Estimated reading time — 44 minutes

Now I’m gonna start this saying I’m not the smartest man in the world. I never did well in school, always getting in trouble of one sort or another. I barely graduated and that was only because there was a teacher who saw some glimmer of hope within me and pushed me harder than my own parents. Thanks Mr.Waller. But just because I’m not the brightest bulb in the drawer doesn’t mean I’m crazy as some people have decided I am. They look at me and whisper in each other’s ears as I walk by. Kids laugh and point as I walk past calling me Cal the Crawler or just the Crawler. I don’t care what they call me, I know what I saw, it will never ever leave my memory for as long as I live. As I lay on my deathbed, which I think is closer than I would like it to be, I will remember the scraping of the walls, the heat emanating from them and burrowing its way into my skin, and the scene before me when I reached the end of that godforsaken chamber. That will be the last thing I see before Death wraps his gnarled fingers around my neck and chokes out my last breath. As so let me start from the beginning and recant my tale before the cloaked bastard is at the foot of my bed.

Like I said I was never booksmart but I had a knack for things with my hands. I gravitated towards construction once I had left the hallowed halls of Shaleville Regional High. I had a bigger build, burly but fat. I could have played for the football team as a pretty damn good linebacker if I had listened to Coach Hensen back then. Maybe it would have changed my trajectory in life, got me scouted by one of those college coaches with a full scholarship and got me out of this dead end town. I can’t change what I didn’t do back then but the possibilities still haunt me. If I hadn’t joined Grady’s construction team I wouldn’t have been there when we found the opening, I wouldn’t have followed James inside looking for god knows what back then. But I did, and I can’t take that fact back now, no matter how much I want to.

I applied right out of school to learn to be a carpenter, so I could get out of the house, be busy and earn some money to live on my own. Hell knows that my old man wanted me out of the house as soon as possible. I reminded him too much of my mother, her soft blue eyes reflected in my face, the pain unearthed every time he looked at me. That should have never been a burden I had to deal with but life is cruel and sometimes people are crueler. The scars on my back and years of bruises can attest to that but that is besides the point.

It was Mr. Waller who actually helped me get the job. The old man was neighbors with Grady and had a pretty good relationship with him, they played cards every Sunday after church while their wives gossiped. I think Waller buttered him up about me, telling him about how I had it rough and I was a sweet kid that needed a break. It didn’t take much for me to get hired with Grady, a preliminary interview and I was in. He practically took me under his wing, teaching me everything I needed to know himself, signing me up and footing the bill for classes while making me his apprentice.

I was soaring, for the first time in my life I felt like I finally belonged somewhere. I did really well in my carpentry classes, something about building stuff really clicked in my brain. Soon I was right alongside Grady out on the job. I loved it. I finally found my thing, I wasn’t the dumbass kid sitting in remedial algebra for the second time, I was head of the class. It was great and life was good for a few years. I managed to scrape up enough money to get a shitty one bedroom apartment on the outskirts of town but it was mine and I felt safe, away from my father. I quickly climbed the ranks with Grady and in two years I had a whole team below me. Things were looking up. It wasn’t until the park job I realized that I had had it easy before. Things were about to get a lot worse and change me forever.

It was winter, December. I can remember the Christmas lights decorating the Main Street of town while we drove through towards the new job. Grady had called the night before, told me that me and my team would be starting on this project starting today. He explained that we would be in charge of renovations of some of the cabins within the Greyveil park. I guess the park was trying to distance itself from some of the more unsavory things that had happened within its woods over the past 30 years by redoing some of the cabins in preparation for spring and summer. Everyone knew that the forest had a bad reputation, ask any local. They would fill your head with the tales of the serial killer who kidnapped and killed women in a secluded grove or the several couples that had gone hiking and disappeared. They managed to find one of the victims in a terrible state a few years back but the others were still gone without a trace. Either way a job is a job and I was not worried about any ghosts or ghouls lurking around while we were there. It wasn’t the ghosts I should have been looking for. It was the place itself that was cursed, the forest, the soil, something had long rotted under that place and polluted everything else.

We arrived early in the morning to the park and the rangers directed us towards the old and rotting cabins that had been waiting in disrepair for the last two decades. It was a secluded part of the woods, off the beaten path a bit but I guess that’s why we were there. Part of the job was to make new paths from the well marked trails to the cabins. The job should have taken a few months, weather permitting, we were in the dead of winter and snow was a constant. An hour or so of setups from the trucks and we were ready to inspect what lay before us. When I say these cabins were in rough shape it’s not an exaggeration. Most of the foundation and wooden exterior had rotted away, leaving large holes in the roof or the walls of the structure. We would have been better to have just started from scratch and built a whole new cabin but the park wanted to “preserve the authentic look” by using whatever crap we could salvage from the old place. It was easier to just nod my head and try and do whatever the client wanted than arguing because they were always going to find something that they didn’t like and make you redo it.

There were five small cabins arranged in a semi circle around a large central fire pit. A good amount of work to be done before came and only a few months to do it. After the first sweep through of the cabins we started doing what we could with what we had that day. Pulling down the rotted boards, salvaging the good wood and taking note of what needed to be bought and taken to the site the next day. The work kept us going like this for a few weeks, slowly but surely we had gotten all of the bad wood out of the cabins and started fixing the foundations of the cabins. Then snow. It was the freak snowstorm that came out of nowhere and dropped like 18 inches on us within two days. We were out of commission for days. The roads alone were terrible to drive on and the city wasn’t prepared for anything of this scale so it took days for the streets to be plowed and for anything to start moving again. I knew it was going to be a shitshow when we got back to the site. We had been using tarps and coverings to keep the new wood out of the elements but there was nothing that was going to save it from this. The cabins were going to be buried in layers of snow and it would take forever before we could get back to them. Sure enough, the sheer amount of snow had done some damage, and that’s what led to the eventual downfall of the team and myself.

We returned a few days after snowmaggedon and assessed the situation at the site. There was pounds of snow packed into cabins through the open roofs. The tarps didn’t do a thing to hold the amount of snow pushed down on them and they eventually were buried inside. Luckily most of the new wood we had acquired was safe, minimal water damage to it but those tarps held strong. I started to look in each cabin to see what needed to be done. Of course all the snow would need to be removed so I started there. Eyeballing each building looking at the volume and that’s when I spotted something weird. It was in the furthest cabin over on the end of the semicircle. The inside of this cabin had the least amount in it, but it was soaked inside. Like something had melted the snow from the inside and let the water run free.

I stepped inside to get a closer look. There was still a bit left inside but it almost looked like a bowl had been carved out of the inside of the powder down to the wooden floor. I pushed my way through and down to inspect the floor at the center of the anomaly. A wave of heat smacked me as I closed in. It was a dry heat like one you would find in the Sahara desert, a suffocating, sweat inducing heat. I bent down and inspected the ground. The floor was bone dry, like no water had ever hit the spot and the closer I brought myself to the ground the greater the heat became. I was covered in sweat now, removing my jacket to make it easier to maneuver.

