“Oof,” he said.
“I’m so sorry!” I told him. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I think so,” he said, rubbing his ribs. “How about you? You didn’t twist your ankle or anything?”
“No. Thank you for grabbing me. I would have face planted in the dirt for sure.”
Murphy laughed and grabbed my shoulder and squeezed it a little. “Good. I would hate to see you hurt yourself.”
“Hey, if you two are done flirting back there, come and look at this,” Erin called. She and John had stopped about a hundred feet ahead of us. Once Murphy and I were looking at her, Erin pointed at something through the trees. We both moved forward to see what she was pointing at. As we drew up next to Erin and John, we could barely make out a something dark and rocky through the green and brown of the trees.
“A cave,” Erin said.
Murphy, John, and I all shared a glance. We all raised our eyebrows at the same time. I burst out giggling and the two guys grinned. Erin had always had a well-known fascination with caves. She always managed to find one she wanted to explore when she was out in the woods. Most of them ended up being little more than rocky outcrops or shallow hollows in the ground, but she wanted to explore them all.
Erin shook her head at us and marched off toward the cave. We picked our way through the forest toward the cave with Erin. The rocky outcrop we could see from the trail didn’t look like it held much but around the side was a massive opening.
“Weird, I didn’t know there were any caves on this trail,” Murphy said.
“Maybe we’re the first to discover it!” Erin said.
“Somehow I doubt that. We are directly behind a subdivision, remember,” I pointed out. Erin ignored me.
“Come on,” John said, pushing past us to enter the darkness of the cave, “It’s hot out here, let’s see what we can find inside.”
3
To Erin’s credit, she had actually found a proper cave this time. It went back into the mountain about 20 feet or so. In the back left-hand corner there was a small pond. Even though it wasn’t very big, it created a nice wind trap and the coolness of the breeze off the water was nice.
“Let’s cool off here for a while,” John said. Sitting his backpack down at the mouth of the cave. We each followed suit. I grabbed my water bottle and took a long drink before setting it down and following the other three over to the pond.
“Good call, John,” I told him. The coolness was welcome, but I could still feel the headache coming on in my temples and across my forehead. I sat down against one of the walls of the cave with a sigh. I could feel the dampness of the cave wall seeping through the back of my shirt, but I didn’t care, it actually felt nice. I piled my hair on top of my head and leaned my head back. The cool air against my neck started to cool me down.
Erin sat down beside me, took her shoes and socks off, and stuck her feet in the pond.
“Man, that feels nice,” she said.
I nodded. We watched as John and Murphy picked their way across rocks that were scattered in the pond until they were both on the opposite side and staring down a small passageway that led further into the cave. Murphy pulled a flashlight out of his pocket and shined it into the mountain.
“You and Murphy looked like you were getting pretty close watching the sunrise earlier,” Erin said.
I looked at her out of the corner of my eye and could see she was grinning wickedly.
“What, did you manage to see us when you came up for air?” I asked.
“You mean that as an insult, but what can I say?” She shrugged, “We are young and in love and between his football and my riding lessons, we barely get to see each other.”
I snorted in reply.
“Mock if you will, not everyone can find a love like ours,” Erin said and sighed like some lovesick woman in a black and white movie. I shook my head at her but didn’t reply. Murphy and John had disappeared from sight, but the beam of Murphy’s flashlight was still bouncing against the back wall.
I shifted down and laid on the cool earthen floor. I knew I was probably going to get my new outfit dirty, but I didn’t care. What good was a hiking outfit, no matter how cute it was, if you couldn’t get it dirty? I folded my hands and put them under my head and stared up at the rock ceiling.
“I’m just going to close my eyes for a moment,” I told Erin.
I heard some splashing as Erin kicked her feet in the water. I could hear John and Murphy’s voices. I knew I was falling asleep because they both sounded like they were far away. My head was pounding so hard at this point I didn’t even bother listening to what they were saying. I just wanted to rest for a minute to make the headache go away. I readjusted my shoulders a bit and then gave myself over to the welcoming peace of sleep. As I did, I could feel the pain in my head lessen slightly. For a moment, everything was dark and black and peaceful.
