"Yar l' ah c', yah'or'nanahh ot half gn'th'bthnk uh'eog."
"Nafl'fhtagn…"
"Nafl'fhtagn…"
"Nafl'fhtagn…"
"H' ph'nglui fhtagnor fhtagn, mgep h' hup nafl'fhtagn h' orr'enah bthnknythgof'n."
"Nafl'fhtagn…"
"Nafl'fhtagn…"
"Nafl'fhtagn…"
"Nafl'fhtagn!"
A short gasp escaped a young woman's lips. She lurched up, looked around at where she had laid, but could hardly see much of anything at all. Everything and nothing. A murky walled space with no more light than a few tiny candles that were sure to run out at any moment. She felt the brim of the flat surface she sat on, the straight edges and the beveled stone, and gathered that she had been set atop some kind of altar.
Her feet touched the ground. Muck and moisture permeated at her bare feet. Her skin ran flush with chills, the dank air bit at her arms and legs.
She took another look around, but it was no better than it had been when she woke. She saw what appeared to be the impression of a wall, but something stood in the middle of it, made of strange shapes she couldn't quite make out in the infernal darkness. But it was big.
Back around again. The faint candlelight aided her very little, and when she grabbed one, the candle wick went out instantly. Now she had half as much light and twice the blindness. Before it did go out, she caught what she thought had been the shape of a doorway—or at least something resembling an entrance to a room, or whatever the place was she was in. She treaded carefully, a grimace for every step she took across the moss-covered rock floor.
Her arms reached out ahead of her, with only bare guess work to ascertain where she was going. Sure enough, the way through was some crevice in the rock, narrow, jagged, and unruly to navigate, all enshrouded in darkness. She had to feel around like a blind person, with no assurance whatsoever that she'd wind up in better graces than beforehand. Some turns challenged the ways her body could move, others felt like she had been delving deeper into the ground. She eventually came to wonder how in the world she wound up in that enclosure in the first place.
In time, she found her escape. Some few more feet of winding cracks she spotted the faint chutes of light. Her heart skipped, and a sudden rush drove her to move faster through the crevice until finally she reached it.
She gasped. Her foot didn't land on the solid ground she thought she'd step on. Her arm lurched back to catch herself. She'd entered into a ravine, a gaping space that traveled what appeared to be miles below the surface, and where high above the light of the sky poked through the cracks.
"Maya?" a voice in the distance cracked. "Maya! Hey!" The voice was a young man's.
She looked his way. He was some ways further along the ravine, and on the other side of the chasm. But relief washed through her, and she waved back at him and called his name. "Grant! Oh my god, are you okay?"
"A couple scrapes and bruises, but yeah, I'm fine," he answered. He shimmied along the treacherous ledge, until he stood directly across from Maya.
"What happened? Where are we?" she asked.
"No idea," he answered. "All I remember is that storm hitting our boat and…and then waking up on some altar."
"Same here," she told him, her voice hoarse. She looked one way. Then the other way. Back to Grant, she asked, "Any idea where Lynn and Lee are?"
Grant shook his head. "They probably aren't far, if they wound up in a place similar to us…" he looked down at his feet, and started shifting his way on. "Let's find our way out and go on from there."
"As good a plan as any…" she thought aloud, as she looked at her own feet and matched his movement. But she barely had anything to rest her feet on, save for her heels that were dug into by the sharp rocks.
"Eyes where your feet are…" she whispered to herself. "Eyes where your feet-..." her eyes went straight down the ravine, and she stood petrified facing the dark depths of the chasmous drop of some untold heights. The way her skin ran with chills, like thousands of needle-like spines brushing against her back, had caused a sharp gasp to escape her.
"Hey!" Grant called to her, and caught her attention. "Just keep your eyes on me. You got this!"
She nodded, gulped her fear down like a golf ball down her throat and carried on with her head forced to look as high up as she could crane her neck. She slid her feet along the ledge, second guessing every final placement, praying silently through parted lips that she'd not fall.
"That's it, Maya, you're doing great," Grant's voice echoed, but she never turned to face him. But it was soothing to hear his voice guide her through the treacherous chasm. "There you go. Nice and easy."
She hadn't known how long it took her, but she eventually found a relief along the ledge where her feet could rest without fear of falling. She caught her breath and sight of Grant once again. To her dismay, they were no closer to one another than before, and there appeared to be no safe way to get across.
"There must be a way out of here…" he looked around, but saw nothing. He looked up and pointed to the opening up above. "We could probably climb out. The walls might be strong enough to handle our weight."
"Oh, Grant, this is crazy!" Maya threw him a pleading glare. But Grant was already halfway around and a foot against the wall. Quick to act and forget anything else, that was just as she expected of him, for better or for worse, as she reluctantly turned and matched his movements. The weight of her body against her fingertips upon the stone was more painful than she could imagine, and slowed her ascent and quite adversely made the climb that much worse. She wrenched her head as far as she could to see Grant, but could only hear his grunts and heaves echoing off the walls—she could tell he was already some ways higher up than she was.
