The Cave Part 1

"What happened to me?"

The question hung in the air, damp and hollow as it was. I felt the closeness of the walls, solid and deep. There was no echo. No hope that a simple voice could impede the silent dark. It surrounded me, gathered up and rolled over me with a blanket of complete forgetfulness. I was gone. Dead. To all who knew me, lost years ago. This is what happens to bones. This is what happens to those buried and left to lie beneath the earth until the end of time.

But I was still alive. I was still awake.

"Is anyone there?"

My voice was scratched with lack of water. The tones bounced off of unseen walls for a moment, then winked out. The oppression of closeness was everywhere. Every movement felt like a blasphemy in the unrelenting silence.

"Oww," I moaned, trying to sit up but feeling a chorus of muscles screaming up my back. I had not hit the ground softly. Thank goodness for armor and its thin fur lining.

I scrambled up fighting a body that would not stop punishing me with every bruise, cut, and blister. It seemed fine to let a tear or two fall, since no one could see through this darkness. I was alone. It was clear. Alive, and yet left behind. Where was I? Which way to go if I wanted to live? Despair was a ready companion.

"I could eat you is you wish."

I nearly jumped out of my skin at the nearness of that deep, rich voice in the absolute silence. Involuntarily I spun around in place, though my senses were alive enough to know that the voice had come from up above me. One does not consider the peril of absolute vulnerability until it catches you in that dark sweat drenched moment, freezing the drops on your brow in fear's wintry breath.

"Or not. You simply appear very distressed."

"I'd rather not be, please," I stammered, reeling under the spell of panic. "Who are you?"

"I am, myself," replied the voice from the darkness.

"Not very descriptive," I quipped, not even knowing why I dared when I was so vulnerable.

"You could say, I am vast," replied the voice, drawing out the word with a louder tone, echoing off the walls. "Or you could say, I am small. It all depends on your perspective little one."

For a moment there were no words on my tongue. I could not remember anything. Images danced in my head, but nothing was in focus. How had I come to be here? Why was I alone in the darkness of what seemed the deepest cave in existence? Who was I with here, and why did I feel my life hung like a weathered thread, ready to snap at any moment? This was simply terrible, and I despaired.

"Fine, go ahead and eat me if you want," I cried, trying to hold back a sob. "I'm alone, abandoned, and I don't even know where I am. I can't even remember anything. If I had friends, they left me for dead. I might as well be."

"Sit down," whispered the voice, the sound coming almost from above me. I could smell something in the air, a strange metallic scent. It called up memories that I could not see clearly. Family? A workshop? Whatever those were, I obeyed and sat down on the stone floor where I had lain.

"I can't even remember my name," I whispered aloud, mostly to myself.

"That is not necessary. Who do you believe yourself to be?"

"What do you mean?"

"I only want to know what and who you think you are."

"I was a nobody, I think," said I. "Just a town pick."

"A what?"

"A pickpocket, a thief," said I.

"Little to pick up here."

"Where is here, sir?" I asked, for the voice had sounded deep and somewhat masculine. I hoped I was not wrong.

"The cave," replied the voice from the darkness.

"What cave?"

"My cave."

"And you are?"

"I am enduring."

"That isn't really a name," I observed, getting my emotional balance back during this trade of comments.

"It is enough for now."

"What will you do with me?" I asked, feeling that this was the eventual issue at hand.

"That depends," answered the voice. "You are small, you are lost, and you cannot remember your past accurately. If I let you go, where would your feet wander? How would you survive if you have nothing to protect yourself with? What would you call yourself if you met anyone else?"

These questions fell like the blows of a hammer on an anvil, beating into my confused brain the fact that I desperately needed help, if the being I was speaking with did not choose to eat me and let me go. Somewhere along the way I had admitted to myself that it was probably quite capable of killing and eating me quickly if it wished, whatever it was. I was wholly at the mercy of the voice in the darkness. The voice in the cave.

There was a deep sigh from above me, and I felt the air in the darkness move. That same metallic smell came back to me, and for a moment I thought of what else it reminded me of, that sticky stuff that is left after a fight. It reminded me of blood. I froze, tense with expectation of an attack at any moment. I had not answered any questions satisfactorily, and the voice had pointed out the uselessness of setting me free. It was the end this time for sure.

"You are young and you are foolish," said the voice at last. "Your kind always seek to shorten your already short days. However, I like you. There is something, promising about you."

The pause before the positive comment was for but a moment, but I felt great relief when the sentence finished. A soft shaking of the ground beneath me was alarming at first, but suddenly the sound of rocks falling, or more accurately rolling away took place behind me. A pale luminescence came, and in the complete darkness I had sat in, it was like a sudden shining light.

"Take this passage out into the Overworld, and seek lodging with the old man of the mountain," instructed the voice in a commanding tone. I could not see what it was, even with the pale light shining in from behind me. The voice and its body where still shrouded in darkness. "He will aid your recovery. When you have found yourself, come back to speak with me."

"Yes, sir," I replied, for there was nothing else to say. I rose on shaky legs, and turned towards the opening that yawned behind me now. If the rocks had been pushed away from a tunnel by a mighty hand or magic, I had no clue. All I knew was that I needed to obey, and leave the cave dweller for now.