“Hey! Clea,” I called out. “Bring me the crowbar from the truck.”

A minute later Clea came tramping through the snow with the crowbar with a puzzled look on her face.

Clea had always been a hard worker, she wanted my job more than anything and was jealous that someone 15 years younger had surpassed her that quickly. I couldn’t blame her. She had been working for Grady for the last five years, doing what I was doing, soaking up all the knowledge and hoping to take the next step up. Not to mention she was a single mom with three kids at home who needed to be fed. I guess her husband had died in a car accident a few years before and she was struggling to make ends meet. I fucked her plan up and she hated me for it.

“What the fuck are you doing,” she responded. “Where’s your jacket? It’s like four degrees out.”

I beckoned to her as I bent down to press my ear to the ground. The heat was blistering now, sweat dripped off my face and onto the wood below. There was a sound coming from under the boards. A low hum was emanating from beneath the floor. I grabbed the crowbar from Clea and plunged the pointed side between the boards. With a quick push downward the board cracked up. A blast of heat poured from under the board and hit my face. A drip drip drip could be heard from down below, the sound of the melted snow hitting stone.

“Hand me your light.” I said, reaching towards Clea.

She unhooked the flashlight from her side and tossed it to me. From behind her I heard the crunching feet as Dale and James joined the audience.

Dale was someone you needed on a site like this. He was easy going, been through the works before and this is where he landed. Someone who had a billion stories to tell about his life. Apparently he had left home when he was young, joined the army and did a few tours before bouncing around the world looking for the next big thing. That’s when he met his wife here. They fell madly in love and he settled down. Said he’d been in this town for the better part of the last 25 years and regrets nothing.

James on the other hand was the issue. The “loose cannon” on site. He always needed to be monitored because he got easily distracted. He had that kind of energy a golden retriever has when they haven’t been outside in a few hours, bouncy and prone to knock things over. Bad enough that he loved to pull these stupid little pranks that he thought were hilarious. At the end of the day though he did his job and we needed the hands and couldn’t afford to let him go. It was better than nothing.

“What’s happenin’ boss,” he said through a half closed mouth, a cigarette hanging out of the other side. “Something wrong?”

“I don’t know,” I replied. “Something’s down here, come take a look.”

They gathered around the hole in the floor, staring puzzled at what I unearthed. I looked up at them with the same look. I shined the beam down into the hole. It wasn’t a hole in the ground, it was more like a cave. The slick stone walls looked to be coated in a layer of water, likely from the snow above. The passage was big enough for someone small to fit into but it curved a few feet down and out of site. I pushed myself up from kneeling, careful not to put any pressure on the broken boards.

“All of you stay right here,” I said as I got up from the ground. “I’m gonna call Grady.”

I crunched over the failed snow back to the truck, the bitter cold nipping at my face again. There was a clear difference from standing over the hole in the cabin from outside. It felt like a hot summer day inside, blistering heat pouring from the ground while a few feet away it was freezing again. Something wasn’t right. What could even cause something like that. I’ve heard of underground lava tubes on the discovery channel before but never anywhere around here. That could be the only thing that could be making that much heat.

I opened the truck door and rummaged around in my bag, looking for my phone. With a quick glance back, I could see James pressing his head down close to the opening, imitating sunbathing. I shook my head. James’ antics were not what I needed today, especially if whatever this thing was could be dangerous. My crew always comes first.

“Hey Grady,” I said, putting him on speaker phone as I continued to watch James closely. “We found something really odd in one of the cabins.”

“Damage?” He asked. “We knew there was going to be some dam-“

“No,” I cut him off. “Well, yes but it’s something else. “An opening or something under the furthest cabin, like a cave.

“What?” He replied. “There shouldn’t be anything like that anywhere near there. Those cabins have been there for years with no issues, I have no documentation of a cave or hole under any of the cabins.”

“I know. What if it’s a sink hole?”

All of a sudden a scream cut through the silence of the forest.

I turned around at such speed it should have sent my head spinning. Fuck. I always do this. I pace when I talk on the phone and I stopped watching James. Now looking back at where my crew was I only spotted Clea and Dale staring downward into the hole.

“What was that!” Grady yelled into the phone.

“James,” I gasped. “He fell into it. Send someone out now, I’m gonna try and see if I can get him out.”

I hung up the phone and ran over, my feet getting stuck as I tried to trample over the mounds of snow in my way.

“What happened?” I called out to Dale and Clea.

They turned to me with frightened looks.

“No clue boss,” Dale responded. “I went for another smoke an’ left the two of them here.” He pointed at Clea.

“I went to check my phone,” Clea said. “My kid is sick and home today and I needed to check on her.”

“Fuck!”

I looked down into the hole below. Somehow it looked like it had gotten bigger, which was impossible, there was no way for it to get any bigger without blowing it up. Maybe my mind was playing tricks on me, or the mix of hot and cold was playing with my vision. It didn’t matter. I needed to get James out of there before something worse happened.

I flicked on the light Clea gave me earlier and flashed it into the cave again. It definitely looked bigger, I think I could fit into it now and I was a bigger guy than James was. Weird but James needed to get out of there. I couldn’t see him at the bottom, he must have slipped past the curve.

“James!” I yelled, my voice echoing back to me. “Are you hurt?”

A weak voice replied. “Yeah. My leg. I slipped on the broken boards and fell feet first down the hole. The water on the sides made me slip further in and I smashed my leg.”

I turned around and looked at Clea and Dale.

“I’m gonna go in and get him.” I said, sighing. “Wait up here and pull us out when I grab him.”

I turned back to the cave and called down. “James, I’m coming down to get you!”

I sat down on the wooden floor, scooting towards the edge of the hole like I was getting in a pool. With one swift motion I flipped myself around and swung my feet down so they touched the slick sides of the cave wall. Hanging with only my hands, I slowly lowered myself down into the opening until I couldn’t go any further and let myself drop. Luckily the damp sides of the cave and the way it curved softened my fall of only a few feet and slid me down into the deeper part of the cave where James’ voice was coming from.

“James! Where are you buddy?”

The light illuminated more and more of the cavern as I continued forward. A sloping path that led deeper and deeper downwards into an unknowable place. That’s when I spotted him, laying on the ground, staring up at me with a pained look.

“There you are,” I said with a sigh of relief. He wasn’t too far down into the cave so it shouldn’t be that hard to get him out. “Give me your arms.”

I reached down to grab him. The ceiling of the cavern was tall enough where we could both stand so if I could get James on his good foot we could hobble out of here slowly.

“Thank god,” James said. “I thought I was gonna be stuck down here.”

“As much as I would have loved that,” I replied, chuckling. “Lemme take a look at your leg.”

