The Cave – The End

To quickly recap: Friends Eve and Sara were rock climbing and stumbled across a large cave with primitive drawings on its walls. A rock slide traps them inside. Having little choice, they go deeper into the cave, hoping to find another exit. The cave system seems to be a mixture of natural and man-made and the further into it they go, the stranger Eve starts acting. Just as Sara thinks they’re getting close to a way out, Eve shoves her off of a ledge into a chasm. Now they must each find their way. But there's something else going on as well . . . and the battle is on between good and evil.

Sara had only taken a few steps down the passage when she experienced a sensation of vertigo. Touching the wall for support, she waited for it to pass.

“Whoa! What was that?”

There was no answer, but she didn’t really expect there to be one. Feeling steadier, she continued onwards. A few more steps brought her to the end of the tunnel where she stopped again, this time in shock. She was back at the beginning, in the chamber where the cave paintings were.

She stumbled a few steps forward in disbelief, then turned to look back the way she’d come. Somehow, she wasn’t surprised to see a blank wall behind her.

Hurry . . .

Sure, now the spirits talked to her. Sara shook off her resentment, filing her questions away for later. She had a job to do, and with any luck it would result in escape from this nightmare. Approaching the paintings, she studied them carefully, looking for clues.

Though crudely rendered, they weren’t the primitive examples of early man that she and Eve had first thought.

“It’s more symbolic,” she murmured. “Yes, here. And here.” She ran her hand over the rough rock. “It’s telling the story the guardians told me.”

Feeling like she was on the verge of something important, she went over the entire wall from start to finish.

Reaching the end of the last painting, Sara frowned. Something was missing. The story wasn’t complete. The answer she was hoping for wasn’t here. With a dispirited sigh, she stepped back from the paintings. Maybe the answer she was looking for was in one of the murals.

“Wait, wait,” Sara said aloud. “I just remembered something.”

She hurried to the back of the cave where the passage to the chamber with the mosaics was, but this time she took the right-hand passage. A few feet along she came to what she was looking for.

“Do you know what this says?” she asked the spirits, running her hand over the writing that had been left on the wall.

The spiral is the . . .

“The spiral is the what?” Sara asked impatiently.

That is all. The message is unfinished.

“Damnit! Okay, can you tell me who wrote it? Was it your leader, Maali?”

Yes . . .

“The spiral is the what?” Sara repeated, frustrated.

We do not know . . .

Unfinished paintings, unfinished messages, this just kept getting better and better. She could only hope that the answer lay with the murals. Filled with trepidation, she retraced her way back to the middle passage, and then on to the cave with the mosaics.

Eve was so focused on what she was doing she didn’t even notice Sara entering the mosaic chamber. Or maybe, Sara thought, Eve was just ignoring her. Well, two could play that game. Ignoring Eve repairing the abstract mural, Sara concentrated on the other one.

Like the paintings, it seemed to portray the story of the battle between good and evil, and the guardians trapping themselves in the cave system with the evil entity. At least she thought that’s what the cluster of black stones represented.

The bottom left corner wasn’t quite finished. Sara peered closer at it. Or was it? It showed work being done on both murals. There was the spiral, only it was different. She glanced upwards and almost gasped as she saw a spiral hidden within the mural. But there was a stone missing.

Keystone . . .

This voice was different from the other guardians.

“Who—Maali? Is that you?” Could the spirit of the guardian leader have survived? Sara almost snorted at herself. It would be no stranger than any of this.

Turn the key in the lock . . .

“I don’t—” Sara frowned, and then looked closer at what the figure in the mural was holding. “Of course,” she murmured.

With a glance at Eve to make sure she was still occupied, Sara began digging through the loose dirt at the base of the mural. She uncovered many stones, but none was the right one. Of course it couldn’t be that easy, she thought.

Slowly, trying not to draw attention to herself, she crossed over to the wall with the abstract mural. Eve’s head whipped around.

“Stay away!”

Sara held up her hands in a placating gesture. “I only want to look. Maybe you’d like some help with what you’re doing?”

“I will kill you if you touch my mural.”

“I swear,” Sara said. “No touching.”

Eve went back to what she was doing. It looked like she was almost finished. Sara moved as close as she dared and scanned the dirt at the base of this mural. She almost gave up, but then Eve shifted her position. Her foot scuffed the dirt and uncovered something that glinted in the light.

Sara held her breath, but Eve didn’t seem to notice what was right under her feet.

“Keystone, keystone, now I need a keystone,” Eve chanted in a sing-song voice. She turned to the pack a few feet away.

The second Eve moved away, Sara darted towards the keystone. Scooping it up, she ran back to her mural.

“No!” Eve shrieked. She tackled Sara from behind and they hit the ground hard. The stone flew from Sara’s hand.

Crawling over Sara, Eve reached for the stone. Sara rolled, taking her with her. Eve was like a wild thing – punching and clawing and biting. She managed a lucky punch to the side of Sara’s head and as Sara lay there, half-stunned, Eve grabbed up the keystone and scrambled towards the abstract mural.

Sara gained her feet, glancing around for a weapon of some kind. Grabbing up the pack still half filled with stones, she swung it with all her might, hitting Eve in the head just as she was about to fit the keystone into the center of her spiral.

Eve dropped, still clutching the stone. Sara pried it out of her hand and raced back to the spiral in the other mural.

“Here goes nothing,” she said, and fit the stone into the space in the center of the spiral. Nothing happened. Eve stirred behind her.

Turn the key . . .

“Of course!” Sara turned the stone. There was a peal, like a bell, and a brilliant flash of light.

* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *

Eve was the first to stir. She yawned and rubbed at her eyes, then checked her watch. “Holy crap! Hey, Sara. Wake up.”

“Ow! Did you just kick me?”

“We were only supposed to take a break, looks like we fell asleep.”

Sara struggled awake. She’d been slumped down beside a boulder. “We fell asleep?” she asked.

Eve laughed. “We sure did. It’s almost suppertime, we’d better start back before they send the forest rangers after us.”

Sara stretched, then froze as the memory of what they’d been through came flooding back. She glanced at Eve, who was standing now, stretching, perfectly normal. She glanced towards where the fissure had been in the rock, but there was no sign of it. It had felt so real, she couldn’t believe it had all been a dream.

As she started to get to her feet she realized she was holding something in her hand. She unclenched her fingers – it was the keystone.

Thank you . . .

The words were lost in the whisper of the wind.

* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *

Missed an installment? Catch up here: Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five, Part Six, Part Seven, Part Eight,  Part Nine, Part Ten, Part Eleven, Part Twelve, Part Thirteen, Part Fourteen, Part Fifteen, Part Sixteen, Part Seventeen, Part Eighteen, Part Nineteen