I wasn’t sure how long I had been asleep when I opened my eyes and found myself in the middle of a vibrant green forest. In an instant I sat up and was on my feet, turning all the way around. I could feel my heart beating wildly in my chest. What was going on?
“Erin? Murphy? John?” I called out. There was no reply. My friends were nowhere in sight. The forest I was standing in was thick and green. There was a feeling in the air that made me feel almost like I was crackling with energy. As I calmed down a little, I realized I could still feel my body lying in the cave. My headache had disappeared.
“Dreaming. I must be dreaming,” I said out loud. My words were eaten up by the strange silence in the dream. Feeling a little more secure now, I settled in to see where the dream would take me. I looked up, there was no sky, just a mist that clung to the trunks and canopies of the trees. I couldn’t hear any sort of animal. It was so quiet it almost felt like my ears were buzzing.
I took a step off to the right, but as I did so my head started pounding again. It felt like someone was taking a jackhammer to my brain. I cried out, throwing a hand over my eyes and stepped back. As I did the pain lessened.
So, walking to the right wasn’t going to work. I turned around and tried to take a step to the left. This time the pain in my head didn’t come back. I shrugged my shoulders and walked into the trees to the left of where I had started. I walked further into the forest and the trees closed around me like a fortress.
Up ahead I could see something that looked like it was sparkling. As I got closer to it, I realized it was a gateway. I stepped out of the trees and could see the full thing. It was made of an odd green crystal that sparkled in the weird mist. I walked closer and my toe hit something hard.
“Ouch!” I grumbled under my breath and came to a stop. Looking down at my feet I realized I was standing at the bottom of a stone staircase that led to the doorway. The obvious thing to do in a dream would be go through the gateway. Yet, there was something ominous about the green crystal surrounded by the mist.
As I stood there, my headache began to come back. Then, deep within the pit of my stomach, I could feel a warmth. It was like some forgotten part of me had come to life and was filling me with a deep sense of foreboding. The longer I stood there, the more my head hurt, but also the more I was filled with dread. I really didn’t want this to turn into a nightmare.
“Alright,” I said out loud to the gateway. “I’m tired of this. It’s time to wake up.” The words were eaten up by the air again, but I closed my eyes and tried to move back into consciousness. For a moment I thought it was working as I began to hear the voices of Murphy, John, and Erin again. I could feel the coolness of the ground on my back and the wind in my face.
Just as I readied to open my eyes in the cave, my head pounded again. I cried out and opened my eyes. But I didn’t open them in wakefulness. Instead, I found myself still in the clearing at the bottom of the stone steps.
“Well that’s unexpected,” I said. I sighed and looked at my arm. I flipped it over and, with a grimace for what I was about to do, I took a little of the sensi
tive skin on the inside and pinched down hard.
“Ouch!” I said. But nothing else happened. I was still in the clearing. I watched as a small red welt appeared on my skin. “Well so much for that advice working,” I grumbled.
The gateway still glittered up above me. The dread that filled the pit of my stomach hung there like an uninvited guest. My headache was starting to make it hard to think.
“Clearly there’s nowhere to go but up,” I said quietly. I pushed the sense of dread back and put my foot on the stairs. Immediately, relief washed through my head. With a relieved sigh I took another step. It felt like I was wading through molasses, but I kept pushing forward step by step.
As I neared the top, the gateway began to glow with an intense white light, making it impossible to see what lay on the other side. From somewhere in the distance it felt like I could hear someone calling my name. I was standing just two stairs away from the gateway now, but I stopped and closed my eyes, trying one last time to return to consciousness.