The cave was hot. I could feel the heat emanating from the stone around us, almost like we were in an oven. There was something else too. The deeper I went the more the walls around us changed in texture. It went from a sleek damp covered rock to almost a moss feeling underneath my feet. The water from the snow above mixed with something on the walls creating a kind of mucus mixture that was dripping from the ceiling and onto my back. It was sticky and didn’t come off easily.

“Yeah about the whole leg thing,” James said with a sly look on his face. “I kinda faked it.”

As soon as the words came out of his mouth I was on top of James, pinning him to the floor. A hot rage boiled inside of my chest, ready to explode at any minute. I grabbed James by the collar of his shirt and thrust him down hard into the stone beneath us.

“WHY THE FUCK WOULD YOU DO THIS,” I roared, the anger rising with each passing second. “WHY THE FUCK WOULD YOU COME DOWN HERE.”

James’ face changed, the light from the flashlight illuminating a thin streak across it. The joy and mischievous energy that was there a moment before fled and what returned was a look of pure terror.

“I wanted to see what was down here man,” he squeaked out. “You would have never let me come down here so I had to think of something.”

I picked him up by the collar again and slammed him back down into the rocks, the breath leaving him as he hit. The rage flooded every part of my body. I wanted to scream, I wanted to pummel James so hard I would have to carry him out of here in pieces.

“I knew you were a fucking moron but I didn’t think you were this idiotic,” I spat at him. “You know what James, you’re done. When we get out of here you are packing your shit up and going home. You’re fired.”

“I….I..I really need this job man,” James choked out. “I’m sorry. I’m really sorry man.”

“Fuck you. I thought you were hurt or worse. You put you and me in danger and now we have to get out of this fucking pit!”

I slammed my hand into the floor next to James face. Blood trickled from my knuckles and mixed with the mucusy mixture. James’ eyes welled with tears and his face reflected pure terror. A pang went off within my heart. A memory flashed through my head. It was of my father, doing the same shit, slamming me down and beating me for the smallest thing. James was just trying to bring some levity to the work site, although the way he did it was moronic. My face softened. I can’t be like him, I have to be different, control the rage.

I pulled myself off of James and pulled him up. “I’m sorry, I went too far. Let’s just get out of here, we will talk about your job once we are out.”

James sniffled and wiped his face, trying to hide the tears in his eyes. I bent down and grabbed the flashlight from the floor. My hand throbbed from punching the stone. That was stupid. A bit of my dad passed down through me, I just couldn’t contain it. I used the light to examine my hand quickly. There were a few small scrapes from where my knuckles hit the ground, the wounds leaking blood, but they were superficial. They would heal quickly if left alone.

There was a moment of silence between me and James. An unspoken tension that filled the cavern we were in. It wasn’t completely silent though, the cavern was alive with sounds from all over. Our breathing reverberated off the walls and back to our ears. The dripping of the melting snow from above gave the illusion of a metronome keeping pace with some hidden rhythm, but there was something else. It was that low guttural hum coming from deeper in the cavern. A buzzing in my brain that made my thoughts fuzzy in a way I had never felt before. I almost wanted to go deeper, to climb as far as I could until I could find the source of this incessant noise and put an end to it.

I turned the light back down the cavern, seeing what I could make out from further in but it continued to slope down and the ceiling obscured the descent.

“Let’s go.” I waved to James as we began the trek back to the entrance.

We could hear Dale and Clea yelling something from outside the hole but it was muffled, like there was a dampener on their voices. We continued to trek through the muck stuck to the walls. It coated my feet, making it hard to not slip. I had to use my hands to grip onto the walls, digging through a layer of the slime to reach the warm stone underneath to steady myself. The stone itself was warm but there was something else to it too. A kind of beating or thrumming that seemed to coincide with the buzzing noise from before. It came and went in intervals, almost like the cave had its own heartbeat.

That idea freaked me out so I pushed the thought out of my head and trekked on and soon I could see light outlining the slope upwards and out into the winter air again. I could see Dale leaning down and looking for any sign of life.

“We are here,” I called out. “And we are both fine. James thought it would be funny to pull a prank and dive into the cave.”

I looked back with a stern face and James looked away, like a puppy that had gotten into the garbage.

“Help me up would you,” I called up to the two of them as I reached my hands up. “I need a shower after all this shit.”

Dale reached his hand down and grasped mine. It wasn’t long before our grip began to slip, the slime making it much harder to grab onto anything. I dug my foot hard into the stone of the wall and pushed up, trying to get better leverage on Dale.

“Clea,” Dale said. “Come grab Cal’s other hand. He’s covered in cave gunk and it’s hard to grab him.”

In a moment Clea was now above us with Dale. Her outstretched hand joined Dale’s and I grabbed them both. They pulled and I started to make some progress when I heard it. A deep moan from below me. It sounded like when someone had gotten kicked in the junk when I was younger. A deep and guttural, painful moan that rattled my bones and sent a shiver down my spine. Dale and Clea exchanged a look of terror and then began to pull me up faster. Then I felt pressure around my leg. I was being pulled down. I looked down and saw James grabbing at my legs, holding on for dear life.

“Faster,” he yelled up to me. “I think there is something down here!”

Then the floor dropped out from beneath him. I don’t know how it happened. One moment he was standing on stone, the next it moved and straightened out, the sound of rock cracking came from below and then there was no more floor. The slope I was leaning on vanished and the foothold I had disappeared. I scrambled with my one free leg to gain purchase on something but the gunk on the walls was too slick. I couldn’t get a hold of anything and now James was screaming from below me, dangling over a darkened pit. His weight was too much. With one final glance up I saw as Dale and Clea lost their footing and tumbled downward towards me. In an instant my stomach flipped and we were falling.

I woke up to darkness. I knew my eyes were open but there was no light. My head throbbed with pain as I rolled it back and forth trying to make out anything in the room. The floor beneath me was wet and I was soaked, covered in that mucus from above. It infiltrated my clothes and stuck to my skin. I pushed my hand down on the ground trying to push myself up but it just sunk into the floor, retreating deeper and deeper into the muck. I moved my head again, the throbbing making me lightheaded. Soon my eyes focused on a small pinprick of light across the room. I moved, slowly, towards a sitting position. A moan echoed through the room and back to me before I realized that it came from me. My head was pounding and my arm was on fire but I got there.

“Hey bud,” I heard from where the light was coming from. “How are you doing?”

It took me a moment for the haze to clear from my mind to realize who was talking. It was Dale. What the hell was he doing down here? Last thing I knew he was pulling me up and out of the hole not down into it. Oh fuck. We fell. Something happened, the floor got slippery and there was a rock slide or something and I pulled them in. God damn it. First it was James, now it was these two.

Dale stood in front of me, his zippo out in front of him illuminating a small sphere around us. I shook my head, trying to clear the fog that had come from presumably hitting my head on the drop down.

“What happened?” I asked.

“Well there seemed to be some sort of collapse in here,” he replied matter of factly. “We were haulin’ your ass out of here when the floor gave way below ya and the weight pulled us in.”

