First, a few warnings. One, I am going to write this story using only the world of Cyrodiil. I am going to write this as if the game never was made. You will not see many characters that exist in the game, and i will change certain elements of the game to make it more realistic. EX: children, population, etc. I know this first chapter doesnt have a lot to do with Cyrodiil, but all chapters after this will be set exclusively in the game world.
Besides Brooke and Zach, (I just decided to use me and my girlfriend for the main characters, does that make me lazy?) and the cave itself, Everything in this belongs to Bethesda Softworks...blah blah blah why do i even have to put this?
Enjoy! hopefully anyways...
June 21, the day everything changed. The day we found the cave. The cave that made two worlds one, and thrust us into a land we could not possibly have imagined. I don't even remember how long ago it was. Time…time doesn't work here like it does back home. In those first few weeks after arriving, we noticed it as a sort of jet lag. Eventually we adjusted, though.
I remember that hot day so well, better than any other memory. Brooke was wearing her favorite outfit, a bright orange Hollister shirt and Abercrombie jeans. I remember telling her that's it was ridiculous, to be wearing such an outfit for hiking. She just told me she wanted to look good. I didn't argue, I never argued back then. Me, I was sensible, I wore sturdy jeans and a zip-up light jacket over my only concession to Brookes need for fashion, a purple, tight fitting shirt. The shirt that most likely saved us from lives as beggars.
We were hiking for her birthday. She had always wanted to, and I saw no reason to deprive her of her dreams. We chose some mountains upstate; they were good spots, a lack of dangerous animals, and most importantly, not many people went there. This was the first thing Brooke said when she began to plan our trip. "I want us to be alone together, I want to feel the silence, and I want to be away from everyone." This seemed odd right away to me. She had always been a party girl, never wanting to stay in one place, always around people. I accepted it as one of those things where people deviate from their patterns and need something different. So I found the spot, and three days later, we headed out in my car on our little adventure.
"Zach, wake up! You said we were going to head out first thing!"
"Ah, right. Just one more minute," I responded unhappily. I didn't see why we had to go out at dawn, but Brooke wanted it, and this was her trip, so I hauled myself out of sleep, and put on my clothes. We had decided once we got to the woods at the base of the mountain to sleep in the car and then head out.
I put on my shoes and urinated in some bushes, then headed back to the car to pack my backpack. Surprised, I saw Brooke with her pack on her shoulders, ready to go. She had my pack all ready by her feet. I picked it up, checked the contents (earning a slightly hurt look from Brooke, who had always been very responsible with packing), and put it on my shoulders. I turned around and said, "Great, let's start our…" I stopped. Brooke was staring up at the mountain with an exited look on her face. "Wha…" I managed to get out before she pointed up at something. I looked, and saw it. The cave. It was small, but only a short distance up and it seemed to be accessible. "Oh my goodness, do you see that?" Brooke asked. I just continued staring. There was something off about the cave. It almost seemed blurry around the edges, and it attracted my gaze, as if I couldn't look away. Then I noticed something else. The darkness inside seemed to move, almost, shifting when I looked directly at it.
I turned away quickly, and faced Brooke, who was practically jumping with excitement. "We have to explore it," she said "this is going to be so much fun, I can't wait!"
"I don't know, there might be bears or something around it," I stammered out.
"What, are you scared?" she teased. "Come on, this is MY hike, and I am going into that cave, whether you come with me or not.
That was it for me; there was no way I could let her do this by herself. We had been together for more than a year now and there was no way I could forgive myself if something happened to her. I agreed to go, and we started up the mountain.
When we reached the cave an hour later, we stopped outside the entrance. As we approached it, we both noticed the effect the cave had on the surroundings. There were no animals, the wind didn't seem to blow, and even the trees looked like stone. The sun had stopped being warm and now only radiated cold light. And then there was the hum. I was sure we both could hear it, now and again Brooke would look of into the distance or turn around, presumably trying to locate the source of the eerie, haunting tone. And then there was the cave itself. Now it was almost right in front of us, and we could clearly see that it was not a normal feature. It was creepily dark inside, although now I could not see the movements I had seen at the car. However, now we could see other things wrong with the gaping maw. Around the edges of the cave there was a weird distortion…as if the cave was giving off a heat wave. There was no way that was causing the rippling effect, though; the cave seemed to be emanating cold. I have never felt anything like it, as if there was a breeze originating from somewhere inside.
Then Brooke started in. I didn't try to stop her; I was as drawn to the dark interior as much as she was. We stepped inside, and immediately the darkness lifted, the cold ended, and the humming noise stopped. The cave almost seemed to start glowing, but this was most likely just our eyes adjusting to the quick change. We looked around, surprised. Neither of us really knew what had drawn us into the cave, but there was a strange sense of finality to it. I don't think we could have gone back the way we came even if we had tried.
