Speaker 1: I hadn't touched the guideline or a harness in years,
not since I left that part of my life behind.
After what happened in the Cathedral caverns, after I saw
what a collapse in tunnel could do to a person,
I'd sworn off cave dive in for good. I thought,
I meant it. That was before I found the hole.
It was late afternoon when I first noticed it. I'd
been exploring the property, familiarizing myself with every hill and
twist in the creek. I had wandered farther than usual,
down a slope covered in thick underbrush, with the ground
dipped into a shallow depression. I thought it was a
natural dip where the rain had eroded the soil, But
as I stepped closer, I noticed the rock. The earth
had crumbled from a limestone ridge, exposing something beneath it.
It took me a few seconds to understand what I
was looking at. The rock had collapsed inward. It used
to be an entrance. I crouched down, brushing away loose dirt.
What looked like a simple dip in the ground was
actually a blocked off passageway. Limestone had tumbled down from
above ceiling, whatever lay beyond a cave. I leaned forward,
peering through the rubble, a small hole, just barely big
enough to fit a fist through. The cold air drifted out,
stagnant and unmoving. I grabbed a handful of loose stones
and pulled them away, clearing the hole a little more.
The darkness inside was absolute. I reached for my flashlight
and flicked it on. The beam cut into the hole,
but not far. The angle was too tight to see
anything beyond the first few inches. I sat back at
my heels. This wasn't on my property map I checked
before buying the land. The agency had provided detailed topography,
listing all the significant features, the stream, the rock formations,
even a few shallow caverns further west. But this was nowhere.
I pulled out my phone and scrawled through my contacts.
After a moment, I clicked on the number for the
real estate office. The line clicked, and after a few rings,
a woman answered Westward Realty, this is Karen, Hey, this
is I paused, realizing I hadn't spoke to anyone from
the office since I bought the place. I bought the
land off Route twelve last year. The ten acre lot,
of course. How's it treating you good? Yeah? I hesitated. Listen.
I was out exploring today and I found something that
wasn't on the survey. Looks like a cave, or at
least it was. It's collapsing, but there's still an opening.
A pause. A cave, yeah, a pretty big one, from
what I can tell. I expected concern, a legal warning,
maybe some spiel about liability and state protections. Instead, she
just sounded confused. Ah, that's strange. We should have that
in the records. I checked the maps. It's not there. Well,
sometimes the surveyor has missed things, she sighed. If it
was collapsed when they did the land inspection, they probably
didn't think much of it. That made sense. I guess
is it stable, she asked. Seems like it, then I
wouldn't worry about it. These lands are full of little
pockets like that. Nothing dangerous. Her tone was light, unconcerned,
like this was just another quirk of the landscape. Maybe
she was right. I pulled my phone from my pocket
and scrolled through my contacts. There was only one person
I could call, Ryan. Ryan answered on the second ring, Geez, man,
I thought you died of something. You're acting so weird.
After cathedral caverns, I smarked, Nope, still breathing. There was
a pause. I could hear the clatter of dishes in
the background. He was probably at the bar he worked at,
killing time between shifts. He always said he was going
to move on from that place, but somehow never did.
So what's up, he asked. I glanced back at the hole.
You're not gonna believe what I just found. Ryan showed
up later that evening, grinning like a kid at Christmas.
The second he saw the collapsed entrance. You're telling me
this isn't marked, he asked, running his fingers over the
weathered limestone, not on any of the surveys. He flicked
his eyes to mine, filled with that familiar, hungry gleam,
the same one that had dragged me into dozens of
near death experiences over the years. Then we've got a
virgin cave, I nodded, and it's ours. We wasted no time.
With gloved hands and a couple of shovels, we started
tearing into the rubble. It was slow work. The limestone
was packed tightly, fused together by time and pressure. Every
time we loosened a slab, dust blowed up in clouds,
making the air thick and dry. After about an hour,
we had widened the opening to the size of a watermelon.
Think we can fit, Ryan asked. I shook my head.
Not yet. The rock walls squeezed in too tight, like
a mouth refusing to open. We kept digging. By the
time the sun was bleeding into the tree line, the
hole had grown wide enough for a person to squeeze
through barely. Ryan crouched beside it, wiping sweat from his forehead.
He grinned at me, then reached into the darkness. Cold
as hell, he muttered. I crouched him and placed my
own hand near the opening. He was right. The air
inside was several degrees cooler. I couldn't stop smiling. Ryan
clapped me on the shoulder. You ready to get back
to work. I looked at the entrance, at the blackness
swallowing the last of the daylight, and I said, let's
do it. I crouched at the entrance, my head lamp
casting a weak glow into the hole. We'd spent hours widening.