Staggered breaths. Her lungs already felt tired and her chest suddenly felt very tight. Her hands were giving way little by little the longer she lingered. If she fell now, she knew it would mean death.
"Come on, Maya!" Grant called to her. He must have made it to the top, because his voice sounded much higher up than before. "You can do it! Just take your time and watch your footing!"
"Ohmygod, ohmygod, ohmygod…" A sharp hiss of a breath drew through her. One again she moved up, with everything but the chance to take her time like Grant had told her. Nevermind the fact that she had next to zero strength in her back to pull herself up. It was all sheer flight to keep herself from falling that kept her bleeding fingers from losing their grip and letting her plummet.
"Agh!" Her foot slipped. She caught herself, barely. She pressed on again. The next rock she grabbed broke off, and she had to lurch her arm up to grab the next one that was almost too high for her to touch. Now she had been dangling by one hand, she had to find the next couple rocks to latch onto. When she did, she continued climbing, until she reached the top. Finally!
She lept for the newly found solid ground, rolled over her back and caught several heavy breaths like she had been holding it for some untold time. But in the end, she had a smile on her face.
"Nice work!" Grant told her.
"Don't ever make me do that again…" she called back to him. It drew a laugh from him, and she couldn't help laughing too. She got on her feet and looked across the chasm, where Grant stood just as he had been—across from her with no way for them to come together. "So what now?"
"Looks like there's a way out behind you," he told her, pointing. "If there's any chance of making it outside, it's gotta be through there."
Maya looked, but one question still burned in her mind. "Wh- what about you?"
But Grant was quick to wave it off. He told her, "I'll find my own way…" he turned and looked off to his left, stepped to another rock ledge, and added, "whoever put us down here had to have had a way out. You go that way, I'll go this way. Maybe we'll find eachother again once we're outside."
Maya would have agreed right then and there, but that wasn't her. She stepped forward, reached her hand out to him as she pleaded, "But Grant…"
"No time to argue," he said, interrupting her, expressing the weight of its importance without ever having to change his tone. "You go your way. I'll go mine. We'll worry about finding each other again once we're out of this cave. Now go on."
Maya took a couple steps back, which were her half-accepting what he was telling her, but her full reluctance which kept her from turning her back on him. It felt like some impossible task to even break her eyes from him, until she did and all there was left was the stinging feeling of some weight deep in her heart as she trudged her way through the murky cave way to who knows where.
Just like before, all was near-black. Only the residual light from the roof of the ravine bouncing off the walls was all there was to help her see, an abysmal light that faded after just a few paces. Then it was just her on her own, in pitch-black stumbling around in a tunnel she could only feel around and listen through.
She let out a hiss. The sound of something squishy ripped through the air.
"Ooh…what did I just step in…?" Her foot felt as though it had just been dipped in some grotesque pile of muck she hadn't the stomach to guess. She opted to move on and try not to think about it, but now she had the crusty sensation between her toes and along the length of her sole to remind her about it with every step she took. It was warm, and slimy…
"H' ephainog…H' ephainog…H' ephainog…"
Maya stopped dead in her tracks at the sounds of what had to be a dozen or so people echoed through the tunnel. They did not sound like they were coming any closer, so she pressed on with lighter footing, until she spotted a very faint…green light emanating around a corner.
When she came around, she hushed a gasp. An uncountable group of men sat knelt so that their backs made a rounded arch, and the tops of their heads struck the ground, and their toes bent so far they might snap. And they all sat around this pedestal with a statuette no greater than a football in size, but its shape was almost impossible to make out from where Maya stood. Aloud, and rhythmically, they chanted entrancingly, "H' ephainog…H' ephainog…H' ephainog…"
For a moment she sat silent. It did not seem like they knew she was there. Maybe she could sneak past them. Off in the far corner, there appeared to be a way out, it was just a matter of being very stealthy about her movements.
The first steps were taken. Slowly and steadily, like a cat in the dead of night, treading along the floor, she crept her way to the next corner. Her breath ran so thin already, and her heart beat so fast its own movement felt nonexistent, and every whiff of air she let out felt like a slow leak. But even as her legs began to scream, she kept on going until she finally made it to the next tunnel opening—back into the utter blackness of the underground rocks.
She felt a sudden reprieve, as she drew in a quieted breath that lasted as long as it took her to disappear behind the rocks and into the shadows. Her body quaked with chills.
As she pressed further through the tunnel, she came across another opening. It was a tunnel that seemed to have been carved out, lighted by those same green torches, and along the walls were bas-relief depictions of that same queer creature. There seemed some ageless mystique to their appearance, and yet, dreamlike and alive. There were carvings of men tearing each other apart, of seeming armageddon erupting upon the world, counter spliced with others who stood tall and praised this great beast, while still they were cut apart limb from limb.