Still without a word, we moved deeper into the abyss. Now the cave did not seem as frightening, it almost had a welcoming quality to it, not once were we concerned about the threat of large animals. Or even of things more sinister.
The walls were featureless rock, and were pretty uniform; they didn't change in size or appearance. At least not yet. The floor was even, with a few bumps and cracks. I remember remarking about the generally smooth passage the cave offered us, but I got no reply. It seemed as if the cave were like a church, or a funeral, a place of hushed voices and quiet contemplation.
The first change we noticed was a sharp widening of the corridor into a large chamber. Here the cave began to get darker. We could barely make out a faint shape about ten feet in front of us. As we approached, we realized it was a large obelisk, with numerous inscriptions on its three sides. We stopped and stared in amazement. "How did this get here? What is it?" I asked. "I have no idea," Brooke responded, "Wait, I can just make out the words on this side" She was staring at the side of the obelisk facing the tunnel we had just come through. I looked closer also and saw what it said.
"Along this path lies the world as it should be, uncorrupted, but by no means pure"
The rest of it I couldn't read. I had no idea what that meant, but it almost sounded like it was describing the outside world. It seemed odd to me. To reach this place, one must have come from the outside, so who could benefit from the message.
As I was pondering this, Brooke was reading the other sides. I went over to her to see if I could make any of it out.
One side read: "Beyond this path lies the world as it will be, scarred, and on the brink of collapse. Traveler, be warned that this is your f..."
It was all I could make out. When I looked in the far side of the room, I could just make out a faint glowing, presumably from the path the obelisk mentioned.
On the final side of the obelisk were numerous runes and symbols I could not decipher. This confused me, if the other two sides were in English, why not this one?
Just then I realized that Brooke was nowhere to be seen. I started panicking, and fished the flashlight I had forgotten we had out of the pack, and swept it around the room. As I passed the corner the second side of the obelisk faced, I found her making her way into an opening much like the one we had come through.
"Brooke, you can't wander away from me, this place…there's something wrong here, I don't think we should be separated."
"But Zach, I think I have an idea what this place might be, and if I'm right, we have found something amazing! Follow me through this tunnel, if what I think is true, we will reach another opening to the outside. If I'm wrong, we can go back and forget about this place.
It sounded like a good plan to me. I just wanted this to be over, the hypnotic spell the cave had put on me seemed to be wearing off, and I was starting to get freaked out. I sighed, and followed her into the second tunnel.
This one was slightly different from the one we had entered in. The walls were more jagged, and had an almost reddish tint to them. However, the walls were just as featureless, and we saw noting of importance until we reached the end.
I had expected to see another opening, maybe a dead end. What I didn't expect was a door, supposedly leading to the outside. It was metal, with a few cracks where light seeped in. Right in front of the door, there was two or three empty tin cans.
"I guess we aren't the first to find this cave, darn. I'll bet that thing back in the big chamber is just some art project or something like that," I said, confident that we could now go back to the car.
"Wait!" Brooke called, as I turned to head back, "Look at the light!"
At first I didn't know what she meant. Then, looking back at the door, I noticed that there was indeed something wrong with the daylight shining through. It has a strange quality to it, it almost looked…sick. It had been a while since we arrived, so at first I thought it was just the change from morning to afternoon sun, but as I got closer I noticed something else too. Through the cracks in the door, I could see bits of the outside, and it looked like there was just barren rock and sky.
Brooke looked excitedly at me, then went to open the door. "Stop," I told her suddenly. "Why?" she asked with an annoyed look on her face. "I…I don't know, never mind."
I had suddenly got a very bad feeling about what lied on the outside of this cave. I was beginning to get a vague understanding of what she thought this place to be. I buried those feelings under common sense, though, and stood by her as she opened the door.
"Oh my god"
We had both said it at the same time.
Outside the door was a barren expanse of land, devoid of any life, spare a few tree trunks and some scraggly weeds. I realized the source of the strange sunlight when I looked up to see a cloudy, hazy, and as I noticed before, sick-looking sky. Not only did it look poisoned, it had a greenish tint to it, as if the clouds were carrying acid, instead of water. Off in the distance we could make out what looked like a farmhouse, but a farmhouse that had been completely destroyed in some sort of explosion.
I gasped when I saw something else. What appeared to be a giant scorpion was lying, dead, close to the entrance to the cave. It was at least five feet long, and looked just like a normal scorpion, albeit bigger and like everything else in this world, had a sickly tint to it.
Overcome by a sense of something horribly wrong, I slammed the door to block the terrible view.
