I didn’t have a cellphone until my sophomore year of high school. It’s not a big deal or anything, but my sophomore year was in 2015, so it was pretty uncommon. It wasn’t even some bullshit anti-tech rule my parents enforced, we just didn’t have a whole lot of money. But, like I said, not a big deal. I read a lot, anyway, so I was always occupied with something. I used to draw a lot, too. And don’t even get me started on the hikes I went on, often through woods without trails, just haphazardly exploring, sometimes finding interesting things to commit to memory since I didn’t have a camera, either.
One day when I was about 13 or 14, I went on one of these hikes. Nothing unusual, just me getting home from school and dropping my bookbag off in my room before asking my parents to go out to the park. They usually said yes, and so I usually went. The start of the hike was nothing noteworthy, though there were a few crows sort of circling overhead the treetops. Now, I knew these woods like the back of my hand at this point, so going off-trail or starting off-trail to begin with wasn’t a problem for me– I know better now, of course. I was slowly making my way down a pretty steep hill, my feet pointed outward so I wouldn’t trip up and fall and so my balance wasn’t all forward. Now, like I said, I knew these woods pretty well. And I knew there weren’t any cave systems here. But there one was, not fifteen feet away from the bottom of that hill– a hill I’d been up and down a million times. I had never seen thay cave before, and I had no way of knowing if it was safe, and no way of contacting anybody if it wasn’t. So, obviously I went in and explored. I mean, come on, I was a kid, I had just entered my teen years, what else was I going to do? Go back? Hell no.
I trudged forward. I was wearing the best hiking gear a kid could ask for– a pair of beat up converse, skinny jeans, and a t-shirt without a jacket. The cave opening was pretty wide, from what I remember, and I was pretty small. I walked in and stood in the middle of the opening, just looking around. What caught my eye was a glint – you know, the kind you’d see in movies when there was gold or something in the cave wall. The glint, whatever it was, led me to a slimmer path that look almost man-made. I reasoned that it could have been miners from a long time ago, or something along those lines. I went in. I was pretty tall, too, so I had to duck a good portion of the way until the path opened up again into a clearing of sorts– I was still in the cave, but there was life all around me. Trees, bushes, flowers, a stream– even a lake, or what looked like one. I was baffled. There were even animals. I saw two deer and a few squirrels right off the bat. This wasn’t a cave, but there was still rock above me. It was an enclosed sanctuary, or so it seemed.
I walked further in, and further. I sat down in the grass by the lake and took my shoes and socks off, dipped my feet into the water. It was clear and cold, and the ripples revealed tadpoled scurrying away from the intrusion. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, aside from the obvious. In fact, it was pretty peaceful. I laid back, the grass was soft and plush, like a pillow made of earth. I dozed, eventually falling asleep. When I woke up, it was dark when– before it had been light, almost like the cave had a hole where sunlight poked through. The grass wasn’t soft anymore, either; it was itchy. I stood up quickly, forgetting about my shoes and my socks. I looked around, my eyes adjusting to the dark. And then I saw it. Or them? It looked like a person, tall and obscenely thin, almost emaciated. I walked forward, toward them, almost as if I was compelled to. The creature, whatever it was, stood silent and still. When I finally reached them– it took ages, my feet and legs seeming to move in slow motion, as if I was walking through molasses or honey– I saw its eyes. They were green, they were blue, they were red, they were black. There were seven eyes total, though I’m not sure of I saw them or if I just knew, somehow that that’s how many there were. The thing stretched out its hand, fingers gnarled and translucent so I could see the bones and tendons, the veins and blood. I took it. We went into the woods, deeper and deeper, and, somehow, we were still in the cave, because there was no sky above us, just rock. It walked funny, kind of bowlegged, like a deer. I remember suddenly thinking about its teeth, which I hadn’t even seen since it hadn’t opened its mouth at all. It never spoke or made any noise, actually. It just moved silently, holding my hand just tight enough that it felt safe, somehow.
We came into another sort of clearing, with a big fire in the middle of it. Finally, once we got closer, I could see the thing for what it was. There were maggots crawling out of its ears, which were pointed, and the skin was translucent and patchy, some parts covered in fur and some not. The eyes were all open, like it didn’t have eyelids, and there was one that was just an eye socket– I guess it had eight eyes before. I remember wondering what had happened to the eigth to make the total seven, but I didn’t ask. In fact, I didn’t speak or scream at all the whole time. When we were right by the flames, it smiled. Big canines, and a smile that seemed to somehow extend past its face. I saw a centipede crawl between teeth and gums. We were still holding hands. We were still walking, too. Closer and closer to the fire. It was the calmest I had felt in a long time, close to that fire, holding that things hand. I smiled up at it. It squeezed my hand briefly, and I saw my own bones, my own tendons, my own veins and blood and muscle.
I don’t know how it happened, but I was shaken awake just as we were going to, I assume, step into the flames. I remember feeling my hand be wrenched out of its hand and I remember screaming when I woke up, disoriented and on the ground of the woods, shoeless and sockless.And freezing. Nowhere near a cave. The people who woke me up turned out to be cops. I didn’t like cops very much back then, and I still don’t like them now, but they gave me a blanket and a plastic bottle of water, and they carried me back to the park from the woods. I was gone for over a week, apparently. Eight days, to be exact.
I still don’t know what exactly happened back then. Maybe I fell and passed out, dreamed the whole thing. But I know that’s not true. I know it because I’m at that hill again. At that cave, again.