Waterlogged

1: Lost

You’re two hundred and forty feet underwater, floating in darkness by the entrance to a deep cave. Before it stands a sign with large block letters and a simple warning: “Stop! Prevent your death, go no further.” Though eerie, you’re an experienced individual with a license as an advanced open water diver, with several trips within caves. You proceed, ready to map out thus far unexplored regions; only a trimix tank and a mouthpiece keeping you from an unpleasant demise.

Proceeding within, you are shocked by the overwhelming darkness. You turn on your flashlight, which gives you a good view of the clear waters, but it also creates a bizarre sense of being trapped within the narrow passages.

A line has been attached by the entrance, serving as a passive guide into the network before you. The plan is to extend it deeper into the network of caves, but should you lose it, there’s no calling for help, no turning back, no hope. You’ll get trapped, panic, and inevitably drown.

Despite this, you keep moving, deeper and deeper into the darkness. You eventually reach the end of the marked path, not even noticing the slight decline leading even further down into the depths of the ocean.  

After thirty minutes in the cave, you check your residual pressure gauge, estimating the time you have left before surfacing becomes an absolute necessity. With your trimix tank and a reserve, you have just over two hours underwater. One third was reserved for the journey downwards into the cave, which happened so far without incident, leaving a generous margin of error. The second third is being spared for the outward trip, with the last third saved as a reserve.

Then you glance at your dive computer, which lets you know that the depth has increased to almost three hundred feet. Surprised, but not worried, you attach another point of the line, ensuring an easy trek back to the surface. Below you lie a ground void of all life, just fine dirt and sand dragged in by the current.

But while finishing up the line attachment, your tools slip, sinking down towards the sand. You react instinctively, pushing towards the bottom, just a tad harder than intended. Though you’re still in control, your sudden movement dislodges the dirt from the ground, causing a sudden silt out.

Left blind, your heart starts to race, and your respiration rate quickens. Adrenaline is the culprit, but you need to get it under control, lest the air in your tank runs out prematurely.

Falling back on your training, you know you just need to find the line, and pull yourself back to clear waters. You reach out your hand, knowing you left the line right above you, but there’s nothing there to grab onto. The horrific realization does nothing but deepen your panic. You push upwards, frantically searching for your only rescue. But with the network of caves far more complex than first anticipated, you end up swimming further and further away from the exit, away from the only guide you had.

Minutes pass, ticking down with the pressure gauge, counting away the oxygen left in your tank. But by some miracle, you manage to escape the silt cloud. You can finally see, and for just a moment, you start to calm down. That is until you realize that you haven’t the faintest idea where you are. You peer down to notice that you only have one third of your oxygen left, the last third you so desperately needed for the ascent. Being nowhere near the exit, surviving has become a statistical impossibility. Though you’re technically still alive, your death has been marked as a fixed point in history. It’s only a matter of time before your air runs out, and you drown, cold and alone in the depths of the ocean.

These are the harrowing experiences turning many a diver away from the dangers of the deep waters. And the few lucky enough to survive such an incident would most certainly swear to never set foot in the ocean again. But among those, a select few react with the exact opposite response, gaining a newfound attraction to the concept of diving, needing to prove themselves against all odds.

After surviving one of these cave incidents years prior, my soul was bound to the depths. In response, I took up rescue diving, swearing on my own grave to protect others from suffering the same horrific fate.

***

“Hey, mate, ocean’s that way,” David pointed out as we headed in the direction of Darwell Woods.

“Yeah, well I’m just a pilot. Take it up with the team leader,” the man shot back, barely audible over the sound of the helicopter rotor whirring above us.

Below were endless fields of green with a dense forest just beginning to appear on the horizon. A spectacle to be witnessed from such a height, but in spite of its beauty, I longed for the dark depths below.

David turned to the rest of us, lowering his voice in annoyance. “Is he serious? Did he see us board with diving gear? What does he think we’re doing?”

“There’s water in the woods too, David,” Maya argued. “If the kid has drowned. It’s up to us to retrieve the body.”

“If the kid has drowned, it’s no longer an emergency,” Andrew chimed in.

Though callous, the man had a point. We’d been scooped up as an emergency response team, hearing the news of a young boy that had gone missing in the center of Darwell, presumably trapped underwater. Though details were scant, I too wondered why we were heading for the woods. It was an area I knew intimately through many excursions over the years, which is why I knew the place held no large bodies of water, lakes nor rivers.

“What do you think, Rick?” Maya asked, pulling me out from my deep contemplation.

“I’m just trying to figure out where we’re supposed to dive, and how deep the place could possibly be to warrant a dive team.”

“There aren’t any lakes in Darwell Woods,” Andrew explained confidently. “Lived around these parts all my life. Never seen a damn lake. We’re going somewhere else.”

He’d caught our attention, because though we’d explicitly been recruited for a rescue dive in an area with no ocean nor lakes, Andrew didn’t seem all that surprised.

“O’ man of old age and great wisdom, please share with us your nuggets of information,” Maya let out sarcastically.

Andrew, being his usual self, didn’t even acknowledge Maya’s quip. He just looked at each of us, as if asking a wordless question uttered only in silence.

“We’re not just recreational divers. Hell, we’re not even open water divers. We are cave divers.”

He then turned to me with a half-smile on his face. “Or what do you think, Boss?” 

Though the thought had crossed my mind, it wasn’t an idea that sat easy with me. A hidden cave in the forest might have gotten waterlogged during one of the many recent storms, but the aspect of an unexpectedly drowned cave came with many unforeseen risks, such as strong currents, mudslides and cave-ins. And while I had no trepidation swimming around underwater caves, one caused by flash floods sent shivers down my spine.

We’d been flying for an hour before we reached Darwell Woods, gliding through the air at a low altitude, heading for a set of given coordinates in the dead center of the forest. I started to wonder how we could possibly land in such dense vegetation, but as we neared our destination, a large opening I’d never seen before revealed itself, one practically designed for aerial rescues.

Small figures started to appear amid the trees, wearing bright, reflective vests. A couple of them came running out into the clearing, waving at us to put the helicopter down. After a rough landing, we were met with half a dozen rescue workers. We stepped out with our tanks of various gas mixtures, wetsuits and masks, met with almost relief by the crew greeting us.

“Who’s in charge here?” I asked.

The crew turned to a scruff-looking, middle-aged man, who promptly introduced himself as Graham. He shook my hand and thanked us for coming, before gesturing for us to follow him towards the objective, situated half a mile within the forest. Luckily, the team helped us with the transportation of our heavy equipment, allowing us to gather strength for the mission.

Once we’d started walking, Graham finally started to shed some light on the situation.

“We were called two days ago after a ten-year-old kid went missing while camping in the woods with his parents. Leaving no trace behind, his parents had no choice but to seek help. But with no signal reaching this far into the wilderness, his dad decided to sprint the entire distance, until finally coming upon a small town, where he borrowed a landline to call us. By then, of course, nightfall had arrived, making the search almost impossible. Having no luck recovering the kid’s tracks, we figured he’d been snatched up by some predator or fallen off a cliff. It wasn’t until the break of dawn that we realized how close to camp he actually had been.”

We were led deeper into the woods, where volunteers had parked their dirt-bikes and even some off-road vehicles that had by some miracle made it through the vegetation. Once we’d reached the rescue site, we were met by two dozen rescue workers and excavation equipment. A pile of dirt stood in the center, left behind as they’d been digging down for something I could only assume was a thus far undiscovered cave.

“Turns out,” Graham continued. “The ground around these parts is riddled with underwater rivers creating a massive network of waterlogged caves. One of which the kid accidentally stepped into through a two-foot-wide hole hidden beneath some shrubs. A hole just large enough for a skinny kid to slip into, but too small for a grown adult. Now, we’ve been working on expanding the hole for our team to go down and extract the boy, but…”

“That’s all very unfortunate, but where do we come in?” David asked impatiently. He came across rude, but I could tell he was just nervous about the aspect of diving into waterlogged caves created by strong currents. It wasn’t a situation we’d step into lightly.

Graham stopped dead in his tracks, annoyed by the interruption.

“If you’d let me finish,” he almost demanded.