"I don't understand," I said "what happened, it was fine when we came in, and we cant be more than half a mile from our entrance? And did you see that thing! What was that?! What is this place?"
"Well," she responded, "I think I may be right about what this place is. I believe that somehow, this cave acts as a sort of portal between separate realities. What we saw out there was a different version of our world, one that (judging from the inscription on that statue thing) is the future of our version of earth. I don't understand how this is possible, but I'm almost sure this is what this cave is all about. If we go down that third tunnel, we will find another version."
I just gaped at her. "No, that's impossible, its ridiculous, you need to stop reading those crap science fiction books. That kind of stuff doesn't exist."
"Well, how do explain what we just saw? The landscape looked like it was hit by a nuke or something, and I know you saw that scorpion thing. Also, I just realized something. We had to climb a mountain to get to this cave, yet when we go out this entrance, were on flat ground? We haven't found any slope in this cavern whatsoever. How is that possible?"
For some reason, this last argument put me past my doubts. I started to realize that, however crazy this was, right now I had to just accept it. "Ok, Brooke, if that's the case, what do we do now? I'm sure as hell not going back out into that wasteland, and we cant go back home."
"Why do you say that?"
"Come on, I know you've felt that same way ever since we came in here." It was true; going into this cave had a sense of finality to it. Whatever we did, we weren't going back any time soon.
"I guess I know that," Brooke responded. "So lets head over to the third tunnel, we can see for sure if I'm right."
I saw no reason to be worried about this, so far we haven't been hurt, and it was actually sounding kind of fun, exploring new world, insane as it sounds. We went back to the main chamber, forgetting about the wasteland behind us. We quickly located the third tunnel, made sure it was the right one, and started down it.
This one was also slightly different. The smooth walls were moist, and now and again we saw clusters of large mushrooms. This tunnel also had a more friendly quality to it, unlike the Wasteland exit, or our entrance. We actually laughed and joked about how weird it was, being in this situation.
About five minutes after entering, we saw the exit to our tunnel. Like the second, this one was blocked off by a door, this time a wooden, rickety one. Through its numerous holes and gaps, we saw a starry night sky, which crushed any doubts about this being another separate world. We heard crickets, or some other type of insect, chirping through the door, and a cool breeze wafted through onto our faces. It had a very sweet taste and smell to it, it was flowery, but now like any flower I've ever smelt.
Just as we went to open this new door something that had been in the back of my mind, but not fully thought out, came rushing forward.
"Wait, Brooke, remember the obelisk? On this side, there were only those weird curly symbols."
"Yeah, I remember, I hadn't thought about it. They didn't look like anything to me, were they familiar to you?" I shook my head no. "Well, if we decide to go exploring, well find out, I guess."
I thought it over, and come to the conclusion that there was no reason to let some weird inscription impede our progress. Our journey had a feeling of importance now, and urgency.
"Ready?" she asked. "Let's do it" I said.
This time we both pulled on the rickety door at the same time. A rush of the sweet smelling air, and the outside was open to us to view.
Again, this exit was on the ground, and this world, though dark from the night, almost seemed identical to ours. We appeared to be in the middle of a forest of tall, thick trees. Around the mouth of the cave were numerous blue and red flowers, presumably the source of the seductive scent. I could barely make out a small path leading away from the opening of the cave into the forest, where it disappeared into the darkness.
I looked at Brooke, who was staring off into the night with an almost disappointed look on her face. "What's wrong?" I asked.
"Nothing, it just seems exactly like our world, besides the weird flowers. I expected an alien planet or something."
I laughed and hugged her, saying "Only you would be disappointed with something so crazy and mind blowing as this cave"
She laughed and brushed me off. "Okay, if were done making fun of me, lets go outside, it seems safe enough."
"I don't know, are you sure, we're not sure if there are any animals or anything."
"I'm sure, lets go." She stepped out side and immediately stopped and turned around. "Oh my god, come out here, see if you can feel it too. Oh my, I feel so…so powerful almost. I feel like I'm being charged with electricity or something."
"What do you mean? Are you ok?" She nodded yes.
I nervously stepped into the dark, and was overcome with a tingling sensation that spread from my toes through to the ends of my hair. I could feel something, energy, surging through my chest and arms. "Wow that feels amazing, what is it?"
"I don't know," she said with a huge smile on her face, "but isn't it wonderful?" I agreed, and a few seconds later the euphoria faded. The tingling remained, though, but not as noticeable.
"That was so weird," I said, "Do you think it would have happened if we had gone out that other door?"
When I got no answer, I turned to look at her and saw her staring at the night sky. She looked at me, and pointed straight up, with a terrified look on her face.
Suddenly apprehensive for the first time since entering the third tunnel, I slowly looked up, and saw what had left her speechless.
There were two moons.