Now that we were here, now that we were actually
about to go in, I felt a twinge of nerves.
The familiar pulse of adrenaline, the kind that came with
knowing we were about to step into somewhere completely untouched.
Ryan exhaled behind me, adjusting the strap on his harness. Man,
I missed this feeling. I gave him a sideways glance,
the feeling of what voluntarily wedging yourself into a crack
in the ground, He laughed, slapping a hand against my shoulder.
You can take the man out of cave diving, but
you can't take the cave diving out of a man.
I just shook my head, taking one last look at
the sky before lowering myself on to my stomach. The
entrance was small, even with all the digging. It was
barely wider than my shoulders, forcing me to extend both
arms straight as I inched forward. The first few movements
were easy, gravel and loosened stones shifted under my weight
as I pushed myself deeper. Then the space tightened. The
limestone pressed against my ribs, squeezing inward. My chest was
compressed just enough that I had to time my breathing carefully,
exhaling as I pushed forward, inhaling only when I gained
enough ground. I kept my head lamp tilted straight ahead,
my hands groping for the next available rock to pull
myself through. The deeper I went, the colder, the air
became I heard Ryan grunt behind me as he followed.
Tight fit. Yeah, I muttered. My voice felt too loud
in the enclosed space. Every breath, every scrape of fabric
against stone, every shift of weight seemed amplified. Bouncing off
the rock in muffled echoes. A few feet ahead, the
tunnel widened slightly, not enough to stand, but enough to
move a little easier. My heart pounded with excitement as
I pulled myself forward, my elbows scraping against a rough stone,
then a drop. The tight squeeze suddenly gave way to
open space, the ground beneath me sloping downward. I slid
forward with it, my stomach flipping as I tumbled a
few feet before catching myself. My boots skidded against stone,
my hands finding purchased just in time to stop myself
from going further. Ryan's voice filtered to the tunnel behind me.
You good. I took a moment to catch my breath,
then grinned up at him. You're gonna love this. By
the time Ryan wriggled through and dropped down beside me.
I had already turned my head lamp outward, scanning the
space ahead, and what I saw made my breath catch.
The cavern was huge. The ceiling arched high above us,
its surface lined with jagged stalactites that shimmered faintly under
our lights. The walls were textured with ripples of mineral
deposits patterns left behind by ancient underground water flow. And
at the center of it all, stretching across uneven rock floor,
was a pool of crystal clear water. Ryan let at
a low whistle. Why. We'd explored a lot of caves
together over the years, but there was something different about
this one. It was pristine. Finding untouched caves isn't all
that rare, but one this large. He turned to me,
grinning wide. Dude, we might have just found something historic.
I exhaled. Yeah, I couldn't stop looking. The whole place
was surreal, like a cathedral hidden beneath the earth, frozen
in time. But there was something else too, something I
couldn't quite put into words, the weight of the air.
I shook off the feeling and reached for my guideline.
We had done this hundreds of times before. It was
second nature. In unfamiliar caves, you always marked your way
back a thin, unspoiling rope, anchored at the entrance and
carefully fed through the chambers. We explored a life line
in case things went south. I tied the first anchor point,
securing the line to a sturdy rock formation. Ryan double
checked it, giving the rope a few fern tugs. Satisfied,
we turned back to the cave ahead. The deeper we went,
the more alien the cave became. Some of the stalagmites
rising from the floor were twisted like rope caught in
a slow motion spiral. Others were hollowed out, punctured with
small holes, as if something had bored through them, not water, erosion,
something else. Ryan ran a hand over one. I've never
seen formations like these. I nodded, tracing a beam of
light across a nearby column. The rock was smooth in
some places, almost polished, but in others it was rough
and cracked, like dried skin. It wasn't natural, not entirely.
And then I noticed the bones, not whole skeletons, just
individual pieces. A jaw, bones stripped of teeth, a few
vertebrae so small I almost mistook them for pebbles. Some
were tiny, rodent like, some were longer, thicker. Ryan crouched
beside me, picking one up. He turned it over in
his palm, running his thumb along the brittle edge. Think
an animal got trapped down here? I shrugged, but my
stomach felt tight. I guess so the entrance caved in,
so it makes sense that something ought trapped in here.