David looked to me for confirmation. I just gave him a gentle nod. It was a polite gesture to make him shut up, and a command he diligently followed.

“To better assess the area we were about to enter, and to get proof of life, we sent down a camera attached to a rope. The hole extends twenty-seven feet below ground in a narrow tunnel, before opening up into a massive chamber, which extended another fifty feet down into a large pool of water, which depths we’re unsure of.”

“And the boy?” I asked.

“He survived the fall and had even managed to swim to a small plateau along one of the cave walls. He’d been sitting there for more than a day waiting for a rescue,” Graham went on, but didn’t seem relieved by the statement.

“You’re not happy about finding him alive?” I asked.

“Well, we were ecstatic. But that deep down we had no means of communicating with him effectively, and expanding the hole to be large enough for an adult to descend through would take hours. So, we pulled the camera back up, and packed up a survival kit with water, food, heating blankets and the like. We left him alone down there for another hour and a half while preparing it all before sending it back down alongside the camera and a walkie.”

“And?” I kept pushing, noticing a prominent feeling of unease in his voice.

“The boy was gone.”

“Gone? Gone where?” Maya chimed in.

“We don’t know. The water levels hadn’t risen, and there were no other visible ledges to hold on to. It was as if he’d entered the water again just to drown. All he’d left behind was the backpack he’d worn during the fall.” 

Before Graham could continue, he was approached by one of the rescue workers, who announced that the expansion had been completed. The hole now stretched four feet wide, more than enough place for us to descend with diving equipment. But the hope of finding the boy alive was all but lost.

“Graham, when did you last see the boy?” I asked.

“Four hours ago,” he almost mumbled. “That’s when we requested rescue divers.”

“Pardon my bluntness,” I began. “But what makes you think we can save him at this stage?”

He paused, scratching his head in uncertainty of what he was about to say next. “The ground below is highly porous, as I said. And we suspect there are several other chambers connected by a network of caves. Our main theory is that the kid slipped into the water and got caught by a current. If he was lucky, he might have ended up in another air-filled chamber.”

“I wouldn’t bet on it,” I responded bluntly.

“Maybe not. But until we have a body, we’re going with the assumption that he’s still alive. So, the question is: are you up for the task?”

I turned to my team, standing stoically behind me. Apart from Andrew, neither of them wished for this particular job, but none were willing to back down from a challenge, dangerous as it might be. Alas, with the limited information we had, it was my task to decide whether or not we’d risk our lives for a boy that almost certainly had perished in the waters below. As bleak as the situation might seem, as long as a sliver of hope remained, we had to try. 

“We’ll go down,” I said.

A glimpse of relief appeared in Graham’s eyes as he gestured towards the pile of dirt lying next to a hole into the abyss.

“Right this way,” he said.

2: Below

We promptly gathered around the four-foot-wide hole in the ground, which extended down into an impossibly dark abyss. For a moment my thoughts wandered to the young boy, whose name I hadn’t even bothered to ask. To me, he’d been just another body to recover, but a part of me inexplicably clung to hope. Against all logic, I felt as if he still lived down in the caves, surviving the elements against all odds, in the dark, alone, cold and afraid.

“Rick?” David asked, jolting me back to reality. “You ready?”

I nodded, making sure my equipment was firmly secured to my person, before getting ready to attach myself to the harness. A metal tripod stood above the hole, with a winch ready to slowly lower us down into the cave with our diving equipment and bodycams.

“I’m going first,” Andrew announced, grappling his harness to the cable.

While Andrew was the oldest and by far the most experienced member of the team, he wasn’t the leader. It was a fact he was prone to forget, unwilling, or ashamed to take orders from a younger man.

We locked our eyes, silently battling over control. But he stood firm, patiently waiting for me to comment on his insubordination.

“Just making sure the place is safe before you descend, Boss. You’ll take the lead from there,” he half suggested, half ordered.

“Go ahead, then,” I said, knowing an argument would do little more than delay the already sensitive mission.

Once Andrew had vanished in the darkness, I followed suit. The winch whirred to life, slowly lowering me into the hole. On the way down, my equipment gently hit the edge of the rocky wall, causing me to squeeze my body tighter around the cable. I took a deep breath, preparing to be swallowed by the ground, the first bout of worry setting in my bones.  

Within a minute, I’d been completely engulfed by darkness. I activated my flashlight, inspecting the rocky surroundings that seemed to narrow in around me with each descending foot. Though not a claustrophobic person underwater, the bizarre echoes reverberating through air filled caves sent shivers down my spine. Every whir from the winch and every crumble of rock loudly shooting through the air.

Then, as I finally passed the threshold into the chamber, the walls expanded in all directions. I exited the narrow tunnel, to find myself suddenly hanging in an enormous void of complete darkness. Below I heard soft splashing sounds from Andrew moving around in the water, fifty feet below.

“Andrew?” I called down. “How’s it looking down there?”

No response. The splashes had already fallen silent, which meant he’d descended underwater to inspect the area. All without awaiting the rest of the team.

Annoyed, but not surprised, I spent my remaining descent scanning my surroundings. The place felt impossibly large, too long and wide for my beam to hit all edges of the cave. Even the plateau lining the water’s surface lay shrouded in darkness, only visible due to the reflective surface of the boy’s backpack. And as I got a tad further down, I noticed Andrew’s nitrox tank and mouthpiece also resting on the plateau.

“Andrew?” I called out, realizing he’d gone under without his diving equipment. The distraction was enough that I couldn’t prepare myself for the impact with the ice-cold water, which sent a shockwave through my body even with the wetsuit protecting me. I quickly detached myself from the harness and swam towards the plateau, searching the depths below for Andrew’s flashlight.

Just as I started to worry, Andrew emerged from below the surface, jumping onto the plateau with ease. He gasped for air, turning to me with his trademark smirk plastered across his face.

“What the hell were you doing?” I asked, as relieved as annoyed by the man’s antics.

“Sorry, Boss. Just assessing the caves,” he said in between breaths.

“You were supposed to wait,” I explained firmly.

“Just trying to save us some time,” he shot back.

Putting aside the disobedience, I refocused on the task ahead. Trying to avoid another staring contest with a man too stubborn to be reasoned with.

“What did you find?” I reluctantly asked.

“Two tunnels. One on the east side, one on the north-western edge. Both extend further down below. There’s a mild current pulling between them, leading into the north-western tunnel.”

“Anything else?”

“Some small animal carcasses scattered around, victims of the hole I suppose.”

As Andrew described the situation, Maya and David both descended into the waters, gently splashing into it.

“Fuck, it’s cold,” Maya exclaimed, rushing over to the plateau.

We gathered around on the solid surface. Andrew repeated what he’d discovered.

“We’re going to head down the north-western passage, follow the current to find the kid. Just follow our regular protocol, and we’ll be back before dinner.”

“So, you’re in charge now?” I asked, immediately ashamed that I let him get to me. He glared back in return, enjoying the fact that he could get a rise out of me.

Truth be told, there was a reason I’d been hired as the diving leader over Andrew, a reason from his past he didn’t know I was privy to. One I struggled with all my might not to reveal to him.

“Woah, a dick measuring contest?” David asked, futilely trying to break the tension. “Should I get a ruler, or should we focus on the job? I’d get the ruler to be honest, but I left it on the chopper, so in the interest of saving time, maybe we should get going.”

Using David’s joke as an excuse to break eye contact with Andrew, I returned my gaze to the water and sighed.

“Fine, what Andrew said. I’ll take the lead, never break line of sight. You got it?”

“Yes, sir,” Maya said, none to follow her example.

With that, we inserted out mouth pieces, and dove under the surface. In the darkness, our flashlights were the sole method of guiding our way. The water was perfectly clear, allowing our beams to hit the bottom on each side, only when shined directly into the tunnel, did the reach of the beam prove insufficient. The animal carcasses Andrew had described were mere skeletons without even a hint of flesh left behind, but they didn’t appear all that old, as if something had fed off the meat and left the bones behind.

Though a peculiar thought, I had no way of communicating it with the team, except to point and gesture, which wouldn’t have served any purpose but to worry them further. So, I ignored the sight, leading my team into the north-western passage with Andrew swimming by my side.

