Under

The gaping rock maw yawned open above her. Its craggy teeth closed around the earthen portal, cutting off the last rays of sunlight like a stone titan biting the sun in half. Valentina gazed longingly up at those teeth. They signaled the only escape route from her worst nightmare.

She felt a hand grasp her shoulder hard. A scream split the quiet stillness long before she realized it had come from her lips. The grinning face smiling back at her was one she recognized.

"What the fuck, James!"

James laughed. "Don't be such a coward, Val! The scariest thing down here is a few spiders."

"No, James," Amy interjected. "The scariest thing down here is your dental work."

James flipped them both off, a crooked smile still on his face, and sauntered off into the darkness.

Val regarded Amy with a sheepish grin. "Thanks. You didn't have to do that."

"Yes, I did," she responded, as she slung her arm around Val's shoulders. "James is a dick. Besides, sisters have to stick together."

Her words warmed Val's heart. Suddenly the cold, damp earth trapping them did not feel quite as lonely. With Amy's arm engulfing her small frame, the two girls traipsed deeper into the cave. They caught up with James and Scott, who were busy shoving each other around in an apparent attempt to see who would trip over a rock first.

The cave was prettier than she expected, she had to admit. Stalagmites (or were they stalactites? She could never remember) hung from the ceiling like fingers reaching out towards her, but it was still amazing how nature formed them. Some of the rocks were multi-colored, and the natural reverb made every whispered word sound like a singsong melody in an earthen concert hall.

Scott and James were jackasses, but Amy had extensive caving experience. With her guidance, they navigated the unmapped tunnels and passages with ease. Initially, this was a relief to Val, but it was short-lived. The next chamber terminated in a single fissure set horizontally into the rock wall, just wide enough to admit a human body.

"I'll go first." That was Amy, naturally.

James muttered something to Scotty, then snickered. Scott punched him in the arm, then said he'd go next. Amy made it to the end, then shouted back that they should go in feetfirst. Scott and James also managed to make the tight fit look easy. Then it was Val's turn.

She took a deep breath, closed her eyes, then wiggled her boots into the narrow fissure. As the walls closed in around her, she fought to keep her panic at bay. It felt like iron bands clamped around her chest, adding to the crushing pressure already present from the unforgiving limestone coffin. She only made it a few feet in before she discovered why Amy wanted them to go feetfirst. The crack, which had begun horizontal, quickly turned downwards into a steep slope. Val's lungs constricted painfully as she willingly lowered herself deeper under the earth.

The lower portion of the descent was even tighter than the entrance. Her clothes bunched up under her arms, trapping her arms and pressing her back painfully into sharp rocks. Her breath came in tattered gasps, and she was certain that she was moments away from a full-blown panic attack when she heard Amy's voice call to her from below.

"Hey, don't panic, you're fine! From here, it looks like your sweater is just hung up on a rock. Try easing up first, then tuck your sweater over the rock and then go again."

Amy's advice worked like a charm. Seconds later, Val stood with her friends in a low chamber. Without the residual rays of sunlight bouncing off the walls, the darkness here was much more pervasive. It was a thick black blanket that settled on top of Val's shoulders, threatening to suffocate her while the shadows made the walls look closer and closer. The only solace was the flailing beams of LED light emanating from their flashlights, reminding her that she was not alone down here.

"Amy, this is so sick!" Scott said. "I've always wanted to go cave-diving."

"Yeah, right," James laughed. "This isn't the kind of cave you wanna go diving in."

Despite the cloying darkness, Val found enough disgust in her heart to call James a pig. He ignored her as usual, and continued to jostle Scott around the confined space. As they pushed and shoved each other, their flashlight beams played over a section of the rock wall that was almost completely smooth.