"The hell is this place?" she whispered. "Who are these people?"
Questions that she later decided she didn't want answered, as she passed through the mouth of the next part of the tunnel. Once again into darkness, and not a clue as to where she was going, if anywhere at all. Every length of rock, every turn, even every step felt like some wrong placement that took her further from where she wanted to be.
"H' uh'eog ephaihafh ya," went another echo of a mad man's voice.
Maya was struck still as stone. This man's voice was very close, too close for comfort. She sidestepped until she found the nearest wall, and forced her body into complete and total silence.
"H' uh'eog ephaihafh ya…" the man droned on. "H' uh'eog ephaihafh ya…" his voice drew nearer with every step. He was right in front of her now, and seemed not to realize her presence. "H' uh'eog ephaihafh ya…"
His voice trailed off, and eventually disappeared.
A moment of reprieve, but only so long as it took for her to part from the wall and feel her way along out of the tunnel. She could swear she heard the sounds of seagulls and crashing waves somewhere off in some unknowable distance.
"Come on…come on…" she griped. Her feet moved faster and her hands swept the surface of the wall up and down. She thought those outside sounds were growing louder, but now she was not quite sure she was actually any closer to freedom. Not when the tunnels dragged on and on in some winding mess.
Finally, she came across another source of light. Not those cursed torches, but the light of the sky again! However, she found herself at the edge of another chasm, a great big pit that had no bottom to be seen.
More men came out from an opening on the other side.
Maya staggered behind the corner and hid. The men came out like ants in an anthill. There were just always more! "N'ghft yah'or'nanah ephainog," they uttered in their melodical gibberish, as they took to the long ledge on one side of the pit.
She waited and watched them. Luckily, the group turned and disappeared into another opening in the wall. Now was her chance to move.
She took the ledge opposite of the one the men took as a precaution. Better chance the untraveled path might bear fewer men to see her.
"Throdog n'gha!"
Maya pressed herself full against the wall and watched a man plummet into the pit right in front of her! She lurched to the edge, but his body was already swallowed by the abyssal darkness long behind she could see him again. There was no sound whatsoever to mark whether he hit the bottom or not.
"Oh f-f-fuck…" her hands trembled now. But she had to move on. "Forget what you saw, May…you have to find your way out of this…just keep your head until then…" easier said than done. It was becoming harder and harder to see straight.
Yet another tunnel opening. She was growing tired of them, constantly going from one dark place to some insane display, and back into darkness for another gut wrenching view, and into darkness again. Had she made a wrong turn? Was she heading deeper into this mountain, or beneath the surface, or wherever in the damned world she was?! Which way was out? Which way!
"Maya!"
"Grant!" Maya looked around, but could not see him. HIs voice sounded a million miles away, and panicked. "Grant!"
"Run! Run! Just Run!"
"Ah nafl h' mgah'ehye bug!"
She heard them coming, dozens of footsteps behind her. Now she was almost running. Her feet were bruised and bloody, cut and scraped against the floor, and stung something awful in the random piles of muck she stepped through. God, did the place reak. She could taste it! And this infernal darkness! Where's the way out! Where's the exit! Find the way out!
Now she was almost running. Her feet were bruised and bloody, cut and scraped against the floor, and stung something awful in the random piles of muck she stepped through. God, did the place reak. She could taste it! And this infernal darkness! Where's the way out! Where's the exit! Find the way out!
"H' ephainog…" she heard, brushing by more of these cursed men. "H' ephainog…H' ephainog…" they droned, the same nonsense she cared not to imagine what it meant. "H' ephainog…H' ephainog…H' ephainog…" She burst past them. If they noticed her at all, if they came running after her, it didn't matter anymore. Find the way out! Find the exit!
"Nog, yah'or'nanah ot n'ghft! Ng throdog uh'eog ahor nog!"
The ground dropped beneath her feet.
She screamed, flung her arms out to catch herself, but her full weight crashed onto a steep slope of jagged and slippery rocks. She tumbled 'round and 'round, flew and fell, and crashed into some puddle at the bowels of the cave she found herself in.
A long, pitiful groan escaped her. Everything hurt. She felt cuts and bruises all over her. She was sure she had some broken bones in places she couldn't name. The scent of copper burned at her nostrils, acrid and warm.
She pressed an arm to the floor and attempted to push herself up. Her body felt like a ginormous weight, even as she got herself onto her shoulder and fell onto her back. She winced at the pain that shot through her spine and her other arm.
She remained, her eyes part-closed, part-open, and the haze of exhaustion, pain, fear, and whatnot ate at what was left of her willpower. All she wanted to do was stay precisely as she was now: unmoving, uncaring, and the unseemly weightlessness of her burdened body encapsulated by the lukewarm air that felt oddly pleasant.
Then, from a spot above where she could not bring herself to turn her head and look at, she felt a pair of hands take her under the arms.
Then her vision faded.