Withstanding the current proved to be an easy enough task, and I turned around frequently to make sure the team didn’t split up. Maya swam in the middle, with David at the back, carrying the end of a line still attached to the plateau. Should we end up getting lost, we only had to follow the cable back to safety.

After a few minutes following a gentle descent, the passage took a steep dive into the abyss. From there, it split up into several smaller tunnels, with the largest of them all being the only to head straight down. The current we’d decided to follow, of course took the path downwards. I glanced at my depth gauge, which displayed a depth of thirty-two feet. It reassured me, knowing we still had almost a hundred feet to work with before being forced to ascend.

We paused, with the rest of the team turning to me as they awaited orders. I nodded, turning to dive down further as the depth gauge counted up. We moved with the current through the descending passage, ignoring any diverting tunnels, twisting and turning into a messy network of caves. We only stopped once every so often to attach the rescue line along the wall.

At fifty-seven feet down, I noticed something different hanging alongside the otherwise lifeless cave wall. A deep red vine clinging to the crumbly wall’s surface, with small roots digging into the side, resembling blood vessels. A sort of plant I’d never before seen, existing where no life was supposed to have developed. I pointed to the thing, more curious than anything, but the rest of the team seemed uninterested, all eager to keep the descent going.

Once we’d reached eighty feet, the pit finally turned horizontally with a slight downward slope. Several side passages extended on each side, some even returning back up into dead ends. More vines hung along the walls, each bigger than the last, stretching out from the tunnel we were following. Wondering how its surface felt, I decided to touch one of them. It was squishy, but rough like hundreds of threads tied together, akin to exposed muscle. It twitched in response, releasing its roots from the wall and retracting ever so slightly. I realized then, that it wasn’t a plant, but some sort of fleshy appendage appearing to feed off the wall.

While distracted by the odd growth, Andrew had taken the lead. He delved further into the tunnel with Maya and David in tow, the latter just giving me a quick glance to ensure I didn’t fall too far behind. Having no voice to order a halt, I had no choice but to follow behind.

By then, we’d already been in the water for forty minutes, carefully following the main current through the network of caves. One third of our allotted time had passed. Though finding our way back would be an easier task, with a safety line guiding our way, we weren’t about to turn back anytime soon.

On the chase to take the lead from Andrew, I realized just how narrow the passage had gotten. Even if I sped up, I had no way of getting past the rest of the team without risking getting stuck. So, I was left in the back, waiting for the path to widen once again.

Distracted by the increasingly claustrophobic cave, I failed to keep a close eye on the depth gauge. With the slope going at an almost invisible decline, I really didn’t think much of it. Not until I started to notice the first signs of nitrogen narcosis: an undying feeling of anxiety not warranted at that stage during the mission.

Unknown to us, we’d managed to reach a depth of a hundred and fifty feet, a fact the rest of the team hadn’t appeared to notice, despite our many experiences with exactly such situations. I reached out to tap David’s foot, only to notice him getting pulled away by the increasing strength of the current. Then, the passage came to a sudden end, leading into another pit in the ground, one which Andrew dove headfirst into, going deeper into the caves.

I tried to break, hoping they’d notice, but the current pulled me in as well. It plopped us into a large, underwater chamber. Once more, I felt as if we were floating in a void of vast darkness, with the bottom of the room endlessly far below, out of reach of our lights. We were now two hundred feet below the surface, with God knows how much space beneath us.

On the roof above us, I noticed how thick the growths had gotten. Turning from vines to massive stems with dark veins running along them, leading deeper into the caves. They pulsated along the wall, sucking the little nutrients they could from the walls. I waved at the team, starting to feel the effects of nitrogen narcosis take ahold of my body. Where the rest of the team might have felt a drunken sense of confidence, I was suffering the opposite effect. I wanted to abort the mission and return to the surface, but Andrew was fixated on the idea of reaching the cave’s end. He gestured to a point far off on the other side of the chamber where the current seemed to be leading us. There, hung a faint light emerging from another opening in the cave walls. Though within reach of the remaining air we had, it meant a further descent of about fifty feet. It was a risk I wasn’t willing to take without suitable gas.

While Andrew kept wordlessly insisting, Maya and David drifted to my side, both realizing the dangerous situation we were about to enter. If we kept diving, we risked getting disoriented enough to lose our orientation, ending with the four of us drowning in a cold tomb.

Knowing he stood no chance of convincing us, Andrew started following us back up to the hole in the chamber ceiling, where we’d secured the last line attachment. But before we could reach the hole, David too, noticed the bizarre growths on the wall. He got closer to inspect them, reaching out his hand to gently touch them. In response, a dozen smaller roots detached from the wall, but instead of retracting away like I’d witnessed in the shallower parts, these roots reached out for David, rapidly wrapping themselves around him.

With Maya and Andrew already swimming through the exit in the ceiling, they didn’t notice David’s struggle. Large amounts of dust and dirt emerged from the crumbly wall where the roots detached, causing an instant silt out. I tried flashing my lights at the rest of the team, but the emerging fog was too thick for my beam to penetrate. So, I pulled the knife from my belt, and started slashing at the vines wrapped around David.

The growths were easy enough to cut through, but the sheer number of them made it a futile task, and with more emerging, pulling David further down into the depths, I knew I stood no chance of saving him. Still, in absolute desperation, David latched onto my hand, pulling me down with him. Again, I tried to cut the vines away from him, but in the chaos, I managed to drop my knife, letting it sink into the infinite abyss below.

Getting a final glance at the depth gauge as we got pulled down, I realized we were just shy of three hundred feet below the surface. Nitrogen narcosis had become an absolute certainty. I felt my body grow weaker, terror setting in my soul alongside a sense of absolute hopelessness. I could tell David was experiencing the same effects, because his grip slowly loosened, finally letting go of me before the creature snatched him away towards the light in the wall. There I hung in the void, no longer knowing which way was up or down. I could feel my mind quickly fading away, darkness occupying my peripheral vision. I knew then that I was going to drown. 

But then I felt something wrap around my arm, reaching out through the cloud of silt. Not a vine, but a hand, pulling me away. Too confused to understand, much less fight it, I let my mind slip into a deep state of sleep, no longer worried what would happen to me.

***

Seconds, minutes, even hours could have passed before I finally regained consciousness. I was still underwater, being dragged through narrow tunnels with the depth gauge showing a slowly decreasing number on my wrist. I looked up to find Andrew pulling me by my arms, dragging me back to safety.

Once we finally breached the surface, Maya and Andrew wrapped me in my harness and attached me to the cable. As I ascended up out from the cave, I started to regain my senses. I wondered what I’d seen down there, if it’d been a product of my feeble mind in the depths, or if it had been real. But David had been taken, that wasn’t a hallucination, and I had failed to save him.

The rescue team in the forest immediately tended to me, but the nitrogen narcosis had caused no lasting damage. And as the rest of my team reached the surface, the initial despair and confusion had turned to something else entirely: an incessant feeling of anger.

“You killed him,” I mumbled, still too weak to shout.

Andrew approached me, bent down to my level and spoke in a hushed tone. “What was that?”

“It was your fault. You killed David,” I let out, an accusation directed at him for failing to check his depth gauge.

“I just saved your life,” Andrew said as he helped me up on my own two legs.

“A life that wouldn’t have needed saving if you’d just let me take the lead.”

“I was trying to find that damned kid,” was his response.

I paused, noticing a crowd of people gathering around us. Though they hadn’t yet heard the content of our argument, it was easy to notice the animosity between the two of us. I leaned in closer, lowering my voice to a mere whisper.

“You know, this is why I’m in charge. Don’t think for a second that I don’t know about your past reckless behavior. This is what happens when you’re the one in charge.”

“Stop it, please,” Maya said, coming between us. “What happened to him? Where’s David?”

Ending our standoff, we both turned to Maya, neither sure how to explain why David hadn’t come back up with us.

“He…” I began, still not entirely sure what I’d experienced down in the depths. “The growths… they… he was taken by them.”

“What?” Maya asked, confused.

“David got lost in the silt out,” Andrew explained. “I couldn’t find him. He must have followed the light in the depths, thinking it was one of our flashlights.”