This time I could definitely hear Murphy calling my name. I also felt something else, shaking. Was someone shaking me? They were being a little rough. I tried to open my mouth and tell them to stop it, but once again my head pounded, and I was pulled back into the dream. This time the pain was so much I fell to my knees. My hands were on the rough stone of the stairs, scant inches from the light that was pouring out of the gateway. I stood and dusted my knees and hands off. My hands were red and scratched where they had hit the stairs. Taking a deep breath, I skipped the last step and plunged through the gateway and into the light.
4
I woke up to the feeling of the whole cave shaking. Murphy was crouched over me covering my head as well as his own. Through his arms I could see John and Erin crouched beside us. The shaking continued for what felt like an eternity. I could hear rocks falling and splashing in the pond, the ground itself felt like it was going to split open beneath us. Finally, it came to a crashing halt. Slowly, we each raised our heads and looked around. The cave was almost completely black around us. The only light was coming through the small shaft in the roof above the pond. As I looked around, I could see why, the doorway to the cave was completely covered with fallen rocks and debris.
“No!” Murphy yelled, seeing the problem the same time I did. He stood up and went to the entrance feeling the rocks and testing their strength. I rolled over onto my knees and felt around for our backpacks. No luck, they were buried in the rubble. I stood and walked over to where John and Murphy were trying to get through the rocks and back out into the open, careful not to trip over any of the rocks that had fallen on the floor of the cave. I rubbed my forehead. My head was still pounding and making it hard to think.
“Lydia, are you okay?” Erin asked me. “When the earthquake started, we tried to wake you, but you wouldn’t budge.”
“Yeah, I’m alright,” I told her. “I just have a really bad headache.”
Erin felt around on the ground and flicked on a light. Murphy’s flashlight. I walked forward in the small beam of light and tried to help John and Murphy move rocks as Erin held the flashlight up for us. Each time it looked like we were getting somewhere there would be another rumble and the rocks would shift and fall back into place creating an impassable barrier. After almost an hour of shifting rocks Murphy sat back on his heels with a groan.
“It’s impossible,” he said.
“It can’t be! How are we supposed to get out?” Erin asked.
“Anyone have a phone?" John asked.
We all looked at each other and checked our pockets.
“Mine was in my backpack,” I finally said.
“Yeah, mine too,” Erin added. Murphy just shook his head.
“Of course,” John said. “The only time none of us have our phones on us.”
We all four sat down against the wall of the cave, breathing heavily after trying to shift all the rocks out of the way.
Finally, Erin said, “What are we going to do?”
No one answered her.
After we had sat there for a few minutes Murphy stood.
“Well we aren’t getting anywhere if we just continue to sit here,” he said. He took the flashlight from Erin and walked to the edge of the pond, he shined the light toward the passageway he and John had looked at earlier. I held my breath as he searched for it along the far wall. The light from the flashlight hit it and we could all see it wasn’t blocked.
“Should we try to see if there’s another way out or should we wait and see if someone comes to rescue us? Surely, they felt the earthquake down in the subdivision,” I said.
“Our parents aren’t expecting us back for hours,” Erin pointed out.
We stood in the darkness for a moment contemplating. My head was still throbbing, and I could feel my heart begin to race. We were stuck in a cave. The thought just kept spinning through my head. I slid down to the ground and put my head between my knees and tried to keep the spots that were popping up in my vision at bay. I felt a cool hand against the back of my neck and looked up. Erin had come to stand beside me.
“Okay. Let’s do this. We will travel down the passageway for a little bit and see what we can find. If we don’t find anything after a couple of hours, we will come back here and keep trying to get out or wait for someone to find us,” Murphy said.
“Should someone wait here while the others go look in case someone comes?” Erin asked.
“No!” I said sitting straight up. The spots came back with my rush of movement. I steadied myself for a moment and then said, “No. I don’t want to split up. For starters, that’s how all horror movies start. But, for another thing, what happens if we split up and get separated?”