A splash of color on the wall caught Valentina's attention. She aimed her own flashlight at the wall, half-expecting to see it sprayed with crimson blood. There were deliberate markings across the hard surface, scrawled in something red and grainy, like clay, or crayon. The scratchings were crude and neolithic, almost like Egyptian hieroglyphs. Strange symbols that resembled letters or Arabic numerals combined with rough depictions of a little girl next to a house. The girl in the picture seemed to be holding hands with a taller figure, and behind them both there was a large, misshapen circle that was colored in with fierce slashes. The entire image was an unsettling mixture of antediluvian runes and a modern child's drawing.

"Guys, what the hell is that?" Val asked. Her voice was barely a whisper, as though now keenly aware that she and her friends may be overheard.

James casually flicked his light over the unusual markings, but quickly returned to kicking rocks around the room.

"Probably just some other cavers that wanted to freak people like you out."

Normally James's dismissals would eat at her patience, but this time she barely heard him. Something about those letters seemed to draw her in. She found herself leaning forward, examining more closely, brushing her fingers against the cold rock and the crumbly letters. The image of the girl looked somehow pleading. Despite being the larger image, the girl's form juxtaposed against the deformed circle made her seem weirdly dwarfed by it. Val got closer and closer to that circle, her eyes squinting, peering into its depths, searching for something shrouded below the surface, something she could not see but knew was there. She ran her hand lightly over its surface, reaching for the circle, her fingertips dipping inside...

Amy cleared her throat. The sudden noise sounded like a bomb going off in the echoing cavern. The boys quit their rough housing, and Val spun around with a start.

"Okay, listen up, everyone. The next leg of the journey is right over here." She gestured towards a small brown puddle in the corner of the room. "All you have to do is slip into the water here and duck under the cave wall. On the other side is a narrow channel filled with water. There's an air pocket too, so once you're in the tunnel you can come up and breathe, but when you reach the far wall you'll have to go under one more time."

"No problem," James said.

Scott looked nervous, but he nodded his head anyway. Val knew he'd never let himself look weak in front of James.

"Great. I'll go first to make sure the path is still safe." Amy looked expectantly at each of them.

"I'm next," James chirped.

"I'll go third," Val said, a little too fast. If they were going to go underwater, she did not want to be last.

Amy went under. Then James. Then Val. When it was her turn, she slipped into the murky waters, took a deep breath, and submerged. She felt the wall above her with shaking fingers, scouring the rock until it was no longer there. It took only a couple of seconds to find the air pocket, but it felt like hours had passed. Val opened her eyes in the confined waterway, but she couldn't see anything at all. Here the darkness was even more complete without the invasive glow of flashlight beams.

Val dragged herself along the channel. She fought to keep her neck above water, but her helmet kept bumping into the ceiling, preventing her from ever fully keeping her chin up. The wet silt of eroded limestone oozed between her fingers as she dragged herself along through the mud and the muck.

Halfway into her crawl, a quiet plop reverberated off the walls.

Valentina stopped. The cold water trailed a shiver up her spine, and bile rose unbidden into her throat. She tried to turn and see what had made that noise, but the constrictive walls kept her head from moving much. She told herself it was just a pebble kicked loose from the ceiling, but the images her wild imagination conjured were far less innocent. Her breath caught, and her ears strained to listen, but the sound did not repeat itself.

Val started moving again, but this time with much greater speed and purpose. She cleared the rest of the tunnel faster than she would've thought herself capable of, and in another moment she was in an even smaller cave with James and Amy.

They helped her up out of the water, and tried to ask why she was frantically looking around and gasping for breath, but she shrugged them off. James already thought she was a coward. She couldn't bear the thought of Amy thinking that too.

While Amy was prying at Val for answers, James got a strange look on his face. He turned towards the water channel and stared at it, then said quietly: "Wait, where's Scott?"

The three of them watched the placid waters expectantly. Several agonizing moments passed, but finally there was a ripple through the still murk. Scott's face surfaced. The group let out a collective sigh of relief.

"We thought you were a goner, man," James laughed.

Scott stared back at them with glassy eyes.