“That’s not what happened,” I shot back, almost yelling. “These things down there, they wrapped around him and pulled him away.”

The rescue team stood idly by, staring at us in disbelief. None of them had realized just how deep the caves were, much less could they comprehend the horrors that existed within the network. Though I must have come across as crazy, I no longer cared.

“It was a hallucination caused by the nitrogen narcosis,” Andrew responded, but his usual confidence seemed just a tad faded. With him diving into the silt to save my life, he too must have seen the tendrils wriggling around. He just wasn’t ready to admit it.

Even so, I paused to reconsider the fact that David might just have drowned. I looked at Andrew, clear doubt filling his eyes, a fact that just strengthened my own resolve. It had to have been real.

“I made a mistake,” Andrew finally said. “I didn’t notice the decline within the cave, and because of that, David got swept away.”

He went on, directing his attention to the entire rescue operation in a ruse to regain some control of the situation. “We’re not giving up. Because amidst the chaos, we found an air pocket just fifty feet deeper than we managed to get. If David truly did follow the light, he might still be alive. Hell, with the current leading directly past it, I’d bet on the kid being in there, too.”

Whatever Andrew was playing at, it didn’t put me at ease. Down at these depths, there was no way either of them had survived. Even if the light did emerge from an air pocket, who’s to say it held breathable air?

“It’s not over yet,” he said as a final note, before leaving the crowd behind to get more equipment.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Getting trimix gas,” Andrew stated coldly.

“For what purpose?”

Anger rose within me. As if David’s death hadn’t been enough, Andrew still seemed to intend another futile dive into the horrors of the depths. But it wasn’t until he confirmed it before a whole new world of fear came crashing over me. And as he spoke these words, I realized that our nightmare was far from over.

“What do you think, Rick? We’re going to get David back.”

3: In the Depths

“Do you actually think David’s still alive?” Maya asked as I strapped on a fresh tank of trimix gas. Though slightly heavier, it would allow us to reach far greater depths within the caves without running the risk of nitrogen narcosis. Not a lot of time had passed since our quick ascent back to the surface, and though it hardly sufficed for a second dive, we didn’t have time to waste.

“I’m sorry, Maya, but I don’t think so,” I said. “I saw him get taken.”

“By what?”

“There was something else down there in the water. I couldn’t tell you what it was, and I’m not sure I even want the answer to that question.”

Maya turned to Andrew for confirmation. He strapped some tape around his knee, which ached after the rapid ascent. He’d wounded it years prior due to an air embolism caused by a rapid ascent. He was eavesdropping on our conversation. He noticed Maya’s trepidation in returning to the depths, worried more of us might perish in the effort.

“It’ll be fine,” he said with an odd sense of confidence. “I wouldn’t ask you to do this unless I truly believed David was alive. Just let me go first. If something goes wrong down there, just turn back and leave. Don’t risk your life on my count.”

Though the words felt genuine, they weren’t directed at me. There was still a prominent sense of resentment hanging in the air between the two of us. But, having no choice but to work with me, Andrew attached himself to the cable without further quarrel, and initiated a second descent into the depths below.

Once he was out of sight, Maya got ready to follow, purposefully placing herself between Andrew and I in a futile attempt at preventing further conflict. I pulled her aside, not ready to let her descend unless she knew the exact risks involved in the mission.

“You don’t have to do this, Maya,” I said. “I can do this alone with Andrew.”

She shook her head. “David was my friend too. If he’s alive, I have to try.”

“I understand, but this is going to be dangerous. I just need you to know that,” I explained, noting her use of past-tense in describing our lost crewman.

“Of course I know. David wouldn’t have gotten lost if it wasn’t dangerous. I’m aware of the risks, Rick. Just let me go.”

“I couldn’t stop you even if I tried,” I chuckled, trying to brighten the mood. “But Andrew is going first on this one, I just need you to watch out around him. If he tries going too deep again, don’t follow, it’s not worth the risk.”

She gave me a gentle nod, before attaching herself to the cable. A second descent had started, and she kept eye contact with me up until the very moment she got enveloped in the darkness. I was the last in line, being spared the struggle of leadership following my nitrogen injury. Still, I followed the two of them down into the caves, not sure if any of us would ever return.

Hit by the freezing temperature of the water once again, I let out a few gasps in shock as I prepared to submerge. I quickly inserted my mouthpiece, letting the trimix gas fill my lungs as I dove under. Attached to my belt, hung the end of the safety line we’d attached during our prior trip. Through it, we’d be able to send our video and audio feed in leu of wireless connections. Though direct contact remained impossible, at least the surface crew would know what happened to us should we fail to resurface.

We followed the north-western passage again, quickly descending with the aid of the safety line, not needing to think twice about the paths we could take. But even though we’d been down there only an hour or so prior, the atmosphere within the tunnels had noticeably changed. The same, fleshy growths we’d encountered last time had reached much shallower parts of the cave. Worried, I pointed them out to Maya and Andrew, signaling as best I could not to touch them under any circumstances. They both nodded in agreement, and we carefully proceeded downwards into the pit.

The narrow corridors preceding the open chamber were completely entangled in the growths, narrowing the lumen even further, as if the walls were progressively closing in on each other. It made it almost impossible to traverse without disturbing the vines, causing us to graze them on many occasions. Luckily, the smaller ones just retracted into the wall without prompting an attack. It appeared that only the thick, well-developed growths maintained the ability to harm. Even so, total avoidance remained our chosen strategy.

Next, we delved into the open chamber. As before, the vast emptiness hung below us, a harrowing sight without a visible end. Transfixed, I felt shivers crawling down my spine, wondering what kind of nightmares existed in the depths.

Checking my dive computer, I noted that we’d returned to two hundred feet below the surface. Had we still carried nitrox tanks, we’d have started to experience the advanced stages of nitrogen narcosis, but with trimix we still had quite a distance to go. For now, we remained safe.

At the front of our pack floated Andrew, unimpressed and unbothered by the abyss below. His mind was fixated only on the strange light emerging from the hole in the wall. But at least this time, he waited for the rest of us to follow him deeper into the caves. He would frequently turn around and wave for us to hurry up and join him, never straying out of sight. Though I appreciated the sentiment, I wasn’t sure if it was a strategy of self-preservation or teamwork.

But as I made my way towards the opening, something down in the depths caught my attention, just barely visible from the absolute deepest part of the chamber. There, several hundred feet below, I noticed several cold blue lights dangling in the water, almost dancing around each other in a captivating symphony. A loud rumble emerged from their origin like an ancient voice crying out into the void. I glanced at my team, wanting to wildly gesture and announce my discovery, but my body refused to cooperate, paralyzed by the distressing sight below.

The more I stared, the more I felt my body succumb to an unknown force. I tensed up, frozen from a sense of dread that only increased the further I descended. While Maya and Andrew had headed straight for the cave, I fell behind, unable to drag my gaze away from the depths. I started to sink, so desperately trying to fight back. But instead of fearing my incoming demise, I felt oddly relaxed, almost welcoming death as a dear old friend.

My depth gauge counted up, quickly reaching three-hundred feet. Three-hundred and ten… three-hundred and twenty. In mere minutes I’d be overcome with narcosis, leaving my body forever in the depths. But before reaching the point of no return, both Maya and Adnrew rushed over to pull me back to shallower parts. Breaking the line of sight with the lights, I finally snapped back to attention, trying to convey what I’d just seen with body language alone, but it was no use, and once I glanced back down, the lights quickly faded away. I had been lured in by their glow and would have diligently sunk to my death if not for the quick intervention from my team.

Confused, I tried to refocus on the mission. I followed Andrew back towards the opening in the cave wall, ready to figure out if the place truly held an oxygen bubble that could have kept David and the young boy alive. Gone were the claustrophobic halls of the north-western passage. Instead, we followed the current into a large tunnel filled with beautiful, warm light. It emerged from plant like structures on the wall, stems extending with yellow bulbs at the end, each bulb covered in villi wriggling around the water, snatching up small particles. Like the vines on the wall, their touch resembled that of exposed muscle, clearly a part of the same eco-system as the flesh-vines.

