The weather in Hawaii was something that never ceased to make Danny Williams complain. The stifling humidity, the suffocating heat, none of which ever made Danny too happy. He preferred the cold, the winters, the snow, everything that came with a home which made routine seasonal changes. Hawaii was never so kind to him, always making it so miserable as to bring sweat to his brow and disaster to his carefully styled hair.
It had seemed that it had been forever before peace like this, such utter relief. The cave had gotten very cold, very quickly, far quicker than Danny had ever anticipated. He had only just barely shuffled down past the entrance cavern, and it was already obvious that the chill was biting through the thin windbreaker, and that he had incorrectly estimated it would be warm enough. With a gentle wrinkle of his nose, Danny dug the small pocket flashlight from his backpack.
The light from the entrance to the cave system was already dimming, and Danny was left with an option between the tunnel to the right, and the tunnel to the left. Both were wide, gaping mouths, drenched with a complete darkness. Danny tried desperately to recall the maps he had looked over on the screen of his computer the previous night, but couldn't remember which one led to what, or which one was the safest at all. Sniffing, as his nose was already starting to run, Danny flicked the light on and turned to the right.
The small beam of gold was hardly enough to appease Danny's aging eyes, but he followed it forward without so much as another grumble. The ceilings arched high above him with dark stone, and stalagmites of various forms textured the stone. Dripping water made a distinctive sound that echoed off the surfaces around the tunnel, and it was enough that Danny's feet sloshed across the slick surface.
He made his way carefully, noting how the floor beneath him started to slope down beneath him, and praying that his shoes would hold. Cold air was hitting him with a higher intensity, and although Danny had never done something like this before, he anticipated that there would be a significant drop in altitude just ahead. Unfortunately, the flashlight that he had brought was pathetically underwhelming- it barely allowed him to see five feet in front of where he stood, and cast no light out towards the wall. The light was concentrated, and provided hardly any real relief to his eyes and their strain, and for the first time frustration was beginning to mount. It seemed that even after a couple of steps, he was making next to no progress in going anywhere, doing anything.
After a sigh, Danny pressed forward, putting a hand on the water-streaked wall as he went, feeling desperately for clay. That is what Steve had bragged about- him and his father carving their names into clay. The knife in his backpack would do the deed on his own, and the camera on his phone would hold the proof, but Danny first needed to find something to carve his name into.
The tunnel widened again after another few steps, and opened into a massive open cavern, stalactites and stalagmites scattered around wherever he showed the beam of his light. By his best estimate, just a few feet from where he stood, it dropped down by an amount he couldn't begin to guess, and the ceiling went what had to have been two stories tall. Although he was first taken aback by awe, Danny began to felt a slight tinge of doubt. Should he have taken a left in the initial cavern? Or should he have not come down here at all?
But his wounded pride stung past the cold, past the doubt, past the rising uncertainty. He shone his light to either side, and noticed that there was a fairly wide path that continued to the right. With a hesitant look around the edge of the path, Danny negotiated his options. Rolling his eyes, partially in frustration at himself, and partially in frustration at Steve, Danny walked forward, hugging the damp wall with his side, feeling the bitter cold of the rock go straight into his very bones. A chattering sound came suddenly amongst the dripping echoes, and Danny paused for a moment, hunting for the source of the sound. After a moment, he realized that it had to be his teeth, which seemed to be threatening to jump from his skull.
This was another sign that tempted Danny to turn back, to walk away from this, to make it back out into the mountain, back to his car, and the pizza that was waiting for him in his fridge. Yet, within a second, a clear image came into his mind. It was Steve's face, laughing at him, tempting him further towards anger and insanity, telling him that he couldn't do it. The rivalry between the two was friendly, and their friendship was often strained by the job, as much as they pushed it away. And of course, Danny's attitude and pride was as good a wedge as any.
Thankfully, the pathways that he had been down so far had been of quite a wide berth, and the size of the caverns had been very forgiving. Despite being closed in underground, Danny didn't feel overly claustrophobic, thanks to the fact that everything was indeed so large. But the nagging fear that the spaces would begin to close, and that he would get stuck, caused his breath to hitch as he shuffled forward.
Come on, you've got this far, go a little farther. Prove Steve that you're just as good as he is, just as daring. Nothing else can piss him off more than this, prove him wrong. Grimacing against the cold, Danny followed the wall until he came to an opening, this one much smaller than the one that he had just emerged from. He was quite glad that this tunnel had come along when it did- the pathway above the abyss that he had been carefully working his way along was steadily growing more and more narrow.
It was with a breath of relief that he ducked into this new entrance, and crouched down slightly to fit in more comfortably. It made him a bit more confident not to have his head brushing the stone ceiling, but he still preferred to get out of the enclosed space as quickly as possible.
Relief was brought once again as he came to a fork in the path about twenty meters later, and eagerly ducked into the right fork of the path, still feeling along for any clay, any softer portion of stone, anything to get him out of there as soon as possible. It wasn't too much later, however, that he hit a dead end, a small cavern with a massive clumping of piled stone blocking his way.
Persevere, get it done, and quickly. Damn, it's getting cold he thought bitterly, turning back as quickly as he could, preparing to return to the main caverns in hope of finding better success there. However, as he returned to the fork in the tunnel path, he realized that his frustration and cold had almost utterly overwhelmed him. Even though he strained to remember, he couldn't recall which path he had just turned down.
Logistically, he figured he would turn down the one to his right, and follow it for however far the initial cavern had led him back here, and if it was longer or shorter, he would merely turn back and take the other path. Danny took a turn to the right, and shone the light on the walls, seeing nothing that distinguished this mass of stone from the last that he had ventured through. No new markings, no clay. No new air, nothing distinctive, so Danny shone the beam of his light up towards the top of the arching stone tunnel, following it as he walked along.
He could hardly tell the difference in the amount of water he was sloshing through, that it had now come over the toe of his shoe. They had already been soaked enough that his toes were nearly numb with cold, and his teeth hadn't ceased chattering. Instead he focused on studying the stone above him, following a slight glint between the stalactites. It seemed to shimmer in the tight focus of the beam, and Danny wouldn't have admitted it, but he was slightly intrigued.
As he followed this tight, sparkling vein, he lost focus of the ground beneath him. It sloped down, the water sloshed and dripped, and before Danny knew it, his foot lost contact with the ground. It went forward into empty space, and the full of his weight went behind it.
A scream tried to tear itself from his throat, and he groped outwards with his hands in the hope that they would find anything, anything at all to catch him. But it was useless as his body fell forward, the weight of his backpack only helping to pull him forward over the edge of the abyss. The flashlight fell from his hands, and his knuckles scraped against stone as he shot his arms outwards in a final attempt to prevent himself from falling over. Once again, these attempts were rendered useless as he plunged into the darkness, air rushing past him intensely.
Danny didn't even have a chance to curse before he impacted with solid rock, and he didn't even have a second of hot white pain before his vision went dark and he fell into a deep unconsciousness.
Thank you so much for all of the reviews and follows on this story! I really appreciate the warm reception! Thanks to all of you for reading this, I hope you enjoy!