Ella sat on the edge staring into the light denying depths. 'Stupid' she thought to herself. "This is stupid; I should never have come by myself." Somehow speaking out aloud, even with no one around to hear, gave her self-chastisement more authority. Still she found it hard to hold herself entirely to blame for the uncomfortable twelve hour drive into Finland's frozen forested waste with the last three off-road. She decided it was not her fault at all, it had been: Eric who had suggested the original pot holing expedition, Haako who had found the damn ring and Donald who had jumped off the multi-storey car park and put himself in hospital again. The others didn't want to return without him but she was rapidly losing patience with Donald. Over the last three years the four of them had almost run out of native adrenaline junkie activities: free-fall parachuting, wing walking, cliff diving, numerous bungees and various white water activities. So much adrenaline; lives full of thrills and excitement, which made Donald even harder to fathom. He had been arrested when they had base jumped from Tampere's Solo Sokos Hotel. They would have all got away with it if he'd had the guts to jump but he'd chickened out. Donald however, had now attempted to take his own life for a third time. First he'd hung himself then he'd cut his wrists and now a fall from height. Although the eight floors he'd fallen were far less than Solo Sokos' twenty five Ella could only wonder what had changed other than the safety of a parachute?
She tried to twist the ring on her finger but it was too tight, it wouldn't turn without soap or spit, despite the cold. A simple 'silver' band Haako had found in a cave beneath this impervious darkness less than three months ago. He'd given it to her as a keepsake but it had been far too large and when she'd given it to a jeweler for re-sizing he returned it asking what it was made of? All she knew was it looked like silver but couldn't be since when Haako had found it had shone brightly without a hint of tarnish. The jeweler was astonished by its resilience and quickly given up his commission for fear of wrecking all his equipment. 'I don't work with Titanium' he had told her. Sofia, Ella's college friend, had tried to analyse it and said it wasn't Titanium or anything like it. It was an alloy, mostly iron and nickel, but there was something else that didn't make sense. She suggested Ella took it to Cern but she hadn't; instead wrapping her finger with micropore® until it fitted. 'If you can't change I guess I'll have to' she had told it but she hadn't expected that by morning her swollen finger would have pushed the tape aside and it would fit perfectly. When she'd shown her hand to Sofia she had no new suggestions 'Take it to Cern, I'm serious that just isn't right.'
She looked at the finger, now completely out of proportion with her hand, a huge digit almost half again the width of any other, it looked like someone else's; maybe it was? She'd taken a fingerprint and asked the police to check it against her records but they hadn't written back to her. Donald had insisted they wouldn't, after all she hadn't committed a crime unless it was someone else's finger and if that were the case it probably hadn't been wise to give them the print.
Eric of course had a plethora of ideas fueled by the Internet as to what precisely the ring was. His favourite was an alien device inadvertently left behind by aliens posing as Finish pantheon deities; but even with this to peek his interest he had abandoned her this time. It was the wrong time of year, there would be practically no light and he didn't like driving in the dark on frozen roads. Ella questioned if any of her 'extreme' friends enjoyed taking risks at all? Still it was getting dark already, and although it would make no difference beneath ground; pitching a tent was so much easier in the light. She would make the decent tomorrow for now she would: make a fire, cook a can of beans with sausage and try to keep warm in her sleeping bag. It was windy and snow drifted down from the firs all around, it was impossible to tell if it were actually snowing or not. A fallen tree nearby provided a natural windbreak for both tent and fire as well as a source of wood. 'Odd?' she thought as she broke off smaller twigs for kindling, the tree was lying across a thick bed of fern that the rest of the forest seemed almost devoid of. Taking her boot knife she collected a mattress of springy fronds. That evening she was amazed by the aurora's intensity clearly glowing through the thick firs and almost opaque material of her tent. Now and again it seemed to flare like a sudden burst that filled the tent with light and intrigue. She threw her thick jacket around her and ventured out.