We hovered in the light, all in awe of its beauty. Though seemingly harmless, we tried our best to refrain from touching them, though an occasional graze still occurred without consequence. For a moment, we just existed in their world, experiencing a delightful sense of peace, as if the dangers of the depth no longer posed a threat. But with our residual pressure gauge slowly ticking down, we decided to keep moving, floating through the brightly lit hallway.

The malignant vines still existed among the lights but appeared to be held back by the glowing bulbs. Only a few dared to stretch out into the tunnel’s lumen, looking for anything that might float by.

In the distance, an odd reflection appeared on the cave ceiling, one we immediately recognized as the water’s surface. Against all odds, an air pocket had formed in the waterlogged caves, existing in almost impossible conditions. But whether the gases within were breathable was a question left unanswered. All we could do was pray as we proceeded with haste, clinging onto the slim possibility of David still being alive.

But something happened as we neared the surface, a change almost imperceivable at first, as if the lights were starting to dim. Maya was the first to take note, turning around to assess the situation. Sure enough, the bulbs that had basked us in warmth only moments before, were starting to retract into the wall, causing the cave to progressively darken. And as they pulled back, the vines started to emerge en masse.

Within mere seconds, the cave opening had completely closed up by the sheer number of vines, blocking our only escape route. With each passing second, more of the bulbs folded in on themselves, allowing more vines to fill the lumen. Only then did we realize that the entire passage was about to close up. Either we breached the surface immediately, or we’d get entangled in the fleshbound organism. 

Panic rising within us, we quickly swam for the surface, which was still some distance away. All the while, the vines grew thicker and more numerous, moving towards us at impressive speeds. Andrew led the rush, glancing back at us to make sure we hadn’t fallen behind, but in doing so, he hadn’t noticed vines appearing directly in front of him. Too slow to react, he was grabbed by the appendage, which subsequently started wrapping itself around his shoulder. He pulled his knife out and swiftly slashed through the vine, to which the rest of them responded by sending dozens, all of which wrapped around Andrew.

I rushed over to him, pulling out my own knife, slashing at the flesh. But there were just too many of them, and before long, I too was trapped in the entanglement, immediately immobilized by the vines surprising strength. Maya remained as the sole free diver, but the vines were quickly reaching for her too. One of them managed to get ahold of her head, ripping out her mouthpiece in the process, which vanished in the chaos. Running out of air, Maya panicked as she desperately searched for it on the floor, but it was no use. Using the last of my mobility, I pointed to the surface, signaling for her to leave us behind and save herself. She locked eyes with me, shaking her head, and started pulling on the vines with her bare hands as they slowly tried to squeeze the life from us. It was futile.

Sorrow filling her eyes, Maya was left with no choice but to rush for the surface, not knowing if the air above could even sustain human life. The tendrils wrapped tighter around us, some starting to stab through the suit, digging into my flesh. I wanted to scream, but I fought to keep my mouthpiece in place, lest I drown in the hellscape I’d voluntarily entered.

But with the pressure building up around me, and the pain growing in intensity, I felt myself fading away. The last thing I saw before finally losing consciousness was Maya escaping up into the air pocket, the only one not ensnared. All which would follow, was eternal darkness.

***

It’s an odd sensation to feel your life slipping away. I had expected flashes to appear before my eyes, filled with highlights and mistakes from a life gone by. But instead, I was left with only a single thought occupying my fading mind: had I chosen the right way to die, or should I have spit out my mouthpiece and let the cold water take over my body?

As a diver I was well acquainted with the concept of drowning, and as horrific as the idea might be, it’s a risk you take each and every time you dive beneath the ocean’s surface.

You’re trapped underwater, knowing that the miniscule amount of air left in your lungs amounts to the very last breath you’ll ever take. Even should you welcome your premature death, your body fights with all of its instincts, down to the very last second. It refuses to let you inhale, tensing up to prevent water from entering your lungs. You start to notice the oxygen in your blood diminishing, replaced by an unrelenting feeling of sheer panic, as your muscles start to burn, and your mind turns hazy. Little by little, you fade into the darkness, left with only the knowledge that you’re about to die.

Then, as you finally fade into an unconscious haven, the true nightmare begins. Your body falls back in pure instinct, making one last attempt at gasping for air, except there is none to be found. You open your mouth, pulling in the icy water encasing your body, knowing fully well that it’ll only hurt you more.

This is the point where your experience might differ, as one in ten people react violently to the water entering their bodies. As soon as it hits your larynx, it closes up, refusing to let neither air nor water inside. Those are the people that suffocate, drowning without a single drop of water touching their lungs. The remaining nine in ten people suffer a different fate, allowing water to wash inside, causing an immense feeling of burning on every surface the water touches. A jolt of adrenaline is released, your body’s way of begging for you to keep fighting the inevitable death, and only then, are you finally allowed to slip away, sinking into unknown deaths as your body ceases to function.

Burdened with this intimate knowledge of drowning. I had chosen to keep my mouthpiece, allowing my death to come from ensnarement. Had I made the right choice?

Death should have already taken hold of my, but yet my spirit remained firmly locked within my body. I opened my eyes, not sure how much time had passed, wondering how I hadn’t yet succumbed to my captor. The passage had long since fallen dark in leu of the glowing bulbs, leaving only the beam from my flashlight to light up the wall before me, where a dozen vines floated in the water, content to have caught its pray.

A shadow appeared before the beam, one not recognizable by my tired eyes. It was only when it came right up against my face, before I realized it was Maya. At first, I thought I was dreaming, my dying mind hallucinating an impossible rescue. But there she hung, wearing a mouthpiece, cutting me free from the entanglement. Several of the vines had already dug themselves into my body, and though Maya tried to pull them out, they refused to budge. She could only cut them away, leaving their stems still engrained in my body. How she managed to extract me without waking up more of the appendages, I didn’t know, but she had managed to free both me and Andrew, getting both of us up into the air pocket above.

“It’s safe, you can breathe here,” she said as she pulled out her mouthpiece.

We had been pulled up into an air-filled chamber, covered in a much denser set of the same, fleshy growths. Maya stepped between them, making sure not to touch their hostile appendages. But without water surrounding them, they appeared more docile, making few attempts at latching onto us.

“How did you?” I began to ask, not needing to finish the question before Maya gestured to an air-filled passage extending deeper into the air pocket. Before it lay pieces of diving equipment, identical to ours. It was David’s, but the man himself was nowhere to be seen.

“It was fused with the vines, I had to cut it all out. I just took his mouthpiece and came back for you,” she explained.

“What about David?” Andrew asked.

Maya shook her head. “I don’t know. But it doesn’t matter anymore,” she said somberly.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“It took me over an hour to get you loose. Even if we find David, we won’t have enough air to get back to the surface. We’re trapped,” she responded, her voice breaking towards the end of the sentence.

I glanced at my residual pressure gauge, and sure enough, only a fourth of the gas remained. Andrew confirmed. None of us had the faintest chance of getting back to the surface. We were starting to realize, that though we’d survived the attack, we’d been tossed into a different kind of tomb altogether.

“What about the cave?” Andrew asked. “David clearly made it up here, he might have followed the path to another exit.”

Though hopeful, it wouldn’t be a likely solution. Seeing as we hadn’t died immediately from decompression, the air held the same atmospheric pressure as the water, which meant the air inside the cave had no connection to the air on the surface. The question was: where did the oxygen come from, and how long would it last?

“I don’t know where it leads,” Maya said. “I was busy saving your sorry asses.”

“An act I greatly appreciate, but-“ Andrew started, only to be cut off by a pained groan.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“The vines,” he said, inspecting his wounds. “Huh, that’s…”

There were large holes covering his suit where the vines had penetrated. But despite the many wounds, there was a surprising lack of blood. Upon closer inspection, we realized that each hole still had pieces of the organism stuck inside, seeming to have fused with the surrounding skin. Checking my own body, I realized that I too, had patches of flesh that didn’t belong to me, fused to my skin.

“What the hell is this shit?” I asked.

Andrew didn’t respond, seemingly intrigued by thew injuries we’d sustained.

“So, that’s how it is,” he muttered to himself.

“What was that?” I asked but got no response. “We’re alive, let’s focus on that,” I said.