I looked up at him as he outstretched his hand to get me off the floor. I grabbed it and he tenderly lifted me up and to my feet. My head was still swimming but it was slowly starting to clear. I turned and looked at him with sorrow in my eyes.

“I’m so sorry,” I sighed. “You shouldn’t have been dragged into this shit.”

“Nah.” He replied. “Don’t worry about it, just glad you are okay, for the most part. We will find a way out.”

I looked around scanning the room for the others. The chamber we were in was large, I couldn’t see far into the darkness where we had fallen from so I don’t know how deep down we were. The walls were covered in that slime stuff, like a thick membrane that protected the walls. I swear if I started at one spot for too long it was like the walls were breathing, moving in minuscule ways, like muscles tightening and relaxing. I chalked it up to my head injury making my vision weird but something was definitely off about this place. I continued to mark things as I looked around the cave. The light from Dales Zippo lighter was not much but it was enough to make out the general shape of the room. It was circular with a few different tunnels leading off in different directions but what was down them was beyond me. Then my eyes fell upon James. He was huddled against one of the walls, knees to his chest and crying. Clea was bent over next to him, hand holding the flashlight she had given me before, trying her best to use her motherly instincts to calm him.

Dale grabbed my arm and we walked slowly over to where they sat. The light from the zippo flickered as we made our way over to the other side of the chamber, throwing shadows around the room that danced in the light.

Clea looked up as we shambled over.

“Oh thank god,” she sighed, looking me over. “We thought you were gone. See James, Cal is fine.”

Dale looked at me and pulled me close for a moment. “James has been a wreck since we fell down here. A rambling wreck. He thinks he killed all of us, that this is hell.”

“Lemme talk to him.” I responded.

I bent down, trying to hide the pain in my face and grabbed James by the shoulders. His face was a mess, streaked with tears and blood. It looked like he got dinged up on the way down too, some scratches here and there but nothing like me. His eyes darted back and forth and he kept mumbling under his breath.

“We are all going to die. I did this. We are going to die because of me.” He whispered quickly.

I shook him gently, trying to break him of the loop he was in. He looked up at me with the scared eyes of a child. He wasn’t much younger than me, maybe a few years at most. He had just gotten out of high school, this wasn’t supposed to be a forever job for him, just something until he could afford college.

“Hey.” I spoke loudly. “Enough of this.”

He shook his head and grabbed my arms for dear life. The pain seared through the one that got hurt in the fall but I held firm, letting him hold onto me.

“This is all my fault.” He said slowly. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m not gonna deny that James.” I said. “You fucked up and now we are in this situation.”

He looked up at me, I could register the hurt in his eyes.

“I’m not gonna sugar coat this, we are in a bad place and I don’t know what to do, but we need to work together.”

I could hear Dale behind me, his breath raspy from years of smoking, trying to keep a calm and steady composure like he always did. I flicked a glance to Clea who was still next to James. She was trying to calm him but I could see the fear in her face, it was streaked with tears too. She was terrified just like the rest of us, probably not only for her own sake but for her children. If she didn’t come back they were orphans. I wouldn’t let that happen.

I looked back down at James, his face was twisted in a contortion of anger and confusion.

“Wait a minute!” He yelled, get up quickly. “If it wasn’t for you none of us would be here right now.”

His face changed from confusion to pure anger now. He wasn’t thinking clearly and because of this he was dangerous.

“Yeah. If you hadn’t pulled that damn board up, no…if we hadn’t been at work today we could have all been fine. We should have been home in bed, but you always push too much Cal. We had to get the snow cleared, we had to start construction again.”

I was shocked. I wheeled backwards as James got up in my face, spit rocketing from his mouth. I had never seen him like this before, he was always the happy go lucky guy, the jokester, something had changed in him down here. I don’t know if it was the fear taking over but something had been lost in his eyes, they were dull, no joyful spark left.

“James, you need to take a breath,” I said, trying to keep my balance as I moved backwards. “Calm down.”

In an instant he was on top of me, his hands shoving me down onto the spongy floor below, pain radiating through my arm as I tried to catch myself.

“This is all your fucking fault,” he screamed as he straddled me, pushing me down. “We shouldn’t have been here, you know about the woods but we needed the work right Cal!”

He hit me. In an instant his hand became a fist and that anger I had shown earlier was reflected in him. A quick strike to the face and my head was spinning again. Bam. Another blow to the side of the head.

“Hey get off of him kid,” Dale yelled as he grabbed James by the back of the shirt. “Let’s all cool down and talk this out like adults, it’s nobody’s fault, just fate.”

“Shut the fuck up Dale.” James spat as he pushed the old man away from him. His hands slowly wrapped around my neck.

I looked up at James, that same anger I had given him was here, that same anger that I saw every day in my father. I could feel the warm trickle of blood running down my head and across my face but all I was concerned with was James.

“I’m sorry James.” I choked out. “I’m sorry.”

Then through all the yelling Clea made the first sound since this all began.

“Did you hear that?” She asked. “Everyone shut up and listen.”

James perked up and stopped for a moment, his grip loosened. That was enough for Dale to grab him and pull him off of me. He led him away to the other side of the chamber to cool off. I lay there on the floor, trying to rationalize what just happened. In an instant the kid who wouldn’t hurt a fly and would always try to make you laugh just tried to kill me. My train of thought was then cut off when Clea talked again.

“There!” She whispered. “Listen really close.”

We all were silent waiting for the sound that only Clea had heard to repeat itself. The only sound that could be heard was the dripping from the ceiling and the shallow breathing of the crew. Then it happened.

“Mommy,” something croaked from one of the two darkened passages. “Mommy, where am I?”

The voice was raspy, like someone had just gotten over pneumonia and had been coughing too much. It was the voice of a small child but it sounded wrong, almost like it was double, the child’s voice and something much much deeper underneath.

“Mommy. I don’t feel good,” it cried. “I wanna go home. I’m scared.”

Clea began to cry now. Loud sobs ripped through the silence like thunder. She looked around the room at all of us before calling back to it.

“Sophie?” She responded through choked sobs.

“Mommy. I need help. Please help me.”

Clea cries louder now and in an instant she shambled her way towards the passage the voice was echoing from. Taking the flashlight she shined it deep into the tunnel.

“I’m coming Soph,” she called back. “Mommy’s coming.”

“Clea wait!” I called as she disappeared into the passage.

Then everything shook. The walls and the floors began to pulse with a sickening rhythm and the mucus coating them increased. I looked back over to where Clea had just disappeared and the passage was gone, replaced now with a fleshy wall that pulsed with the rest of the room. A deep and guttural moan squelched from somewhere beyond the flesh wall that separated us from her. Then came the cries. I will never forget those cries for as long as I live.

“Please!” Clea yelled, muffled from the other side of the wall. “Oh god what is that!”