“Lydia’s right,” John said. I waved my thanks as another round of nausea hit me and I stuck my head back between my knees. “If there’s an aftershock or something we risk someone getting hurt and caved in by themselves. We should stick together.”
“Lydia, are you all right?” Murphy asked me.
“Oh yeah, you know, terrible migraine. Stuck in a cave. I’m peachy.” I felt him pat my shoulder.
“Come on, let’s get going so we can hopefully find a way out of here,” Murphy said.
I waved my hand in his direction. He grabbed it, put his toes against mine, and pulled me up.
“Alright, let’s do it,” I said.
We walked to the edge of the pond. Murphy took the lead with the flashlight and he and John walked Erin and I across the path they took the first time without getting soaking wet. Without the extra heat of the sun, it was getting cool in the cave and my shorts, tank top, and hiking boots weren’t providing much warmth.
I walked very slowly, making sure to put my feet down in each spot carefully. We all did. I knew none of us wanted to be the one to slip and fall and drag the others down too. Getting drenched in the cool pond water did not sound very appealing, especially if we were going to be stuck here a while. Painstakingly, we crept our way across the pond.
When we made it to the other side we scrunched down and peered into the passageway. Murphy’s flashlight only lit up the first few feet of it. The rest was just inky blackness.
“Come on,” Murphy said. “Let’s keep going.” He walked forward into the darkness. I followed him. Erin and John filed in behind me. The path was narrow so we had to stay single file. John and Murphy were both over six feet tall and had to stoop as we walked deeper and deeper into the cave.
5
“Should we go back?” Erin whispered after a while.
“Why are you whispering?” Murphy asked. He spoke in a regular voice but in the confined space his voice boomed and echoed on the walls.
“I don’t know,” Erin whispered back. “It’s just spooky.”
“No, let’s go forward a little further, I don’t know what we can do if we turn back, so let’s keep going this way.”
We walked on in silence. There was nothing but the blackness surrounding us. The passageway had twists
and turns but there was only one path for us to follow. I kept a firm grip on the back of Murphy’s shirt. I knew he wouldn’t leave us behind but holding onto something made me feel more connected. Behind me, Erin had a grip on the back of my shirt, too. Tight spaces had never bothered me yet, as we went deeper into the mountain, I could feel a sense of claustrophobia creeping up. And I couldn’t tell if it was just my imagination, but the passage seemed to be getting tighter. As we walked on, I could feel my headache lessening some. That, at least, was a plus.
In the lead, Murphy’s flashlight flickered once.
“Oh no,” I heard him mutter.
“Oh no, what?” John asked from behind me.
In response, the flashlight flickered again and went totally out.
“This is just great,” Erin said.
“Should we turn back?” I asked. I didn’t see that we had any other option. Getting back up through the cave would be difficult without a flashlight but there was only one path and at least the cavern where we had entered had some sunlight coming through the roof.
“Wait, wait, wait,” Erin said. “I think I see something ahead.”
As my eyes adjusted to the increased darkness, I could see what she meant. A faint light glowed ahead of us.
“I bet it’s another entrance,” Murphy said.
I knew he was probably right, but I couldn’t help the goosebumps that popped up on my arms as I looked at the glow. I crossed my arms and rubbed my hands up and down them. I wasn’t sure if I was doing it for warmth or for comfort.
Murphy began to move towards the light, and we all followed. The passage continued to twist and turn until I wasn’t sure which direction we were going anymore. It was disorienting being underground like this. The light in front was getting marginally brighter as we moved toward it.
Just when I thought we were never actually going to find the light, the passageway turned once more. Before I knew what was happening, I heard Murphy yell and then felt myself falling. I screamed and tried to grab onto something, but the sides of the cave were too slick to give me a hold. Erin tried to hold on to my shirt, but her feet slipped out from under her and she fell behind me. We tumbled together down a steep and extremely slick incline. I continued to try to find something to hold on to, but I couldn’t stop myself from sliding on and on.
Gatebreaker: Book One Page 2