Andrew just nodded, unbothered by the strange growths attached to his body.

“So, do we have a plan?” he asked.

“Not really,” Maya said. “But we also don’t have any options.”

“Except for following the cave,” I let out.

We glanced at David’s abandoned diving equipment, wondering why he’d left it all behind. If the man had attempted to traverse the cave, the question remained how far it extended. Whatever the case, it was our best and only possibility, and though our chances of survival remained slim, we clung onto that hope for dear life.

I detached the safety line from my suit, letting my camera transmit the last bit of footage before going dark. Though not improving our chances, I felt slightly better knowing the surface crew knew what had happened to us. At least our story would exist to be told, and it might prevent others from meeting the same tragic fate as us.  

“Well, here goes nothing,” Maya said. “Who wants to go first?”

4: Deeper still…

With nothing more than our flashlight to guide our path, I took the first step into the dark passage. Like the waterlogged tunnels below, the walls and floor were covered in the fleshbound growths, ready to ensnare us by the smallest provocation. Though more docile above water, we refrained from coming into contact with them.

Maya pushed her way past me, quickly assessing the many wounds that covered my body. “You really thought I’d let you go first? You’re a mess. Both of you, in fact. I’m taking the lead on this one,” she demanded.

I glanced back at Andrew, who seemed surprisingly content with the idea of someone else leading the charge. He just nodded in agreement, rubbing the foreign flesh fused to his body.

A knot formed in my stomach as soon as we entered the passage, only to immediately realize that it sloped downwards. The only semblance of hope left was extinguished as we were forced further down into the abyss. With no way of knowing the exact gas content of our surroundings, we had no way of knowing how the increase in pressure would affect us.

Maya led the group with purpose, marching on without hesitation into the deeper sections of the passage. Though narrow, it was tall enough for the ceiling to be obscured in darkness. Andrew moved at a slower pace, purposefully falling behind to get a moment alone with me, so that he could ask about our shared experience in the entanglement.

“Does it hurt?” he asked.

I hadn’t thought about it since we started walking, but as I focused on it, I realized that the immense aching I’d felt less than an hour prior, had completely vanished.

“Actually, it doesn’t,” I let out, surprised.

“But you feel something, don’t you?” he went on.

Puzzled at first, I tried to focus on any changes in my body. Only then did I realize just how healthy I actually felt. Despite the many cuts, stabs and bruises, I didn’t feel wounded. Quite the opposite, I felt stronger than usual, amped up like my body was running on pure adrenaline, but without the accompanying jitter. I just stared back at Andrew, speechless, to which he responded with a subtle smirk.  

“Interesting, huh?” he asked.

“’Interesting’ isn’t exactly the word I’d use.”

But Andrew didn’t stop there. He seemed almost gleeful to be infected by the foreign tissue, as if he held answers that I still wasn’t privy too. It creeped me out, but I couldn’t deny the physical comfort I felt with the creature existing within me, as much as the thought itself disgusted me.

“What do you remember from the entanglement?” he asked.

“I don’t… I don’t know… I passed out. I only woke up when Maya had freed me,” I explained.

“I didn’t,” Andrew said, almost proud. “I was awake for the whole thing.”

“What did you see?” I finally caved and asked.

He shot me a smile, one with genuine happiness, rid of all malice. “Something beautiful.”

“What was it?”

He’d gotten me genuinely curious, with a side of anxiety prevalent in my chest. The way he spoke just felt off. It lacked the fear that should have been present considering the dangers we were in.

“If I told you that, Rick, you wouldn’t believe it. But once you see it for yourself, you’ll understand what I mean.”

With that cryptic statement, Maya had noticed our hushed conversation, and paused to interject.

“What are you two on about?”

“Nothing,” I automatically responded, worried she’d think we’d gone mad, a question I was starting to ask myself.

“Well, save your breaths for walking,” she ordered. “We don’t know how much oxygen this place has.”

“Fair enough,” Andrew said, continuing to appear unbothered by the situation we found ourselves in.

***

We must have walked in silence for half an hour before the cave finally opened up into another large chamber. Like the rest, the floor, walls and ceiling were covered in small growths, interspersed with small, dimly glowing plants. In the middle of the room, lay another bizarre structure, a meat flower stretching up with flaps of flesh and a crown of tendrils. Something was occupying its middle, an object we’d only recognize once we got closer. It was David, lying lifeless in the middle, his body dissected and hardly recognizable.

“Oh, God,” Maya let out, rushing to his side. I joined quickly after, but Andrew remained in the back, staring at the remains of what had once been his colleague, showing no form of distress.

“He’s… he’s dead,” I let out, stating the obvious.  

His body had been torn to pieces, most of his face removed and his innards absorbed by the fleshy structures. Several of the appendages appeared to have dug into his body, as if trying to connect with him. In the process, he had bled out, at which point his body had been mostly digested and absorbed by the organism. There was nothing left to be done for him.

“Fuck,” Maya cried. “What the hell is this place?”

Having sensed our presence, the tendrils still attached to David’s body started to let go. At first, we didn’t notice it, distracted by the loss of our friend, but no sooner had they let go, than they’d chosen new targets. With Maya being the closest to David’s remains, she’d become the primary object of their desires. It was a fact I realized all too late, as the tendrils struck at her, just barely missing as Andrew jumped into pull her away.

“Watch it,” he yelled as he pulled her to the floor with him, just nearly dodging the appendages.

Maya, while gasping for air in panic, remained unharmed.

“You alright?” he asked as he lifted her back to her feet.

“Yeah,” she said in shock. “Thank you, Andrew.”

“Don’t mention it.”

I remained by the strange growth in the middle of the room, staring at the wriggly flesh that had tried to murder Maya, yet had left me be. Andrew might have saved her, but had made no attempt at removing me from the situation, as if he knew only Maya would be at risk.

To test the theory, and in a moment of profoundly stupid bravery, I took a step closer to the tendrils. With that, they stopped wriggling, just turning to me as if inspecting my body. I moved closer, allowing them to get a better grasp of who and what I was. They seemed oddly interested in the parts fused to my body, carefully inching closer without striking out violently.

“Rick, get away from them!” Maya yelled, moving to physically remove me, only to be held back by Andrew.

“Let me go!” she continued to scream.  

“No, he needs to do this,” Andrew explained confidently.

But their argument didn’t even faze me. I was too hypnotized by the tendrils before me. I felt drawn to them, connected by an unseen force, as if letting them touch me was my one true destiny.

“Rick!” Maya kept yelling, punching Andrew to no avail.

“He’ll be fine trust me,” Andrew said.

Then it connected, attaching itself to the cut growth still attached to my wounds from the entanglement. Within an instant, I felt my mind dissolve from my body, leaving it behind as I entered an entirely new experience of life itself. Gone were the physical boundaries of my human form, joining forces with the organism within the cave. I could feel every inch of the cave around me, see through eyes in the wall, each harvested from those unfortunate enough to fall victim to the vines. Miles and miles of twists and turns, hidden below the entirety of Darwell woods, stretching far beyond, it was all there for me to see. So much death, so much life, a fragile equilibrium under threat of an unknown, evil entity so far away.

In the span of just seconds, I saw a thousand images of a thousand places. All within the cave, entire ecosystems existing in a parasitic symbiosis, death and life merged to one. And then I saw the depths, the same pit I had seen in the underwater chamber, extending endlessly far into an infinite abyss. Down there, even I had no sensation. Yet there was something else, unknown, existing in the depths, the same blue lights I saw before, and they terrified me to my very core.

My mind moved back to the air-filled caves, spiraling down, observing each inch in mere seconds, and amidst it all, I saw the child, hidden in deepest pit of the cave, trapped in the fleshy growths. That’s where my domain ended, a part of the hybrid I stood no chance of accessing, controlled by a creature far stronger, more ancient than anything known to man. But despite it all, I now knew exactly where to find it.

As abruptly as the journey had begun, I felt my mind retract into my body. The tendrils detached, and I fell powerless on the floor, gasping for air.

“Rick!” I heard, muffled in the distance as Maya pulled me away. “He’s alive!”

“Welcome back,” Andrew said, not surprised in the slightest.

“I saw him,” I managed to get out between breaths.