We felt quiet for a second, inspecting the bones on
the ground, taking our time to soak in the details
of this place. As I sat, a particular piece of
a jaw I had picked up back down, I heard
a small sound somewhere in our vicinity. I tapped Ryan
on the shoulder, pointing toward the source of the sound,
right behind a rock, a soft, hollow sound, like something
tapping against stone. Ryan swung his flashlight toward the sound,
and I caught the briefest glimpse of something in the dust.
Not much, just a shifting of loose sediment, like the
vibration of something deep beneath the earth. I exhaled, sharply,
pushing away the thought I'd been in plenty of caves
with sound bounced strangely, where simple noises walked into something unsettling.
Ryan let out of breath and grinned, Man, your paranoid's
self hasn't changed a bit. I shook my head, forcing
a smirk, just saying something those bones down here. Ryan
rolled his eyes and stepped ahead. That was when the
flashlight beam hit some sort of drawings. I had seen
petroglyphs before, markings carved into rock by early humans. Their
history preserved and jagged etchings and faded pigments, But those
had always been where you'd expect them, shallow caves, near
water sources. Figures with spears, bows, fire. They were carved
crudely but skillfully, their stick like limbs raised toward animals, deers, birds,
what looked like bison, the kind of thing you'd seen
any prehistoric cave art. But then the drawings changed. The
next few figures were running from something. It was depicted
as a mess of lines, but the long cry stared
the clearer it became. A large figure, body distorted. Its
shape was harder to find, as though whoever it carved
it had tried and failed to capture what they had seen.
Ryan traced his fingers over the grooves in the rock.
He was quiet, his eyes gleaming at the drawings in
front of us. The images continued. The smaller figures fought it.
They jabbed at it with spears torches. In some scenes
the creature was shown bleeding. Dark streets of pigments smeared
across the stone, but it never fell. And then the
final series of drawings, the figures were no longer fighting.
They started fleeing, and they were being chased. The smaller
figures had been forced into a their forms hunched and terrified,
and standing at the entrance blocking their way out. Was it?
And in the final carving, at the very bottom of
the panel was a single figure, alone, trapped inside the cave.
I took a step back. Neither of us spoke for
a few moments. The only sound was our own breathing,
and somewhere distant, the faintest hint of dripping water. I
swallowed and turned my light toward Ryan. How old do
you think this is? He didn't answer right away. When
he finally did, his voice had lost this cocky edge.
I'm not too sure. I think our ancestors had a
few too many of the wrong mushrooms and got themselves
trapped in a care We put the marker down and
kept moving. We stopped at the edge of the passage,
staring into the darkness ahead. The wall in front of
us had a split in it, not tiny by any means,
but we'd have to squeeze ourselves through. Before I could respond,
he was already pushing himself into the passage, head first,
arms tucked in close, his boots scraped against the stone
as he wriggled forward, his body quickly swallowed by the tunnel.
I shook my head, muttering under my breath, reckless asshole.
But I followed. My back scraped against the ceiling, my
ribs pressed against the cold limestone. The walls were rough,
biting into my gear as I forward. Ryan's voice drifted
from upperhead, muffled by the narrow space. Not so bad, right,
I grunted, says the guy who's not clausophobic. He laughed.
I tumbled out. The flashlight clipped to my chest swung wildly,
it's beam dancing across the cavern walls. I took a
deep breath, stretching my arms. It felt good to be out.
Ryan dusted himself off, glancing back at the passage. Tighter
than I thought. But hey, we made it. We were
at yet another massive open space, not too dissimilar from
the clearing we just come from, but still it was beautiful.
Our trance was broken by a sharp, hollow sound. It
echoed through the chamber, faint but distinct, a wheezing noise.
We both froze. Ryan turned his flashlight toward the passage
behind us. What was there? I swallowed. Probably just rock shifting.
Even as I said it, I didn't believe it. The
cave was silent, no tremors, no signs of movement, nothing
to suggest to shift in the stone. The sound had
come from somewhere. Ryan exhaled through his nose. Yeah. Probably.
Neither of us moved for a long moment, just listening.
The sound didn't come again. I forced the breath. Let's
keep moving. We spread out, shining our lights along the
cavern walls, and then Ryan said, whoa over here? I turned.
My brain didn't register what I was looking at, just
a collection of pale, broken shapes nestled against the cavern wall.
But as I stepped closer the details came into focus.
It was a skeleton, human in shape, but larger and thicker.
The skull was broader, the rib cage wider, more robust.
I knelt beside it, brushing away a layer of dust.