It hung in the air, some thirty feet from her; a ball of flame the size of a tennis ball, burning with a greenish hue. Cautiously she tried to get closer to it but it seemed to move away. A frond of fern impaled in her birds nest hair fell into her eye. She stopped and tried to pull it free from the matted mess and partially succeeded, leaving all but: lesser fronds, petals and berries behind. Again the fire moved and she followed, falling into dark.
When she woke she could see faint light sixty or so feet above as snow persistently fell, motes of reflected light becoming lost to the darkness. So faint was the light she could not tell if it were the Sun rising, setting or the fullness of a moon. She struggled to remember what the moon's phase was but couldn't. Sensibly she had slept fully clothed and booted, mainly for warmth but now she wasn't warm and she was in a lot of pain. She cautiously flexed each limb, they all moved and none felt the worse for doing so, but they were all painful, just bruised she hoped. She was immediately grateful and praised all the deities remembered from the RE lessons that then had failed to impress. How ironic it would have been if she had fallen and died because Donald had failed to kill himself by falling she wondered, then it appeared again.
It flared green as before, illuminating the cave. She looked around her eyes searching the walls for the rope she knew she had secured to a sturdy pine and left dangling ready for her planned descent. It lay where it had fallen less than ten feet away. Leaning against the wall she slowly and awkwardly dragged herself to her feet and around its frosty moss less walls. It was a strong rope, virtually new and she knew how to tie a knot, Eric had taught her. She examined the end to find its polymer melted and turned accusingly to the flame bobbing in front of the narrow opening to the next chamber; it had been an awkward squeeze before and then she wasn't injured. Her mouth was dry, perhaps she was bleeding internally? She picked up some of the fallen snow and ate it before facing the glowing ball that she believed had deliberately maimed and entrapped her.
"You can fuck off." She stated not for a moment thinking whatever it was could hear. Not knowing what or why it was. Eric would have had a suggestion, probably a stupid one, but an idea none the less, she did not. Suddenly there was darkness and she was alone fumbling with numb heavily gloved fingers to find the small torch she always carried. She pulled the glove off struggled with the frozen fastener to her pocket and found the pieces she had fallen upon. She slid down the wall, sat in the snow allowing the pain to embrace her and she wept.
It was obvious that the sun would never rise high enough to light a climb and without a rope it would be an almost impossible task. She'd free climbed previously but never: this far north, in winter, at night. She sat and pondered what Eric would do, he always had an idea, often more a ridiculous fantasy than anything practical but still something. The others would then take it and shape it into something fit for purpose. They would never give up, not even Donald, and thinking of them gave her inspiration. She undid her boot and begun weaving the laces into the burnt and melted end of the rope. She planned to use the boot like a grapnel to ensnare her tent which, it was now clear, was far too close to the sinkholes mouth. If she succeeded she would be able to haul her aching body up the wall and out. She tried countless times until each attempt struck shorter and shorter of its goal; none had been near, at best three meters short. They had at least made the dimming light that was rapidly receding up the wall. Her stomach rumbled and her unshod foot was both cold and wet. She un-weaved her boot and replaced it, she would try the free climb in darkness tomorrow.
She was woken by the green ball trying to tempt her further into the caves they had explored. She remembered the narrow passage Haako and Eric had practically striped to get down into a cave beyond which for the most part was filled with frozen water. They had found an exit beneath the surface but it was even narrower than the first. It was in the entrance to that passage Haako had found the ring. It was too tight for the giant to explore at all but Donald and her had gone as far as they could with small canisters of air and waterproof torches. They hadn't found any more treasure or reached the end they could tantalisingly just perceive. Only she was small and flexible enough to slithe her way to the all too obvious opening into the unknown but she hadn't felt comfortable scraping against the sharp broken quartz in her bra and pants. This time would have been different, the boys weren't there to watch the frozen water stiffen her and she'd invested in a fine mesh wet suit with Kevlar paneling, just the job for both the stones and temperature. Unfortunately it was in her tent. 'Unfortunately!' She rebuked the thing that had she felt deliberately contrived to separate her from the equipment she needed; that was why it had tempted her down rather than just letting her wait until morning. Suddenly the green ball of fire leapt up and away out of the hole. She listened intently in the dark as time passed; maybe it was tempting someone else to the same mistake. If she called out a warning and prevented their fall they could help her out, there were spare ropes in the tent along with everything else she needed to escape. She thought of trying to investigate further without equipment or light and quickly discounted her persistent stupidity. She strained her hearing against the silence of the falling snow and stared upward for any green light more intense than the aurora that lit the fir silhouetted sky with pale, pulsing plumes.