“What, who?” Maya asked.

“The boy. He’s alive,” I continued.

“Where is he?” Andrew asked.

“The center… he’s at the center…” I let out, still struggling to breathe.

Confused, Maya looked to Andrew for answers, but even he didn’t seem certain.

“What’s he talking about?” Maya asked.

“I actually have no idea,” he responded.

Once I’d gotten my breath back. Andrew and Maya helped me to my feet. It took a while, but I slowly started to feel at home in my own body, as if the excursion through the flesh had been nothing but a dream, but one leaving hidden knowledge not meant for mankind.

“Is this what you meant?” I asked Andrew. “This is what you saw in the entanglement?”

He shook his head. “What I saw was a mere glimpse compared to you,” he explained. “You’ve been chosen.”

“Chosen for what?” I asked, annoyed at the constant riddles.

“I have absolutely no idea. That is a journey for you alone to find out.”

“I’m not here to find myself, Andrew. I’m here to save that kid. I saw him. I know where he is.”

“How is that even possible?” Maya asked.

“I don’t know… It’s like these things showed me. I could feel everything while connected. It was… weird,” I explained.

“And you can lead us to the center?” Andrew asked.

“I can.”

“Then what are we waiting for, lead the way,” Andrew went on, just a tad too enthusiastic.

Nevertheless, we started moving. With a freshly printed map of the place, ingrained into my own mind, I knew each twist and turn we had to follow to reach our destination. It was a trek that would take hours, down to extreme depths that we might not be able to withstand, but we had to try.

I took the lead, unnaturally energized by the connection I’d felt. Andrew was just as excited, walking by my side, while Maya grew weaker, the first to experience the signs of increased pressure. Why and how Andrew and I could withstand it could only be explained by the fused growths to our bodies.

“What did it feel like?” Andrew asked once we’d gotten ahead of Maya.

“Strange,” I said, not wishing to delve into the subject any further.

“Do you understand it now? What this place is?” he went on.

“I don’t care what this place is. All I care about is getting that kid, and getting the hell out of here,” I insisted.

Andrew paused, staring at me with a semblance of shock in his eyes. “Are you sure you want to do that, Rick?” he asked.

“Do what?”

“Leave,” he said. “Because I don’t think you do. I think you understand the importance of this place. And having seen what you saw. There’s no going back. You are one with this place, just like me.”

Though I couldn’t understand what he meant, I did understand exactly how he felt. Since escaping the clutches of the entanglement, I had lost all sense of fear of the place we stood within. I felt at home, as if I finally existed in a place I belonged, but it was a feeling I couldn’t accept, and one I had to push aside if I wanted to stand any chance of saving the child.

“Did you know what would happen to me when you let me connect with the tendrils?” I asked. “Or did you just let me dive in to see what would happen?” I asked.

“You already know the answer to that.”

“Then why pull Maya away. Hell, why didn’t you dive in yourself?”

“Because Maya would have died, and I wasn’t chosen. But you already knew that. Why are you trying so hard to deny yourself this? Why are you so desperate to leave?” Andrew argued.

Before I could answer that question, Maya interjected.

“I know I’m slow, but I’m not deaf or stupid. So, I have to ask: have you fucking lost your mind? You want us to stay down here?”

Andrew turned to her, sighing carefully before answering the question.

“I’m not asking ‘you,’ to stay, Maya. And once we reach the center, you have my word, I’ll do everything in my power to get you back home. But I’m staying, and I think Rick will to once he comes to his senses.”

“Is he serious?” Maya asked me, gesturing to Andrew.

“I don’t know what he is. But I’m not staying in this hellscape. Now stop the chatter, I don’t want to hear another word,” I ordered.  

Andrew lifted his hands in defeat, keeping his mouth shut. With peace finally present in the cave, we could proceed further into the depths. As we walked, I’d glance down at my depth gauge, which rapidly counted up to well over five hundred feet. At those depths, any gas resembling trimix would have caused severe narcosis, which meant the gas filling the cave must have been closer to helinox, but with our voices not taking on the comedically high pitch caused by helium inhalation, the composition remained unknown, able to keep us alive despite the pressure.

But with Maya growing weaker, the trip was taking far longer than estimated. The only bright side was that it gave us time to think and observe our morbid surroundings. I started noticing pieces of human and animal anatomy spread across the walls. Eyes, ears, organs, vessels, all seemingly extracted as spare parts for the cave wall.

“Is that a gas tank?” Maya asked as she noticed a bit of metal sticking out from the wall, partially submerged beneath the flesh.

“Looks like it, but it’s a model from several decades ago,” I went on.

“Nineteen-seventy-four to be exact,” Andrew chimed in, pointing out some text written on its side.

“So, I guess we’re not the first ones down here,” Maya said.

“But hopefully the last,” I said, hoping to end the discussion. “Let’s keep moving.”

With the increasing depths, the growths on the wall grew thicker, covering every inch of visible surface. It squished beneath our feet as we progressed, periodically trying to snatch onto Maya, while leaving Andrew and me alone. We’d been integrated into the symbiotic system, recognized as a part of the cave, but Maya still hadn’t been connected, a process she stood no chance to survive.

“Hold on a moment,” Maya said, out of breath.

The pressure was getting to her, a process she was desperately trying to fight without success. She sat down on the least dense part of the cave, trying to catch her breath as the vines reached up to grab her.

“How far is it to the center?” Andrew asked, showing genuine concern towards Maya’s condition.

“This passage takes us straight to the center. Only a fifteen-minute walk left,” I explained, gesturing to one of the many tunnels in the wall.

“And that’s where we’ll find the kid?” Maya asked between breaths.  

I nodded.

“What exactly are you planning to do when you find him?” Andrew asked.

“What do you mean?”

“You want to free him, right? How do you intend to achieve that, seeing as he’s been merged with the flesh, reaching a stage far beyond what ever happened to us in the water,” he went on.

“We’ll use Maya’s knife to cut him loose. Worked for us,” I explained.

Andrew sighed, not convinced by my plan. “I’m not sure I can let you do that, Rick.”

“What the fuck are you on about?”

“Do you really not see what this place is, after all this time? If you free the boy without a replacement, everything in these caves is going to die.”

I locked eyes with the man, wondering if the last bit of humanity he held onto had vanished from his soul.

“Let it die, then,” I said as coldly as I could.

Maya struggled to get back on her feet, discomforted by the conversation. I let her get behind me, getting ready to proceed into the cave before Andrew kept the argument going.

“I won’t let you do it,” he said. “I just can’t.”

“Well, fuck you, Andrew,” I yelled. “Stay as long as you want, but we’re saving that kid and getting the hell out of here.”

I turned my back to him in protest, proceeding deeper into the cave. I made sure to let Maya get some headway, but as I took my first step into the narrower passage, I felt a heavy hit to the back of my head. Sent pummeling to the ground, I was dazed by a newly formed wound on my head. I turned around on the ground, met by Andrew standing above me with a knife in his hand. He’d me with its handle, attempting to stop me without actually murdering me.

“I thought you dropped that in the cave,” I said, more surprised than afraid.

“David didn’t need his anymore,” Andrew explained. “So, I got a spare.”

Reacting quickly, Maya launched at Andrew, punching him in the face. Though it connected, the punch barely moved him. He just remained in place while Maya threw another punch, one that did little due to her weakened state.

“There’s no need for that,” he said calmly, but she struck again, this time getting blocked.

Andrew grabbed Maya by her neck, pushing her against the cave wall, covered in flesh. Upon making contact, dozens of vines started to wrap around her, causing her to sink into the wall until only her head was visible. All the while, she struggled to get free to no avail.  

“Relax, Maya, they won’t hurt you. I made sure of that. I promised to get you out of here once we reached the center. I’m a man of my word, I won’t let anything down here hurt you,” he said confidently. “But I can’t Rick destroy this place.”

Leaving her entangled in the wall, he approached me, now wielding his knife with intent to kill. He held the knife close to my chest, bending down on one knee next to me.

“If this place dies…” he began, but it was a sentence I didn’t let him finish. Instead, I kicked him in his weakened knee, instantly sending him groaning to the ground.