"Are you okay?" Amy asked. "Did you get hurt?"

Scott said nothing.

Val's stomach burned. Something was wrong. The same strange compulsion from the drawing gnawed at her. She felt drawn to Scott. He had never seemed particularly interesting to her, but now she was compelled towards the puddle, towards that blank, floating face, towards the gaping black hole of his unmoving mouth.

James was pulling Scott out of the water, and Val was vaguely aware that Amy was shouting something next to her. She shook her head, attempting to clear the fog obscuring her thoughts. The world rushed back into stark focus, and at that moment Scott's torso rose from the water, and she could see his neck. It was at an impossible angle. His skin was stretched tight on one side, like something hard and sharp was pushing against it from the inside. Those glassy, unseeing eyes bored into her like portals into her future, and what had been Scott's head flopped loosely against the wet cavern floor.

Val screamed. James dropped the corpse of his friend. Scott's head rolled to the side. Those horrifying lifeless eyes stared up at the ceiling, and something deep within Val screamed at her to follow the sepulchral gaze. She craned her neck and shone her flashlight at the spot that Scotty was looking at. The beam played across a crack in the cave's ceiling. A pale, gaunt face stared back at her. Wet, black hair hung down like fraying, tangled ropes. Val had the absurd thought that if she hadn't had the flashlight, she would've assumed the hair was cave moss.

James followed her gaze upwards, and finally he screamed. The girl in the ceiling shrieked in response, and then she was falling, dropping out of the rock like a bat suddenly woken, and then she was on him.

Val ran as fast as she could. The narrow passages and fissures slowed her down, but she knew that even if she could run at full speed, she couldn't escape James's screams. They echoed off the walls, reverberated through the cave like a giant echo chamber designed to remind her that her friends were dying, and now she was alone.

The twists and turns blurred together. Her sense of direction was useless underground. Everywhere she turned, there was just more rock. Eventually, that rock led to what she feared most; a dead end.

For all the tunnels and passages and fissures in this damned cave, how could there be no exit other than the way she had come? She swung her flashlight wildly around the tall chamber, searching frantically for an escape route that wasn't there.

In her panic, Val spun around the room in a dizzying spiral, looking at the tomb from every angle, no stone left unturned. Her foot slid on a patch of dust. A rock slipped out from under her, and her toes managed to catch her before she fell, but she didn't hear the stone hit anything. Not at first. When the ricocheting sound of a pebble on rock reached her ears, it came from far below her.

Val swung her flashlight around and found herself on the edge of a huge, gaping chasm. The ancient maw was in the shape of a deformed circle. She shined her light into its heart, but the beam revealed nothing, as though the light itself wasn't strong enough to combat the malevolent dark.

A footstep broke the crushing silence. Val spun so fast she almost careened backwards into the pit. Amy stood at the edge of the room.

Relief washed over Valentina like a flood.

"Holy shit, Amy, I thought you were dead. Who was that girl? We've gotta get the hell out of here!"

Amy smiled warmly. "Janie, where are you hiding? I know you're in here."

Val looked at her like she was crazy. "Who the hell is Janie? Amy, we have to go now!"

Amy laughed, but the noise was strangely empty. Val's mind conjured images of the cave painting, but she didn't know why.

"I'm sorry, Val. I want you to know I truly did think of you as family."

Confusion clouded Val's mind, but before she had time to register the warmth leaving Amy's smile, the familiar sound of pebbles echoing off the pit wall made her stop dead in her tracks.

She shone her flashlight into the pit, and there was Janie, clinging to the rock wall, climbing out of the impossible depths. A cold, dessicated hand reached up and grabbed her ankle. She fell, barely managing to catch herself on her elbows.

The other girl's strength was unholy. Val's arms were failing fast. She looked at her friend, her eyes pleading for help. Amy's mouth opened, but Val heard the voice from below her as well.

"Sisters have to stick together."