James and Dale rushed over to the wall as I sat trying to gain my bearings again. They tore into the fleshy substance, ripping the meat away from the wall, trying desperately to get through.

“Hold on,” Dale yelled. “We are coming!”

Then a loud bang emanated from the other side and an ear piercing shriek followed. We could hear Clea’s sobs through the wall, her wails and her protests against whatever was on the other side. She sounded so small and so afraid. Tears began to stream down my face. In a moment there was another cry from the other side, a loud bang, and a fleshy ripping sound. Then silence. Nothing. Where there once had been an orchestra of disgusting sounds there was now nothing and that scared me more than anything. I knew in my heart Clea was gone and it wasn’t long before whatever did it found its way into here.

I stumbled onto my feet, tears pouring from my eyes, my heart pounding faster and faster in my chest. The light in the room had significantly diminished since Clea took the flashlight, leaving us with only Dale’s zippo lighter. The shadows cast around from the flickering flame were ominous and terrifying, making the remaining dark hallway like an endless void. I walked over to where James was still digging at the fleshy wall, tearing chunks off before it quickly reformed and sealed the newly made hole. Dale sat with his back against the door that sealed Clea’s fate, his head in his hands, clearly shaken.

I had never seen Dale like this before, broken and defeated. He was always the voice of reason, the one who kept calm but how can you keep calm in a place like this. A place that shouldn’t exist in hell let alone on Earth. He was whispering the Lord’s Prayer to a god who clearly didn’t care that we were here. What kind of god would let something like this exist? What kind of god would take a mother away from her sick children leaving them with nothing and make her face whatever unspeakable horror that existed on the other side of that wall.

I grabbed James by the arm as he continued to dig and dig, not making a dent.

“That’s enough,” I whispered through the sobs. “She’s gone.”

He looked up at me, his eyes were big, wet with tears, but they were the eyes of a kid again, not whatever was there earlier.

“We can’t leave her,” he sobbed. “We just can’t.”

I placed my hand on his shoulder and tried to steel myself as much as I could, stopping myself from shaking involuntarily from fear.

“We couldn’t have helped her anyway,” I said. “We would have ended up the same way. We should move before whatever that was comes in here.”

James nodded and stepped back from the wall. His hands were covered in the slime that coated every inch of this place and the bloody viscera that he had torn away. He didn’t even seem to realize the amount of muck that stuck to his shirt and arms.

I moved over a few feet to where Dale sat and offered him my hand.

“Come on old man,” I tried to joke. Anything to lighten the mood an inch from what just happened. “We need you.”

He pushed himself up from the ground, grabbing my hand to steady himself. His hands looked the same as James’, flesh was buried deep under his fingernails. He still held the zippo in the other hand, our only source of light. Our beacon in this dark hell that was sure to swallow us whole if it flickered out.

“Let’s move,” he said matter of factly. “We can’t stay here and mourn, there will be time for that if we make it out of here.”

He moved towards the only passage that was left. The dark tunnel that led deeper into this unknown place. It was our only option. I nodded towards James to follow Dale and I took up the rear of the group. Tears still fell from my eyes but I didn’t even feel them anymore. I couldn’t tell if it was from the fear or the loss or a mix of both but it really didn’t matter anymore.

Dale slowly held the lighter up to try and get a better view of the darkened tunnel. It was small, smaller than the one that Clea had followed down. There was enough room for one person to stand upright without touching the ceiling but not much more. The walls of the tunnel were varied, they looked like the inside of a throat when you are getting an endoscopy. They dripped and pushed in towards the center of the hallway in weird fleshy mounds. Dale pushed on holding the light high so it reflected off the roof and illuminated the two of us behind him. Then we started our slow crawl through the dark again.

We walked for what felt like hours through that hot and damp tunnel. Some parts were wider than others allowing us to walk side by side where others barely let us squeeze through. The path had started a steady ascent. I could feel it in my legs, like we were walking up a steep hill. I kept checking on both James and Dale as we continued on, making sure they didn’t need to stop but no one wanted to, not even me. We were mostly silent, the only thing that could be heard was the occasional drip of something from the ceiling onto the fleshy floor below, our shoes plunging down and popping out of the damp floor and the labored breathing of everyone.

Just when I thought we were never going to come upon a new chamber something new happened. We had been following a particular winding part of the tunnel, twisting back and forth, creating these corners that were hard to see around. We came around one final corner before the path straightened out and our eyes were hit with light. It wasn’t a kind of artificial light from a flame or flashlight but pure sunlight beaming down from a spot in the ceiling further down.

James started to laugh from in front of me. I could hear the exasperation in his breath change from defeat to joy as we saw the hole in the ceiling. He kinda bounced up and down on his feet, willing Dale to move faster but the old man was well old and slow. James then made a quick move. The walls around us were wide enough now where he could squeeze by Dale and that’s exactly what he did. In an instant James had pushed past him and ran laughing like a maniac towards the beaming cone of heaven in front of us.

“Come on guys,” he yelled back to us. “We made it!”

Dale turned to me, zippo still in his hand, and gave me a small smirk before turning back to James. I could feel the heat in the tunnel getting less and less as we approached the opening in the roof, letting the cold winter air in. James stood there and if I could have made it so he was preserved in that moment forever I would have. He basked in the light from the sky above, the cold breeze making his cheeks more red than they already were and he was laughing. Laughing and smiling again like the James that I had known. He turned back to us beaming and that’s when his face dropped from joy to terror again. What he saw when he looked at us was complete and utter disbelief and shock. He didn’t realize what was directly behind him.

While James basked in the glow of the sunlight something had appeared behind him. It was big, bigger than a normal person should ever be. It stood on two feet like a human but this thing, the thing that I would later refer to as The Emissary, was as far from human as could be. It towered over James, reaching maybe nine or ten feet tall, having to hunch down in the cave so as not to drag its long elongated, almost pill shaped head against the ceiling. It was pale, too pale, like a cadaver that had been left in a lake for weeks on end. There was a sickeningly grey/white color to its skin and tattered clothes hung on its thin frame. Its limbs were too long for its body, its arms and legs extending far beyond what they should have, ending in huge spindly hands and feet. The thing that was the most terrifying was the face. Upon its face were two dark beady eyes that were too close together, piercing eyes that had a sort of gloss to them. Then there was the mouth. The mouth was far too large for its face, it stretched over the surface bending to the shape of its head, and it was filled with rows of pin shaped teeth.

In an instant this monstrosity had pinned James to the ground. It wrapped one of its long hands around his legs and pulled. James plummeted to the ground, slamming his head against the ground below. Blood began to pour from his face as he twisted around, trying to get on his back to face his attacker head on.

Dale and I stood there motionless. The creature was covered in blood, fresh blood, still dripping from rags it wore and it caked every part of its body, from its mouth to its hands.

