The Dark

The Dark.

It's been 469 days. Down where the light never reaches. But up there, on the surface, the sunlight hasn't shone either. We count the days just as we did before, by the hours that pass, but without day and night, time feels different. It feels longer, restless, unending. One day runs into the next and months blend into one another. Without seasons or any change down here, time feels constant. Like we’ve been living in one long nightmare.

When we first came down here, the dark was a scary place to be, but now it feels comforting and safe. It became our home. My parents were researchers before the end of the world. They tried to warn them all but no one would listen until it was too late.

Dad found this cave for our family during his research, deep within the earth. It was mighty and endless. A cave so grand that it could never have been carved out by human machinery. It was crafted by God himself. Stalactites hung from the ceiling, playing an eternal song, the dripping of minerals to the cold cave floor. Crystals and gemstones glimmered in the walls reflecting off one another. A pool of black, icy water that led to a series of caves sat off to the right side of the room. The air hung thick and dank. Something we had to become adjusted to. Among everything else.

Within the first few months down here we ran through half our candles and batteries but dad prepared us well. He packed each of us night vision goggles, which we wear unless it's dinner time.

My brother and I set the table that sat in the middle of the clearing of the cave. I placed a single candle on the center of the table. Mom walked over carrying three dehydrated meal packs and poured them into a pot. She poured water sterilized from the pool into the pot and scooped an equal serving into my brother’s and my bowls. Though I noticed a lot less in hers.

Mom lit the candle and we tried to eat quickly so that we would only burn the tiniest bit of candle wax. The taste was nonexistent, but that didn't matter anymore. We didn't live to eat. We ate to live. My stomach had long since forgotten the feeling of being full. I couldn't believe I took meals for granted before.

I remembered how things were before the world ended. It felt like a distant memory. A past life. Mom and I would cook together in the kitchen as my brother set the table. Our dog, Roger would run between my legs trying to make me drop any food I was carrying. Our parents would ask us questions about our day at school. When we were given veggies we’d mull over them and discreetly push them off our plate and into Roger’s waiting mouth. And my dad's seat wasn’t empty.

I looked up from my bowl of once dehydrated mush and over at my brother who was scarfing it down. Mom savorly took bites while staring at the fourth chair... the chair that was meant for my dad. He was supposed to be down here with us.

All my fault.

Mom finished her meal and looked up at us. Her tired face solemn. “We're running low on food.” Silence followed as the realization settled on my brother and me. I looked down at my plate slowly stirring the mush with my spoon.

“Can we cut our meals down anymore?” I was used to the feeling of hunger. I could try to hold on longer.

“We’re already down to one ration a day.” Mom couldn’t help but look at my brother. His eyes and cheeks hollow, his arms reduced to boney twigs. His shirt hung on him without much form. He was losing weight the fastest of us both. It pained me to see him this way. I pushed my bowl over to him and scooped the remaining contents into his.

“So what do we do now?” I asked. She sighed. Looking at my empty bowl, her jaw set.

“It’s time for a test.”

What made her think this time was different? It had to be hope out of desperation. And my mom was a scientist. She didn't hope. She followed fact, not faith. Which meant things had to be really bad.

Once every month my mom performs a test on outside conditions. She’d have my brother find a cave dweller, usually a salamander or a millipede, and then she’d seal their fate by sealing them into the entrance chamber before opening the door to the outside. Every time they'd die from asphyxiation.

The image of my dad blue-faced, eyes bulging flooded my mind. I forced the image out as quickly as it appeared but not before throwing up in my own mouth.

My fault.

The next day my mom put on one of the specialized exploration suits she and my dad constructed for the outside. There was one for each of us lined up on the wall. They were fully enclosed and heavy. I helped her strap one of the oxygen tanks to her back.

“But why do you have to go? I can find another subject Mommy. I saw a spider by the pool this morning.” My brother pleaded, pulling on her arm.

“The tests are not so bad recently.” she lied. “With the suit, I will be okay.” She hugged us and said “I love you, my babies. You two need each other. Look out for one another. I will try to find help or a solution. Something. ”

She gave us each lingering kisses on our foreheads before reluctantly pulling away and closing her helmet screen.

The door closed and I could see my mom walk away into the darkness. Just as my dad did over a year ago.

It was all my fault. A loud explosion scared Roger and he ran off. I cried out for him. He was my dog and my dad ran after him. We waited but there was no time. Mom had to close the door. I begged her not to, as she sobbed and pulled the door shut. That was the last time I saw my dad. I couldn't hold back my tears as an unsettling fear formed in the pit of my stomach that this may be the last time I see her. My brother reached out for my hand and held tight.

It has been three days and she hasn't been back since.

After she left, my brother and I went to the food stores in the back and it was worse than she had made it seem. We had a week left at best. All we could do was wait.

My brother and I found ourselves making repairs around our home to keep our minds busy. My mom always checked the air ventilation system ever so often so I decided to do so. The air ventilation system was through a narrow tunnel you had to crawl through on hands and knees. I wiggled through and saw a glowing light coming from another direction. I decided to follow it and at the end of the tunnel was a huge cavern. Covering every surface were these shining blue crystals. The ceiling hung low, not even seven feet but the cavern went down, down, down until you couldn’t even see the glow of crystals anymore, just darkness. It seemed to go on forever. The crystals glowed and ebbed in time. I could hear a low hum coming from the walls and feel the vibration of the crystals under my feet, up my spine, and through my jaw. I reached my hand out to touch them when my shoe scraped across something on the floor. A little black book sitting on a stack of papers that went tumbling. I kneeled down to get a better look opening the book and saw my fathers handwriting, and in the notebook was a map.

I hurried back with the stack of papers and my fathers notebook to tell my brother what I had found. We spent all night decoding what he had written, imagining what his map could lead to. This could be the answer to all of our problems. We could either starve to death or maybe the end to this puzzle our dad had left us could be the key to our survival. Hope lifted our spirits and outweighed the uncertainty that settled in the pit of our stomachs. The only complication was that the map would lead us through the underwater passage to a second cave. And the water was freezing.

We waited until the last possible moment. After a week had gone by and we had no more food. Mom... was gone. So we stood at the edge of the dark water pool with the map laid out in front of us. X marks the spot. I really wish he had specified what he had hidden there and why it was so important to hide it this way. We knew we had to be quick to swim through the cold with enough energy to resurface. We wore the underlayer of our outdoor suits to keep warm and were as equipped as we could be, oxygen tanks strapped to our back.

“Together?” he asked.

“Together.”

“One,” my brother gulped nervously.

“Two,” I nodded.

“Three.”

And we jumped in.

We resurfaced on the other side of the cave. Shaking from the cold. I hurriedly pulled myself up and turned around to grab a hold of my brother's arm and yank him up. We both laid on our backs oxygen tanks tossed aside gasping for air. I rolled over covering his frail body with mine trying to share with him what little warmth I had. And there I saw it. A huge silver trunk in the middle of the floor. As both our eyes looked on it our breathes hitched. We gathered ourselves and knelt up from the stone floor. There was no lock on the truck, no letter, or note. I lifted it up and there was money. Stacks of cash completely filling the chest. So neatly bound and filled in rows. My breath left me.

“Dad left us money.. For the end of the world?”

The grimness of our situation settled in.