized by the mural. What Sara couldn’t figure out was why she wasn’t affected.

No, that wasn’t true. It had affected her too. She’d felt the pull of it but instead of filling her with awe, it had filled her with fear. Deep down in her bones she felt it was evil. She thought Eve would get better the further she was from it, but that didn’t turn out to be the case. And now she had a new concern.

“Hey, Eve. Can we stop for a minute? My sock has slid right down into my boot.”

“No,” Eve said, not even pausing.

“C’mon Eve, I don’t want to get a blister.”

“Not my problem. You wanna stop, you stop. I’m not waiting.”

Cursing under her breath, Sara stopped and switched on her own light so she could see. She couldn’t risk a blister, especially if it became infected.

“You couldn’t pick something mundane, like a walk in the park, could you?” she muttered as she unlaced her boot. “No, you had to go hiking at Spirit Rock.”

She fixed her sock and retied her boot as quickly as possible, then half-jogged down the passage to catch up with Eve.

It took her several minutes, fear rising in her with every step, before she caught up with Eve, who was standing in a more natural looking cave that had several exits.

“Great,” Sara said, slightly out of breath. “More choices.”

“Life is full of choices,” Eve murmured.

Sara felt a shiver go up her spine. “Tell me, Eve,” she said.

Eve looked at her without interest.

“If I hadn’t caught up with you before you decided which way to go, would you have waited for me?”

“I guess we’ll never know,” Eve said with a thin smile. “You seem to like making decisions, which way should we go?”

Ignoring her misgivings, Sara stepped closer to the openings. She was positive she could feel a faint current of air from one of them.

“This one,” she said.

The current of air became stronger as they continued on, but Sara didn’t say anything about it. She didn’t want to get her hopes up, nor did she want to set Eve off. She stumbled, the footing becoming rougher. “Look,” she said, casting her light downwards. “The floor is littered with crystals like the ones in the mosaic.”

Eve was already on her knees, gathering up as many as she could, stuffing them in her pack. “Mine,” she muttered. “All mine.”

“You’re just going to weigh yourself down,” Sara said. The stones made her feel uneasy though she couldn’t have said why.

Eve looked up at her, a strange light in her eyes. “Mine.”

“Fine,” Sara said, backing away a bit. “Look, there’s an opening just ahead. I’m going to check it out.”

Eve made no reply. Shaking her head, Sara stepped through the opening and found herself on another ledge. But this time she didn’t get the same sense of space, and there was definitely a cool breeze.

“Hey, Eve. I think we’re close to a way out. Why don’t you leave those rocks – we can always come back for them.”

Suddenly, there was a tremendous shove from behind her. Sara didn’t even have a chance to scream as she fell.

“Oops. What a shame,” Eve said with a snicker.