Monkeybear Productions

OhioCat

Warning: blood

The cavern was large, not as large as the others I had just been in, but something about it bothered me, even before I really looked around. While the other caverns had been damp, and often had flowing or stagnant groundwater, this cave was dry. Walking forward, i found the ground to be strangely smooth; still uneven, but not as much as usual. There were no stalagmites, or stalactites; it was too dry, and apparently had been for all of its existence. Panning my headlamp to the walls, i saw that they too were too flat; there were no holes or many indents. But there was something on the walls, lines and curves like some kind of carved archaic writing. Reaching out, i ran my hand over it. Than, i yanked it away; there had been some tiny shard that managed to pierce through my gloves and into my hand, and blood trickled out even as I held it to my chest. Shoot. It could get infected easily down here, and it was a very long climb to the surface. The nurse-practitioner side of me cringed.

As i was thinking this, the ground began to shake. At first a light shiver, than sudden jittering motions. My feet came out from under me, and i landed hard on my hands and knees. An earthquake! I glanced at the ceiling, but there was no raining debre or even dust. I could see the entrance that i had walked into the cave through, and it was shaking violently. Or, this room was shaking violently?

Slowly, the quakes subsided, but the entrance didn’t stop moving. Instead, it moved up. No, that wasn’t right; i was moving down. The whole room was an elevator.

What’s going on? Though I knew it was pointless, I stagger-ran to the where the entrance was, but even as I moved it climbed out of reach. Cursing vinimously, I watched the hole reach the ceiling and disappear. As far as I could see with the headlamp’s light, there were no entryways or likely cracks opened despite the disturbance. And anyway, the room was picking up speed; I could feel the g-forces lifting me up slightly. The wall where the entrance had been was now moving past so fast I was sure if I touched it my fingertips would rip.

I sat down on the stone and pulled my knees to my chest. Memories from the very first round of spelunking classes surfaced; if there’s tremors, go somewhere with sturdy stone -no stalactites- overhead and buckle down. It’ll pass eventually. A hysterical laugh bubbled out of my mouth. It echoed around the room, which was now quiet even as I felt it drop me into the depths of the earth.

Many cultures believed the underworld was under the earth. I had always discredited that, but wherever I’m going now, I’m sure there’s nothing living.

It’s been a couple minutes, but the room is still picking up speed. There are miles and miles of crust, but I have to be pretty far into it now. My ears are popping, and I’m getting pretty dizzy from the pressure and amount of g-force. I’m barely still on the ground; a little faster and I’d lift off it. Then my feet loose contact, and I’m in zero-g. I feel bile rise up in my throught; I’m a caver, not an astronaut. Darkness edges at my eyes, and my mind begins to fog up. It’s shock, and the change in pressure, and whatever gasses are in this room, and maybe I was fainting just a little bit. Shoot. The room fades to black.

I wake up on my back, looking up into blackness. Where are the stars? The next thing I comprehend is how much my body hurts; everything aches, like I had been in a landslide. With the pain comes the terror I had felt before I fainted; it wells up and tries to choke me. I shake it off and begin checking for broken bones. The pain’s probably from hitting the room’s roof and maybe floor too as it decelerated, along with the tension caused by the g-forces. Nothing’s broken though, and if I hit my head my helmet protected me. I run my hands along my head anyway—and realize that the heroic helmet’s gone. It must have fallen off at some point. It had my headlamp with it, but I pull out my pen light from my pocket without trouble; it was time to see whatever hell I had fallen to. Even without it I can tell i’m somewhere different. The air is hot, and I can smell possibly harmful gasses that hadn’t been there before the drop.

I klick the pen light on and search for the wall in front of me. Except it was gone; the light stretched on and on, across a dozen feet of the same strangely smooth ground, until the thin light is swallowed by the darkness. The wall’s gone. I scan the light up; the ceiling was gone, too. I was in a huge cavern, one which shouldn’t exist this deep. I slowly stand up, despite the aching pain, only to find my ankle to be very sprained. I probably fell on it, and hadn’t realized it because of all the other hurting places.

