I’ve always had an interest in cave diving, when I was a little girl my dad would talk about it constantly, it was his favorite hobby. It had been years since I thought about it until I was waiting for my friend Jared to pay for our slupies at a local gas station when I saw a bright blue pamphlet with a beautiful picture of a cave on the front and pretty yellow text across the top ‘Cosmic Cavern Berryville, Arkansas’ I was mesmerized by the picture, as if all my childhood fascination had come back to me in an instant. I picked it up and opened it hoping for more pictures but was distracted when something fell out onto the ground with a clink, I bent down and picked it up, it was a dime, very old and beaten up, almost sharpend on the bottom. Suddenly the pamphlet was snatched from my hand, I started to make a noise of protest before realizing it was Jared as he cut me off,
“Berryville? That’s not to far from here, just a couple miles south.”
“I know that!” I said as I took it back along with mine of the two drinks, “and quit taking stuff from me!” I Pocketed the dime and pamphlet which I now folded up, “you want to go?” He said as flipped through a pamphlet that he pulled from the same spinning kiosk I had, “my treat.” He continued. “You would do that?” I replied with some excitement, he smiled and cleared his throat “Average your time is 1 hour and 15 minutes walking distance is 1/3 mile at a very comfortable pace.” He quoted the pamphlet mocking the tone of an annoying advertisement. God I miss Jared.
At home that night after a shower I dug the pamphlet out of my jacket pocket and noticed something that I didn’t see before, under the ‘C’ in ‘cosmic’ someone had drawn on it, nothing rude or that interesting, just a circle with what looked like an upsidedown ‘Y’ going through it and 2 diagonal lines coming off the right side.
I didn’t think much of it and opened it again to gawk at the pictures thinking about how Jared and I would be there in a few weeks, there were 5 pictures inside, though one was of the gift shop the, other four captured my imagination in such beautiful ways, a flashlight shining yellow on a group of stalactites growing from the cave ceiling, a similar flashlight lit picture of a pale lizard with white text that read ‘Ozarks Blind Cave Salamander’ and two beautiful pictures of underground lakes, it was at that point I remembered the dime and riffled around in my jacket pocket for it but came up with nothing, “damnit,” I thought, “must have lost it.”
A few weeks flew by like a few hours and I found myself fidgeting with my phonecase in the passenger seat of Jared’s car getting closer and closer to the cave. The details of the trip aren’t that important so I’ll just move on to when we started our guided tour. It was so pretty, everything was, it was all so perfect, like living out a strange but wonderful dream, we had just gotten to a bridge raised high above the cave below, as I stared down in utter amazement I felt an arm wrap around my waist as another covered my mouth and I was dragged backwards away from the ground and behind a giant rock, I was panicking horribly when I was let go and whipped around to see Jared holding a finger to his mouth to shush me. “What the fuck is wrong with you!” I whispered, he reached into his pocket and carefully pulled out a small shiny pipe with a bowl of smoke packed already, “you brought a glass in here!?”
I whispered a little louder, “what’s the big deal? Chill Mags.” He responded in a low, deep whisper “just thought we could,” he carefully wiggled the pipe in my face close enough that I could smell it strong “enhance our experience.” He raised his eyebrows twice at me. I thought about it for a minute, “fine.” I grabbed it from his hand, “you got a light?” I asked, “yeah hold on.” He started feeling at his pockets and as he did I leaned backwards to peak out from behind the rock. A horrible headache hit me like I’d been struck with a hammer right between the eyes, I looked back but instead of Jared I saw nothing but the stone wall that was behind him, pain engulfed me as I could feel my consciousness slip away.
When I awoke I was laying on my stomach on wet rock, my head still throbbed with near debilitating pain, I tried to look around but my eyes wouldn’t fully focus until they landed on a dark skinned man laying in a pool of his own blood. “Jared!” I cried out but he did not move, the effort to scream felt like a bullet to the brain. I crawled over to him putting in my best effort not to cry, when I reached him I laid my ear on his chest though it did no good as even if he had a pulse I wouldn’t be able to hear it over the sound of my own heart racing in my ears, but not just that, there was this horrible collection of voices screaming, a choir of agony coming from my right. I put in the effort to stand and look over, there was a hole in the wall of earth, it was small just big enough to fit a person, it called to me.
I all at once forgot about Jared or my pain and lurched to it like the undead and without a moment of hesitation crawled inside, it was horribly cramped, on my hands and knees I was still forcing deep scrapes into my back from the sharp ceiling. The voices screamed out so loud as I crawled, though one was above the rest, it spoke calmly in a language I didn’t understand but it’s words are forever burned into my mind.
“Hab keine Angst, du bist eine Tochter des Vaters.”
As I crawled I began to feel as if the tunnel was growing tighter, as if my legs would break if it got even a little smaller, but that paled in comparison to what I felt next, water. I looked down and saw nothing in the darkness but I could feel water rising up slowly towards my chest, I crawled faster towards the faint light now visible at the end of the tunnel, fighting hard to go faster despite the new resistance The water gave. When I finally fell forwards onto moist rock out of the tunnel I was right back where I began, I could still see Jared laying right where I left him, I turned to see no opening in the stone wall and that voice spoke up again. “Danke, jetzt versiegeln Sie es.” I looked over on the wet slab of stone near where the tunnel had been, and saw a dime, old and beaten up, very sharp near the bottom. I couldn’t tell you why I did this, it just happened. I took the dime and began to cut something into my left wrist, a circle with an upsidedown ‘Y’ and two diagonal lines coming from the right side.
I passed out after that, but I could wager a good guess as to what happened next based on the visual when I awoke. The same symbol drawn in dripping red on the stone wall and the puddle of crimson my arm laid in. I rolled over onto my back and was shocked to see a tour group walking across a bridge high above, I cried for help.
I’ve been in a mental institution since then, it’s been 3 years since they saved me and recovered Jared’s body, but even after 3 years the scar on my wrist still haunts me.