The bones were ancient, and some were snapped clean. Ryan whistled,
crouching beside him, damn looks like a Neanderthal's skeleton or something.
I didn't respond. I was staring at the rib cage.
It was shattered and the entire skeleton was covered in normarks.
Ryan saw them too. His grin faded something hate this thing.
My mouth felt dry. Yeah. We both turned our flashlights
toward the tunnel behind us, the place where we'd heard
the wheezing for the first time since we'd entered the cave.
I felt uneasy. The sound came back, faint at first,
barely audible over the steady drip of water somewhere deeper
in the cave, but it was closer this time. Ryan
stiffened beside me, his flashlight being trembling against the cavern wall.
I turned my flashlight toward the tunnel we had just
crawled through. It was a black void, barely wider than
a person. Nothing moved. Then my light flickered movement, a
blow of motion in the corner of my eye. Something
shifting behind the rock formations at the far end of
the cavern. It was fast. Ryan saw it too, he
inhald sharply, stepping back. Dude. My flashlight flickered again, the
beams shrinking, dimming. Ryan's did the same, and then it
rushed us. It didn't make a sound. One second, the
cavern was empty. The next, something lunged from the darkness,
a twisted shape, skittering across the uneven stone. My flashlight
caught a glimpse of it, just a fraction of a
second before it exited, The beams filled of view. Skin
stretched too tight, pale, patchy, like something malted but never
fully regrew. Ryan screamed. The thing hit him hard, knocking
him sideways. He slammed against the rock, his flashlight spinning
across the cavern floor. I scrambled backward, my boots slipping
on loose gravel. My chest heaved. I was fighting to
process what I had just seen, what I thought I
had seen, Ryan groaned, clutching his arm. Blood dripped onto
the stone. The creature didn't linger. It was gone in
an instant, retreating into the tunnels, disappearing between the rock formations.
It had never been there. At all. Only one sound remained,
that mocking wheeze. Somewhere, just out of sight, Ryan sat up,
teeth gritted in pain. His sleeve was shredded, blood seeping
through the fabric. I couldn't tell how deep the cut was,
but the way his arm trembled I could tell he
was definitely rattled. At the very least, I reached for
his shoulder. You're okay, he excelled, sharply flexing his fingers. Yeah,
just a scratch. His voice was unsteady. I turned my
flashlight back to all the tunnels. Nothing just stone and shadow.
Ryan forced the breath and pushed himself up. We need
to get out now. We turned back toward the tunnel
we had crawled through, and somewhere behind us, somewhere in
the dark, the wheezing started again. We ran, not in
a frantic way, we simply couldn't. The way the cave
was laid out, we could easily slip and fall on
jagged rocks. We had to move carefully, but we moved
as fast as we could. Bryan's breath was ragged beside me,
and his boots scraped loudly against the cavern floor as
he stumbled. I kept her own glances over my shoulder,
expecting to see something moving in the dark behind us,
but there was nothing. The wheezing kept echoing from somewhere
deep within the tunnels, distant, then closer than distant. Again
who was toying with us? We reached the opening to
the passage we had come through, the narrow gap that
would take us back to the chamber where we'd found
the drawings. The guideline was still there, keeping us on track.
Relief crashed into me so hard I nearly collapsed against
the wall. We could still get out. Ryan didn't wait.
He grabbed the rope and hauled himself forward, pulling himself
into the narrow space. I followed, keeping my head on
a swivel. As I adjusted myself and squeezed back into
the tunnel, the rock closed in on us again, pressing
against our backs, our chests. We moved quickly, retracing our
steps through the dark, winding passage. Every inch felt tighter
than before, The air seemed heavier. I could hear Ryan's
boots scuffling against the walls, his breathing coming faster and harder.
Then the tight squeeze the final passageway that led back
to the outside. I dropped onto my stomach, stretching both
arms forward and pulling myself into the tunnel. I focused
on the light ahead, a small sliver of blue gray
at the end of the passage. It had to be
just a few more feet behind me. Ryan grunted as
he followed. The tunnel was just barely big enough for
us to fit. Pressing against our backs and ribs, we
inched forward, dragging ourselves through the confined space. Then I
heard Ryan stop the sharp, sudden inhale. Dude. His voice
sounded strained. I twisted my neck as best as I could,
trying to look back, but couldn't. What a beat of silence,
then my hand, it's completely numb. Something in my chest
went cold. I couldn't see him, but I knew what
he meant. We'd barely stop to look at his injury
after the attack, too focused on getting the hell out
of there. But it must have been deeper than we thought.