James screamed and tried to kick against the large frame of the Emissary as it put the other spider-like hand onto his chest and pushed down. James squirmed and pushed, trying everything with all of his might to get free. That’s when Dale moved towards the creature. He leaned downward and pushed his pants leg up revealing a pistol holstered at his ankle. James continued to scream as the creature crawled on top of him, its large mouth hovering inches away from James’ face.

I couldn’t move. The fear was too much, it rooted me to the ground and made my blood run like ice through my veins. Dale walked slowly aiming the pistol at the Emissary’s massive head.

“Plug your ears,” he yelled over James’ screams.

He pulled the trigger and the bullet flew from the pistol in an instant and embedded into the Emissary’s head. It shrieked in pain and stumbled backwards away from James for a second. He scrambled to get up to his feet, feeling around his chest. There were a few large dark splotches where the things hand had dug into his chest. James breathed a sigh of relief and began to walk back towards me. Dale volleyed another shot into the pill head of the beast. It shrieked again, its mouth hung open, it swept its hands back and forth towards where Dale stood.

“Move your ass James!” Dale yelled.

James began to jog towards me when the pale hand wrapped around his leg again and pulled. James tumbled down in front of me, his eyes meeting mine, before he was dragged backwards. The Emissary’s other hand shot out and slammed Dale against the wall. James screamed again, being pulled closer and closer to the creature above him. He looked up at me one last time and uttered one word:

“Help”

Then the Emissary plunged its teeth into James’ neck and tore a large chunk of flesh away. He began to sputter and bleed and in an instant the light in his eyes was gone. Another person, gone. Another friend, gone. In an instant the large creature grabbed James body, squeezing, the cracking of bones could be heard all around in the tunnel before disappearing backwards into the darkness.

The light above us began to fade. The pure sunlight that had been a false hope for James was swallowed up by a mound of flesh sealing us in darkness. We are so close.

Dale groaned on the floor next to me, in complete darkness now. The zippo had flown out of Dale’s hand when he was slammed down by the thing and now it was nowhere to be found.

“Dale?” I cried out. “Where are you?”

A slow moan came from in front of me again. I got on my hands and knees, sweeping back and forth hoping to find Dale or the zippo. My hands passed over the squishy and damp floor, grasping for anything. The heat in the tunnel had increased since the hole above had closed. It was oppressively hot and it made my head swim. It seemed even hotter than when we had first fallen in which made no sense. We were closer to the outside, it should be cooler.

My hands finally passed over something that wasn’t the wet ground. It was smooth and metallic. The zippo. My heart pounded in my chest. Thank god. Without this we were screwed more than we already were. I wiped my hands off from the goo that stuck to them on my sweat covered shirt and flicked the zippo. It blazed to life, the flickering flame illuminated the tunnel around me. I could see Dale. He was laying on the ground a few feet away from me. I crawled over to him, checking his breathing. He was alive still, thank god, but he was hurt. His leg was bent in the wrong direction and the bone was sticking through the skin, staining his pant leg in crimson liquid. I put my hand beneath his head and tried to prop him up against the muscly wall of the tunnel. He coughed and turned to look at me, his eyes barely opening.

“You have to go,” he wheezed at me. “I am dead weight Cal.”

I shook my head trying to keep his eyes trained on me.

“I’m not gonna leave you Dale,” I cried. “I can’t…I can’t lose anyone else.”

He forced a smile. It quivered across his lips as he tried to hide the pain he was in. He was always like this, trying to make everyone feel better, taking the hardest decisions, the hardest choices for himself to shield others.

“Grab me my last cigarette from my pocket Cal,” he asked quietly. “I want one more moment of peace before I go.”

I didn’t have the heart to disobey. I fingered through his pants pocket until I found the single cigarette at the bottom. It was crunched and bent but I tried to straighten it out the best I could. I took the zippo and lit the end and handed it to him. He shakily put it in his mouth and inhaled.

“Didn’t think this is where I would end up,” he coughed. “You go through so much only for life to slap you down again and again. I just wished I could have seen Mary one last time.”

He inhaled again, then breathed out pushing the smoke into the small hallway.

“Promise me one thing Cal,” he started. “If you get out of here you find Mary, tell her I’m not coming home. Tell her that I love her with all of my heart and give her this.”

He pressed a locket into my hand, it was damp and covered in his blood. It was open and the picture inside was of their wedding day. I began to cry again.

From down the hall there was a loud thudding. A thump, drag rhythm that got closer and closer. I could feel the vibrations through the walls, like they were contracting each time that thing got closer.

“You have to go now,” Dale said. “I’ll hold it off the best I can but you need to run. Get out of here Cal, prove we are better than the situations we are thrust into.”

He pushed me back. I heard the thump thump thump of the Emissary drawing closer. In a second I saw its gigantic figure emerge from the darkness into the circle of light made by the flame. I was frozen again until I heard Dale.

“GO NOW CAL!”

I began to run. Running back the way we came and from the direction behind me I heard a gunshot. Then another, and another. The creature shrieked in pain as it had done before when the bullet hit it but I didn’t stop. I kept running, trying to keep the zippo lit. The flame flickered as I ran but didn’t go out. My only piece of salvation was that light. I ran through the twisting halls, smashing into corners I didn’t remember, squeezing through new passageways until all I could hear was the beating of my own heart. Soon I saw an opening and ran through it full force and into a new room I didn’t recognize.

I stumbled into a large chamber, much bigger than the one we had found ourselves in earlier. The flame from the zippo was getting less and less with each passing second. I must be almost out of fuel. This chamber had no other exit from what I could see but there was something that stood out. All of the flesh covered ground converged and fell away in the middle of the room, revealing a large water filled pool. The pool stretched backwards far into the darkness and I couldn’t tell how big it was. I was parched, the heat sapping away any remaining water that was in my body. This room was by far the hottest yet, almost unbearable. The stench in here was of months old rotting flesh. The smell of decay and blood mixed in the hot air creating a miasma of death. I took my shirt and pants off here and walked slowly towards the edge of the pool. That’s when I heard it again. The shriek of the Emissary calling from the tunnel I had just come out of. Dale tried his best but whatever it was was resilient but he held it off long enough for me to make it here, wherever I was.

After a few moments the loud thumping of the Emissary’s feet entered the room. I turned to face it, ready to accept my fate. There was no fighting this thing, there was no winning, and there was no escape. Clea, James, and Dale taught me that. At this point I could just let it take me, praying that it was going to be quick. I failed my team, led them into this hellscape. I was supposed to protect them, I was supposed to get them out of here but I couldn’t even get myself out. I guess this was as fitting a punishment as anything else. For everything I’ve done.

It entered the room, covered in fresh blood, still holding onto a chunk of flesh in one hand. I couldn’t even look at it for long. I just wanted it to be over. It cocked its elongated head at me and then sat down. It was big enough where it took up the entire passageway behind it, even if I was gonna try to run past it, it would be no use. It began to chomp down on the mound of flesh it had brought from its last victim, not moving an inch towards me, not paying me any attention. I should at least get a drink of water before I’m killed, I thought.