Still dazed, I got to my feet, jumping on top of him to stop him from rising. Though much larger than I, he was in too much pain to fight back. Punching him in the nose, I managed to get him to drop the knife. For the next few seconds, we rolled around on the ground while I tried to get the upper hand, but once the shock from the pain had worn off, Andrew quickly regained control. He punched me in the face a couple of times, before diving for the knife on the ground.

“I don’t want to hurt you, Rick. But I will if I have to,” Andrew said, pointing the knife back at me.

I charged at him again, grabbing onto his knife wielding arm. I tried to tear it from his hands, but he wouldn’t let go.

“Last chance,” he groaned in the struggle, but I refused to let up.

He started pushing it towards me, slowly but certainly inching its way towards my guts. I felt the blade tear through the suit and cut into my skin. The adrenaline coursing through my veins wasn’t enough to fight the shock of having a piece of metal stabbing through me. I felt my grip on Andrew’s arm weaken, and before long, I fell limply to the ground, unable to fight on.

He loomed over me as I pressed against my wound, feeling the warmth of my own blood pour down my abdomen as I slowly bled out.

“I didn’t want this, but you left me no choice,” he said.

“Fuck you,” I shot back, using what little remained of my strength.  

My vision started to blur, and the pain just kept worsening. I felt the ground beneath me start to move, tiny veins pulling their way up my body. A sharp shock shot through my body, as I felt the appendages dig their way into my wound. I screamed in agony, but alongside the pain, I felt something odd begin to take hold around me. I could feel the room around me, each and every tendril. I waited, almost hoping for Andrew to finish the job by slitting my throat, but he seemed frozen.

“Stop it,” he let out.

I tried to focus my vision, just barely seeing Andrew getting ensnared by the growths in the cave. They wrapped tightly around his legs, growing upwards at impressive speeds. Along the way they dug themselves into his flesh, causing him to scream. He fell to his knees, allowing further growths to dig themselves into his torso, tearing him apart from the inside. His cries turned to gargles as blood filled his lungs, and within seconds, he had been reduced to a pile of mangled meat, fusing with the cave walls.

“Rick!” I heard Maya yell, the wall around her retracting as she was freed.

Then the tendrils released from my wound, pulling quietly back into the ground, leaving me with a gaping wound in my abdomen. I had been spared, even saved by the same monstrosity we’d been fighting, but it was a rescue that would be short-lived, as blood continued to pour out onto the ground.

“Oh, my God,” she let out as she realized how badly I’d been injured.

“I’m fine,” I lied. “Help me up.”

Trying to conceal the pain I was in, I let Maya pull me up. Before us lay an unrecognizable mess of human remains that had once been Andrew. I bent down, muttering a few profanities as I picked up the blood-covered knife.

“The cave… it…” Maya began, trying to comprehend what had just happened. “Why would it save you?”

“I don’t know. But we have to keep moving. We don’t have much time,” I said. “Come on, it’s not far.”

Weak, but unwilling to surrender, we proceeded through the last set of tunnels towards the heart of the cave. The passage twisted and turned, before finally ending in a massive chamber lit up by thousands of glowing plants. In the middle, stood a large flesh-bound monolith, pulsating akin to a beating heart. At its base, hung the small body of a young child, fused with the flesh.

No sooner had we entered, than I fell to my knees, weakened by the blood loss. I struggled to get back up, noticing the connection I had once felt to the cave start to fade. In the presence of a new, far stronger being, I was being discarded.

“Is he alive?” Maya asked.

I nodded, though appearing dead, I had felt his life surging through the flesh. What remained was only the question of how to release him.

“What now?”

“We’ll cut him free,” I said.

As I uttered those words, the ground beneath us abruptly woke to life, wrapping around us in an instant. We tried to fight it, but in our collective, weakened state, we didn’t stand a chance. After all this, we’d reached the end only to be effortlessly neutralized.

“Do not touch the child,” a deep voice rumbled from all around us, as if the walls themselves had spoken to us.

“What the hell was that?” Maya asked.

“I am the Warden of this domain. You do not belong here,” the voice went on.

“Let us go,” Maya argued as the ground started swallowing her knife.

“Let you go? You have no power here. With what can you bargain?”

The child in the flesh spoke in unison with the walls, his tiny voice barely present. I stopped fighting, knowing any form of protest would be futile.

“But this one is different,” the Warden said, referring to me. “It has been assimilated, yet it does not understand.”

While I couldn’t understand what he meant, the more flesh wrapped around us, the more I could start to feel the cave’s skin within my mind again. Its vast intelligence, its emotions, its memories.

“What is this place?” I asked, sounding surprisingly calm.

“This is the last bastion of life,” the Warden explained matter-of-factly.

“You call this life? All the people that have been killed, and for what? We saw the bodies!” Maya screamed.

 “Killed?” the Warden asked. “Your feeble concept of morality won’t serve your cause down here. Those dead were the sacrifices needed to keep the depths quiet. We required their flesh, we required their knowledge,” it went on.

The emotions within the being were foreign, most of them not following concepts known to mankind. And though the sensations overwhelmed me, one emotion stood above all, prominent in each corner of the cave: fear.

“Why are you afraid?” I asked.

“We fear the lights,” it responded.

“What lights? These plants?” Maya asked.

“We fear the lights in the depths. Looming beneath us. And soon, they will rise.”

A flash of the waterlogged chamber emerged in my mind, filled with blue lights hanging hundreds of feet below. Even when connected to the flesh, I could not access that region of the cave, as if it was a separate entity to the organism itself. But what they were, and why the Warden feared it, remained an unanswered question.

But with time running out, and the life slowly draining from my body, my thoughts turned to the child, and how we could free him. The Warden needed a suitable body to keep the place alive, as Andrew had said. And each life taken in the name of the cave, had been to find one strong enough to sustain the place without perishing. Those who were incompatible had only been absorbed as spare parts, victims of a dire necessity masked as evil.

Then I realized why the cave had saved me over Andrew, because my connection to the place stood unparalleled. I was chosen.

With that realization, I felt the flesh loosen around me. I fell to the ground, free, as did Maya. She gasped for air, finally able to take a deep breath free of the constrains.

“Why did you let us go?” she asked, surprised. But it was a question I already knew the answer to. “Rick?”

I stared at the child, knowing what choice I had to make. Someone had to take his place, and that person could only be me. If I gave myself to the cave, it would the child go.

“Maya, I need you to get the kid out of here,” I said.

“But… I don’t… what’s going on?” she asked.

“I’m staying,” I said.

“Are you insane? You can’t!”

“It’s the only way the Warden will let the child go,” I argued. “Someone has to take him back home.”

“I don’t even know how to get back out,” she said.

“Don’t worry about that. This place will show you the way.”

Tears filled her eyes, both from fear and sorrow. “I can’t just leave you.”

I gestured to my wound. “I wouldn’t make it back even if I wanted to.”

In the end, Andrew had gotten exactly what he wanted, I was staying. I reached out to hug Maya, whispering that it would be alright. She didn’t respond, she just held onto me in doubt. For a while, we just stood in embrace, before the Warden spoke up for the last time.

“This place can sustain your mind. But your body will perish. Be quick, before that too is lost.”

The flesh loosened around the boy, letting him fall limply to the ground. Where the tendrils had been fused, mere marks remained. He was unconscious, but definitely alive. Feeling my body surrender under its own weight, I stumbled over to the fleshy monolith, grabbing onto it as I gave Maya one last glance.

Then I connected, my body slowly sinking into the organism, become one with it. With that, I gained full control. I could open a path back to the entrance, and I could keep them both alive as they were transported to the surface.

Maya lifted up the boy, looking me in the eye as my body started to disintegrate. In only a minute, the person I had once would be fused with all those lost in the cave. But it was something I could gladly sacrifice, knowing they were getting back home.

Using the last of my voice, I just asked Maya to tell my story. To let the world, know that parts of me still exist, and to leave this place alone. After all, the evil committed was little more than an act of desperation to keep a far greater threat from emerging from the depths. But even though I am staying back to fight an unknown enemy, I have a feeling this nightmare is far from over.

I will do my best, but a time will come where this place will fall. And once it does, the world as you know it will cease to exist.