• When I awoke, I was still in a bit of a daze. I wonder how far, hard and deep in the cave I have fallen. I could feel my bare hands where scrapped and might have been bleeding a little. The cold of the rocks helped a lot to easy the fiery pain. I felt like I could lie in that awkward possession forever, but I knew I couldn’t. As my motor skills faded back like an old memory, I tried getting up as slowly as I could. My feet inside their boots where stiff and unwilling to move, but I made them. The rocks which I used to leverage myself didn’t want to hold me up and cracked under my weight, but they held.
    I could hear the faint distant sound of something. Something rhythmic. Like, water drops or a stream. I could smell the moister in the air. It smelled like a sunny day after a hard rain, but it had a hint of metal in it too, like aluminum. The breeze that swept through here was nice and was like a renewing breath, but it was so faint and so light, I knew I couldn’t have been anywhere close to the source.
    I couldn’t sit here all day though, I have to get moving. Very slowly though. I had to feel around for any low ceilings or sudden walls, I had to pick my feet up high incase there was a high rock and I would trip. I must have looked like a freak. Lifting my legs as high as they would go, waving my arms in every which direction. I’ve been in a cave once or twice before, so I could have gone faster, but I was still feeling a little loopy from my fall.
    So loopy in fact, it took me a good five minutes to realize I had my backpack on. I felt a little better about the situation, but not much. I would unsystematically shout something. Hoping someone would hear me, but really to see how big the room I was in was. I have no sight. I can’t see my hand even when I place it on my nose, there’s no light in here. I had to use all my other senses to help me out.
    Speaking of which, I felt like some are going to come into play in just a second. I heard the sudden and unmistaken able sound of bat wings. I could tell they were coming right at me, so I froze. I’m not scared of bats, but if you stand still, they won’t run into you. So, that’s that I did, and it was an experience in a half. Bats swamped all around me. Their screeches and wings just filled my eyes.
    I felt on my skin the air their wings pushed out of their way. I smelled the smell of wet fur, which filled me hope for my fallow-the-water idea. One or two bats I felt even ran into me. One of them hit me, bounced off and I guess flew away, wondering what it just ran into. They can only see what I see; black. One bat how ever, hit me and held on with his claws. It was a little alarming at first, that one, but I kept calm.
    I felt it’s tiny, tiny body freaked out, figuring out it was attached to a bigger, stronger being. It franticly crawled up my shirt like a scared kitten. I couldn’t see it, but all I could picker was some horrifying creature climbing up to gnaw my face off till it was nothing but a skull. That was just my imagination trying to scare me though.
    I actually like bats. So small, so unusual. Reminds me a bit of myself. I was never one for ‘friends’ growing up. I kept to myself a lot. Read, wrote, drew, explore was all I did. What could you do with those options? You read and your friend holds the book? You draw or write and your friend holds the paper? Exploring…well, no one ever wanted to be alone with me really.
    I was trailing off into a painful past, when that little devil of a creature had managed to get to my shoulder. It screeched as to say thanks for not crushing it, jumped (or crawled off) me and flew away with the rest of the bats. There I was though, alone again. I did what I always did though; I walked away.
    As I went through the rest of the room, I began yelling. That yelling, as silly as it was, given me rough estimates of how big the room I was traveling in was. It had to be about fifty feet across and about the same up. It could be totally different though, but at least I knew it wasn’t small. With all my outer senses just going wild, I forgot to check up on my inner ones. I realized I was panicking. My heart was racing.
    I felt my heart pounding in my chess like a drum to a rock song. My skin was getting colder by the second as more and more sweat droplets began to form. My head was racing to figure out everything that might happen to me, and in addition to the blow I must have taken, got it thumping in rhythm with my frantic heart. I felt like I was crawling away from tiger.
    My adrenaline was racing, causing my muscles to burn. I wanted to just sprint away from the tiger in my psyche, but I knew if I did, I would twist or break an ankle and then I would be really screwed. I forced myself to be calm. That was a challenge for someone as impulsive as I was. It was my impulsive idea to see how far that rabbit hole went; I never knew it would lead me to Wonderland.
    As I got farther and father into the cave, the water (which I concluded was a stream) noise got louder and louder, as did the now tunnel I was in got smaller and smaller. It got to the point on which I was on my hands and knees.
    I felt almost embarrassed to be doing this, I felt like a crippled prey animal crawling from its predator. On my hands and knees in a cave, wondering around like Velma looking for her glasses. At least the surface I was on was smooth. Smooth like paper it seamed like, with a dent here or there. It was a nice break from my blind, rocky terrain I just got to experience. With every new solution though, this lead to a new problem; my hands and knees started to ache at an alarming rate. I thought I was tougher then that, but I guess I’m not. I felt as though I was on the knee cap itself, my hands soon on their way to that level of pain too. I kept going though.
    If I stopped now, then that’ll just start causing doubt, opening more options to my mind to debate about. If I commit to crawl towards the noise of that flowing water, my mind will have one goal; go. How far is it though? It could be nothing but a small little trickle being amplified but the acoustic cave walls, or it could be a monstrous stream that would make the Mississippi tremble, but yards, maybe miles away.
    Where do I have to travel to get to this wild card of water? This stupid tunnel! I must have hit my head at least three times already and I could have only gone a couple dozen feet. I’m traveling to the pit of Hell through the tunnel of pain. Or, so it seamed.
    Then, as if a sign from God, my flash light fell out of my back pack and rolled in front of me. I jumped on it like a starving man to a stake, but, God as we all know has a crew sense of humor. Dead.
    It was perfectly intact, but the batteries where dead. I think I have some more in my back pack, but I would have to pull it off and check, and I can do that right now. All I could do was put the famished torch back and continued on.
    And boy, did I continue! I must have crawled two or three foot ball fields before the ground suddenly dropped out from under me, sending flipping and flopping down for about twelve feet. I landed hard on my back, but since the new ground was as smooth as the pervious one, I landed flat and hardy, my back pack landing next to me. Darn thing must have fallen off.
    I landed there though, wondering. Wondering if I was ever going to get out of this cave or am I going to wonder threw it like a rat in a maze for as long as my rodent body could strive. I was just about to give in. Go insane, take my knife and kill myself there, give up on hope, but something stopped me. I don’t know what it was. It could have been the cool, calming air all around. It could have been the overselling silence that was neither forgiving nor complimenting, but relaxing.
    It could have been that bitter alloy taste in my mouth. I didn’t mind it all that much, but I swear I think I could spit out a rock if I wanted. It could have even been the cave itself that overcame me. I stroked its smooth cave floor, wondering how long it’s been since it had human company, if any. I thought I could have just peacefully died there, feeling one with Mother Earth and just let her absorb me, but then I heard it.
    A quiet, bless run on. A run on that was life. Life to plants, life to animals, life to all the creatures in all the seas and now life to me. Water.
    I jumped up, homing it in. Three feet. It had to be at least three feet in front of me. I just didn’t care what the out come was and I just jump feet first into the stream. It was all surreal to me. My feet hit the cold water, lighting up my sensing. My feet, aching and more than likely bleeding, felt immense relief.
    My eyes seamed to even focus better from the rush. I felt, for the first time in this cave, nice. But as I landed, my feet slipped and my weight gave out, and I fell back to the smooth, cold ground.