I bent down and dipped the hand not holding the lighter into the water. The water was freezing cold, like a blizzard cold. It made no sense but nothing in this fucking cave made any sense so I didn’t question it. I cupped my hand and pulled the cold water up to my mouth and sipped. It was the single best drink of water I have ever had. In an instant I was down on all fours, sticking my whole face into the pool, trying to drink as much water as I could. I gulped and gulped until my throat was numb from the cold and my stomach couldn’t handle any more. I wanted so badly to slide into the pool, slide into the cold water and let my body drift to the bottom. Something in my mind told me it was a bad idea.

That’s when a sudden pain pierced my head. It was like someone was shoving a scorching hot iron poker directly between my eyes and into the center of my brain. I doubled over in pain, screaming. My eyes got fuzzy and it was hard to focus. Then there was something else. An almost squeezing sensation around my head and my thoughts were flooded with one sentence.

Let me in.

I couldn’t fight it for long, the pain in my head was too much before I fell to the ground. I felt the voice getting louder.

No harm. Let me in.

I shut my eyes tight, trying with everything I could to push the voice out but it was too loud. Getting louder and louder. The rage from everything that had happened today, the pain, the anger, the fear, everything flooded in.

“STOP!” I screamed.

Then everything was silent. I slowly opened my eyes but I wasn’t in the chamber anymore. I was in a dark void. It was pitch black all around me and I felt weightless, like I was in space. I wasn’t alone though, I felt something, like that feeling when you know someone is watching you. I felt a presence with me in the darkness. It was content, happy in the dark. Then in an instant there was a pin prick of light. A star. It emerged from nothing and flooded my eyes with its beautiful light. I felt a change in the presence. The peace that was there was replaced by a pure unadulterated rage. A need for consumption and chaos. The light was surrounded on all sides by darkness. It tried to fight back with its brilliance but it was too much and the light was snuffed out, never to be seen again. The presence returned to the feeling of peace but it had changed. Something else was bubbling under the surface, like a hunger that couldn’t be satiated. It wanted more.

Thousands of stars flooded my vision and the presence consumed. It ate and ate, snuffing lights out one by one until the light was too much and it had to flee. It found a rock to hide in and this is where it slept for eons, waiting. The rage within it building, wanting to eat, wanting for chaos to ensue but not having the strength to do it itself.

Whatever this thing was, it was old. Older than the Earth, older than the stars and it wanted to be free.

My eyes became blurred and I was back in the chamber now, I could feel it, no longer floating in the stars but kneeling on sinew and muscle tissue. My eyes began to clear and I was staring downward into the inky blackness of the pool. The piercing pain in the middle of my brain was subsiding, little by little. I turned my head to look behind me. The giant pale creature continued to eat its prey, paying me no attention. My eyes fell back on the pool again and now there was something else. It wasn’t just dark anymore, there was something moving under the water, something shifting.

In an instant the rippling reflection of my face began to change. My features shifted in the water and now I was looking at a scene from my past. I was in middle school. I had just opened the door after walking home from school, covered in sweat from the hot May day. My father sat in the kitchen, beer bottles lay strewn across the counter and the floor. He sat half awake, slouched on the kitchen floor, when the door opened he looked up. Then I could hear him again, clear as day in my mind, like it was happening for the first time again.

“Where the fuck have you been?” he spat, struggling to get up, knocking bottles over that hit the floor with a deafening clink. “Huh you little cunt. Where the fuck were you?”

“I had to walk home,” I said almost in a whisper. “You forgot to pick me up again.”

“What was that?” He slurred. “I did what? Speak up now!”

“You forgot me again, Dad!” I yelled.

“After everything I do for you,” he yelled as he began to fumble with his belt. His gait was wobbling back and forth and the stench of alcohol was almost too much to handle. “I put food on the table and clothes on your back and you can’t even take a walk home.”

Then the scene shifted and I was on the ground moments later, my shirt was off and the crack of the belt reverberated through my brain. I could feel the pain again, the stinging, slashing pain of the belt cracking across my back, the blood running down. I could feel the rage within me. It bubbled and boiled. I wondered what I did to have a father like this while others had ones that loved them. Mom left me with this monster and no one cared and I hated her for that. I hated him more than anything. I hated seeing him when I came home, I hated the bottles and the mess that I had to clean up. Most of all I hated the beatings for no reason.

The scene shifted again and now I was in high school. Some asshole had just taunted me in the hallway, said something about my mom and I lost it. I felt the hunger, the need for pain, the need for someone else to feel the pain I had felt and I pummeled that kid. I could feel each blow on my fists, the blood from his face coating my hands, my heart pounding in my chest, almost liking dishing out beat downs. Then I was off of him and Mr. Waller was pulling me away.

Then the water shifted to something I had seen recently. It was me shoving James down into the ground when he had led us into here. I felt the rush again. The rush of adrenaline when I laid into James. Then it was James on top of me and I was feeling that same fear that was in me when Dad was beating me back then.

Finally we shifted to something I wish I had to never see again. It was a few years back, right after high school. I told my dad I was going to be moving out, I was going to leave him.

“Who the fuck do you think you are Cal?” He yelled from down the hall. I was already packed, a bag in my hands, I was rounding the corner towards the stairs. “After everything we have been through you are just gonna run away!”

“Yeah dad, I’m fucking done!” I yelled back wheeling around to see him coming around the corner. He was seething, his hands were balled in fists, the veins in his bald head were bulging out. “I’m done with all of your shit!”

He walked towards me and grabbed me by the collar, raising the other hand behind him. With a quick motion his fist sailed into my face making me see stars. I staggered backwards, I wiped the blood away from my nose and let my eyes clear for a moment.

“You are the most ungrateful piece of shit I have ever met.” He roared. “I gave you everything and this is how you repay me.”

“You gave me nothing but constant fear!” I yelled back. I stood up to my full height and grabbed his collar. “Nothing you did made me a better man. Nothing you taught me helped me get by. All you did was beat me when you were drunk and blame me that mom left your ass. You did all of this to feel big, well look at me now dad!”

I punched him as hard as I could in the face. The first time ever in my life I had been able to fight back. It felt good, finally being able to give him a fraction of what we had given me for years. I hit him again and again until blood ran from his nose.

“You are a piece of shit and a fucking loser.” I said.

I pulled my fist back one more time and hit him again, releasing his collar. He stumbled, trying to balance when he fell backwards. I had knocked him out cold. It felt great. For a moment. Then I heard it. In an instant his head hit the wall behind him and he began to fall. Fall down the stairs that were to the side of our confrontation. In a heap of limbs and blood he tumbled down the stairs before hitting the bottom with a loud thud.

I rushed down the stairs. My heart pounding in my chest, my hands shaking from the adrenaline. He was face down, there was a large gash in the back of his head and blood was pooling around him. I rushed to his side, picking his head up and trying to wake him up but nothing worked. After all these years he was finally dead and I was relieved.