An eternity later she heard something move. There was a feeble change in luminosity. She called out, first crying for help but then calming herself she tried to alert her potential saviour of the burning ball's true intent and the perilous pits presence. She waited for a response but heard only faint grunts as if someone was straining to move something. She stared upwards hoping the green flames would illuminate a smiling face that would facilitate her rescue. She looked on in horror as her trail bike lurched over the edge and fell. In the darkness she threw herself clear and in the process seemed to bang every bruise she had at least once whilst giving herself several more. At least she'd avoided a 250 falling sixty feet on top of her; she was still alive and intact, the bike was not. She screamed up to the glowing balls accomplice and it snarled back as it threw her tent and equipment down. She looked up and the bear looked down just once, for now, their gaze met.
Surveying the wreckage by the light of the fiery sphere that despite its obvious malevolence seemed helpful for once, she concluded that even if somehow she were able to free herself there was no way she could haul the bike out of the pit or repair it. The walk back to civilisation would be a long one.
The ball of flame moved back to the passageway and pulsed. She found her wet-suit and changed, there was no obvious way back there was no option now but to follow her original plan. Before doing so and despite the need to survive the trek to come she made a small fire and cooked a stew from her rat-pack. Unable to find her spoon she ate it with rye crispbreads that seemed impervious to the molten snow that liquefied the powdered sachet. Then she found her: spare torch, air and hammer before carefully following the green flame into the Earth.
By now the suit reflected so much of her body's heat she had stewed and could feel the dampness between her toes. Moisture trapped elsewhere within was even more uncomfortable until it was cooled by the frigid water strewn with developing ice crystals but still liquid, if only just. The cold, tight, treacherous, sub-aqua canal was familiar but the purple crystal shards that jutted into her space grazing the Kevlar and threatening to invade her flesh had definitely grown since their last visit. Constrained she held the mouth piece tight between her teeth and reaching forward used the hammer tried to clear a path. Ahead the passage became even tighter but she could see beyond it opened upwards into an unknown that was just visible and made more certain by the balls green light. She considered the balls record to date and decided that despite the fact she could not trust it forward was the easier path by far. It was clear her canister and her head would not together squeeze through the cervix of this vestibule into the unknown and reluctantly she took her last breath and passed the air forward then reaching forward her hands found the sharp edge of crystal that circled the entrance and she began pulling herself through the un-dilated squeeze.
She snagged. It was as if the hammer shattered crystal had suddenly regrown and penetrated her. Now the protective suit held her, refusing to rip more than it already had, the crystal would easily slice her flesh but it was too tough, its resilience would be her doom rather than her defense. She pulled with all the might her girlish muscle could mount; the crystal cut into her fingers and she could just see in the greenish light beyond the clear water clouding with her blood. Although her head was through the tightest space she was still held by the impaled crystal in her thigh and the air had been taken by the currents, made by her distress, just beyond her reach.
She could hold her breath, of all of them she had made it furthest in the ice hole challenge without assistance. The twenty five meter hole; she almost made thirty before she had passed out. Today the water seemed colder and there was no one ready to save her. She moved her leg violently trying to free the unseen staple. Her wound wept warmth into the water but her frozen flesh felt no pain. Her chest began burning within. She tried to reach for the air, tried twisting in the canals confines, tried to elbow herself forward to the entrance. She was fading, her head pounded, they would have: pulled her out, given her air, rescued her but she was stupid; she was alone.