Maybe it had hit a nerve and he hadn't felt
it due to adrenaline. I heard Ryan shift behind me,
trying to pull himself forward. I can't close my fingers.
His flashlight flickered against the stone, walls, making the shadows
stretch and shift. Ryan tried again, dragging himself forward with
one functioning hand. His movements sounded awkward, unsteady. He could
still push with his legs, but with one hand commission
his pace slowed. The sound was closer now. I felt
my lungs seize. Ryan must have heard it too, because
his breath hitched, his flashlight jerking as he twisted his
head back toward the sound. Ryan pushed forward, his boots
scraping against the stone, his body jerking with effort, but
without his hand to grip and pull, he wasn't moving
fast enough. My heart hammered against my ribs. The sound
was closer now. I could almost feel the air shifting
behind me. I turned back toward the exit, toward the
open air just a few feet ahead. Ryan grunted, desperate,
now trying to shove himself forward. Then, for the first time,
her breath lo wet just inches behind us. The wheezing
had stopped. Now it was just breathing move Ryan gasped.
His voice was tight with fear. I'm going, I shouted back,
shoving myself forward. My hands scrambled for purchase on the rock,
fingers scraping against sharp edges. Ryan grunted, kicking hard as
he tried to push himself forward. I could hear the
strain in his voice, the way his body trembled against
the stone he was fighting. And then he gasped, sharp, sudden,
then nothing, silence. A cold pit fawned in my stomach.
Ryan silence, no more grunting, just the faintest shift of air.
I kicked wildly, thrashing my legs, shoving myself forward with
every ounce of strength I had left. My knee banged
against a piece of stone, but I didn't care. I
had to move. I clawed at the rock, gasping, feeling
my body scrape, and cut through the last few inches
of the tunnel. The exit was right there. One last rush,
I threw myself forward, and then I was out. I
hit the ground hard, rolling on to my back. The
night sky was above me, the trees swaying gently in
the wind, fresh air flooding my lungs, burning my throat.
For a moment, I just lay there, dazed, disoriented by
the sheer openness around me. I spun on to my
hands and knees, scrambling back towards the hole, reaching inside Ryan,
come on. My fingers grasped an empty space. I swung
my flashlight down, aiming it into the tunnel, expecting to
see him just inches away, dragging himself toward the exit.
I saw nothing, But I heard a noise so deeply
wrong that my body rejected it before my brain could
even process it. A wet, disgusting crunch, the sound of
something tearing through muscle, splintering bone, A muffled, sickening, chewing noise.
I felt my stomach twist violently. I didn't need to
see it. I knew another crunch, then a squelch. Ryan
was gone, a low, grinding groan deep beneath the earth.
The creature led out a scream from inside, and the
entrance shook as it sounded like it pounded its frame
against the entrance. The ground beneath the entrance trembled. The
stones we had pulled loose earlier shifted on their own,
tumbling back into place. The cave was collapsing again. The
hole we had worked for hours to dig through collapsed
inward in a violent rush of stone and dust. I watched,
stunned as our entire entranceway disappeared. Within seconds, the hole
was gone, just solid rock. I dropped to my knees
and started digging. I claweded the dirt, heaving the loose
stones aside, throwing them behind me. I could barely see
through the dust. My fingers already scraped raw against the
rough limestone. But no matter how much I pulled, pushed, dug,
I couldn't even make a dent. I don't know how
long I sat there before I reached for my phone.
My hands were shaking, my mind still trying to grasp
what I had just witnessed. I stared at the screen
at the emergency call option. What the hell was I
supposed to say? I dialed? The operator answered nine one one,
what's your emergency? I opened my mouth. My mind was blank.
My throat clenched so tight I could barely force words
through it. My friend is missing. We were in a
cave and he's trapped. Sir, can you clarify a cave clap?
Is your friend trapped? I swallowed, yes, it collapsed Another silence,
longer this time. Then stay where you are. We're sending
a unit out now. By the time the police arrived,
I'd gone numb. The officers didn't believe me, not really,
but They saw the dirt on my clothes, the fresh
scrape on my forehead where I must have clipped a
rock on my way out. They knew I was distressed, panicked.
They brought search dogs, more people came, more light, The
digging started, but they never found Ryan, never found anything.
They questioned me for hours, Where did Ryan go? What
exactly happened? How did I get out if he didn't.
I told them the truth. They didn't write it down.
M