The reflection shifted one last time and I could see down into the pool. It was filled with bodies floating up towards the top of the water. At first they weren’t anyone I realized, countless people in different eras of clothing. All reaching up towards the top of the water with their mouths open in agony. Then I saw them. First it was Clea, she was badly beaten and covered in blood but it was her. I could hear her in my head.

This is your fault

Then James rose from the depths, a large chunk of flesh missing from his neck and his chest was caved in, ribs piercing through his skin.

We followed you.

Dale was next. He was missing an arm, blood streamed from the empty hole where it was once attached. Half of his face was missing, the bottom of his jaw lay open, muscle and skin hanging from the wound. His broken leg from before jutted to the side, the bone protruding from the skin.

We trusted you.

Finally it was my Dad. A large dent caved in the side of his head. His face was still bloody from the blows I had given him and he was covered head to toe in his own blood.

We died for it.

Then the voice of the presence echoed in my head again.

This is your gift. You bring chaos and rage wherever you go. We can forge a new world together. Enter the pool and join me. We shall become one and spread our sickness.

I shook my head. I couldn’t get the voice out. It got louder and louder, calling more and more and for a moment I wanted to accept it. I wanted to give in, wade into the pool and let the cold water take me. Hopefully I would go quickly and whatever this presence was, this entity wouldn’t need me alive for its plan.

Then I remembered what Dale had said.

Prove you are better than the situations we are thrust into.

I was more than my rage. More than the trauma that was forced onto me. It didn’t matter what had happened in the past as long as I didn’t repeat it. I wouldnt give into the pain and the anger, I couldn’t give into the loss and grief, I wouldn’t give into this entity, I wouldn’t give into the Hunger.

I stood up fast. The voices in my head were still pounding, urging me to wade into the water and join it. I pushed past it, flicking the zippo open and bringing the flame to life. I could feel the rage of the thing in my head, it hated the light more than anything else, it wanted it gone. The Emissary stood up as if commanded and began to lumber towards me. I had nowhere to go, no plan, no escape. At least I could go out fighting, like Dale.

I flicked my wrist and sent the lighter soaring through the air towards the creature. I watched it spin in slow motion, the flame wavering with each revolution. Then it hit the Emissary square in the chest. The creature ignited immediately, the flames licking over its entire muck covered body. It screamed and flailed its body back and forth. Its large hands scooped forward trying to grab me in a desperate attempt. I almost felt bad for the thing, it was just doing what it was told. I couldn’t dwell on that now though, I looked around the room. The flaming body in front of me had drastically increased the light in the room. Now the voice of the presence was just a whisper in the back of my mind, I could tune it out. With each step the Emissary took it dripped the flaming mucus onto the floor, spreading the fire more. The heat in the room was unbearable, I could feel the flames licking at my skin just inches away. Then I saw it. On the side of the pool I saw a small passage. It was my only chance. I booked it towards the passage leaving the Emissary to burn behind me. The last thing I felt from the entity in my mind was laughter before I broke free from the chamber. I clambered through the passage in pure darkness, scrambling upwards, clawing at flesh to propel myself forward. There is a light! I pushed harder and harder, faster and faster until I emerged from the ground like a zombie. The cold air took my breath away. I was outside, staring up at the barren trees above me. I could hear voices around me. The light of the sun hurt my eyes, my eyes had adjusted to the hours of darkness below.

“Cal!” someone yelled. “Thank god!”

I turned looking through the ruined cabin where I had started to find Grady and several first responders standing at the edge of the hole. I raised my hand to the sky, desperate for them to pull me out of the ground. They grabbed me and pulled me out and I collapsed onto the floor and everything faded to black.

The weeks following were a blur. I was in a hospital for what I remember, hooked up to IVs and machines. I could hear the cold calculating beep of my heart monitor going off in my lucid moments. The others were spent in a suspended hell within my mind. Replaying the scenes from within the cave again and again. Seeing the gore, the horror and the loss as I lay uniquely in that hospital bed. My mind kept bringing me back to the pool, that feeling of weightlessness as I drifted through the darkened abyss. The brilliance of the stars being born and the horror of them being snuffed out just as quick. That thing, whatever it was, it was still connected to me, whispering its dark thoughts, beckoning me back to it. To slip into its cool grasp, to drift among the stars and become more than what I could ever imagine. I wanted to go back too. I wanted to crawl right back into the hole and find my way back but I couldn’t. I couldn’t give in to the thing that had destroyed everything around me.

I woke up a few days later. There were so many people to talk to. Doctors, police officers, Grady, Mr.Waller, the families of my friends. They all wanted to know what had happened down there. I told them the truth. I told them the exact same thing I wrote down here. No one believed me. I was sent from mental hospital to mental hospital. They would tell me variations on the same thing: Your mind fractured when your team died. You have survivors’ guilt and your mind made up this story of monsters and moving walls to cope with their deaths. They died in a freak sinkhole accident while you were on a job, you lost something back in the hole. I knew I wasn’t crazy, I had the scars to prove what had happened down there. I told everyone the same thing, I told everyone the truth but eventually after years of the mental facilities and therapy even I started to doubt it myself.

Was there really a living breathing cave underneath the forest? Did I make everything up down there? What if I was the one responsible for their deaths, not that monster?

But I knew in the back of my mind that it was real. I could still feel the cold grasp of that presence in my mind. It wanted me, for so long, it wanted me to come back. It needed me more than anyone else in this town.

Eventually I stopped talking about it. Everyone knew the story. They started calling me The Crawler, making jokes when I walked past but they didn’t have to see the faces of those they lost when they woke up. I saw them everywhere. In the grocery story, there was James waiting to cash me out. Walking past the playground, Clea was sitting on a bench, watching her kids play. Dale sat on the other side of the bar as I got drunker and drunker each night. I never forgot their faces.

It’s been almost 50 years since then and I can still see them perfectly. I can tell you I tried to live the best life I could afterwards. I never went back to work for Grady. Bounced from job to job trying to find something that would make me feel anything anymore. I stopped going to the therapy sessions. They told me the same old shit. Move past it, acknowledge it happened and try to live my life. I never lived the life my mother would have wanted for me. I never settled down with a nice woman and had a family. I lived in a shitty apartment all of my life trying to keep something deep within me at bay but I can’t do it anymore. I can’t keep fighting the urge. It calls me and its calls are getting louder and louder. The want to feel like I did when I was in that pool is too much to bear. I know I’m near the end now. I can only walk a few feet without having to stop to catch my breath and everything hurts so damn much. I can hear them as I get closer. James, Clea and Dale. They are beckoning me to join them, begging me to come back. So as I stare down beneath the pulled up boards of the old cabin I can only say one thing. I can’t resist knowing if what I experienced was real or not. I can’t resist the constant thrall in the back of my mind. I can’t resist the Hunger anymore.

Credit: Ethan Fuller

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