Now standing, I do a quick three-sixty all around me, pivoting on my good foot; no walls anywhere else either. I glance back down to the ground, and see a smear of blood from my still cut hand. This was still the elevator’s floor, at least.

“click” I glance up at the noise, panning my little light towards it. The light glances off of something metallic, that had not been in the sphere of light earlier. My first impression is of a rock; than a man; and on and on between ideas before I finally realize that this isn’t something I had ever seen in the living world. It’s perhaps eight feet tall, all thin curving metal bands and lines. It stands on four spindly legs tapered to needle-sharp points, connected to a abdomen of empty ribs, leading up to a long neck made of a single arched curve. At the neck’s end is a skull formed of smoothly blended metal. The tiny light glinted off its empty eye sockets.

I didn’t move. I didn’t breath. I had frozen into a dead stone statue, standing here in this empty nothingness with this creature. Although it doesn’t have eyes, its gaze presses down on me. The skull isn’t human—it looks like a horse’s or large cat’s, except there is no teeth or any mouth at all; it’s a single piece, like a mask.

It has my helmet. One of the ribs are unfolded like a centipede’s leg, with the helmet resting casually as if it were on a coatrack.

“Hello”

The greeting vibrates up my spine and echoes in my head. It’s not said—there’s no actual noise—but sent. Subconsciously my hands flinch up to my head. Realizing I had taken the light off the creature, I swing it backs to it, but it hadn’t moved. Now, it slowly dips its head in a sort of bow, and lowers itself on its four sharp legs, until it’s around my level.

“We won’t hurt you.” It said.

I pull air into my lungs, than let it out. I really, really don’t want to be here right now. But I also really want to know what’s going on.

“what are you?” I say, and it comes out quieter than it should have. Still, it echoes in the huge darkness.

“A robot” it answers promptly, not moving.

I swallow. It looks more like an alien than anything else, but I take its word for it. It’s connected to my brain somehow, so apparently ‘robot’ is the closest to what it is that exists in English.

“Where am I?”

“In the underworld.” Another reference pulled our of my brain. But it seemed I had been pretty right; it was even hot as hell. My foot’s throbbing, but I’m not about to sit back down now.

“what are you doing down here?”

It tried to shrug by lifting a leg, but ends up just looking strange. “Being. Moving.”

I cough; the air down here probably isn’t any good, and I’m starting to get a little faint.

“Why are you down here?”

it ‘shrugged’ again. “This is a world too.”

I think I understand what it means. Robots don’t need light, or air, or food. They just need materials and energy, and God knows there’s enough energy this deep underground.

“how many of you are there?”

“58,462”

it’s incredible to think that there are that many sentient beings on our earth that we didn’t know about. I wonder if anyone’s realized I’m out of radio distance by now. But when I think about all the people that definitely won’t believe me when I tell them about this, I just want to go back.

“can I go back?” I ask.

The robot pauses, then slowly draws itself up. It steps, skitters really, closer to me. I gulp and freeze, until it’s hardly two feet in front of me. I shine the light up to its face, and it reflects off with a glimmer.

“A trade.” Slowly, it raises a pointed leg to point first at the helmet still hanging from its rib, then to me.

“You can keep it, I don—“ I say hurriedly. Is it not going to let me leave?

“take this.” The leg it’s holding out gets closer, and I watch as a thin glowing red band is drawn around the sharp tip. Slowly, I reach out, and let the tip drop into my hand. I stare down at it, than look back up to the robot’s face. A trade, a cultural exchange of sorts.

“We will start the elevator.” It said after a moment, and I watch it skitter away, out of the light’s reach, my helmet swinging.

“make it slower, please!” I call after it, suddenly bold. Then it’s really gone. Looking back down at the tip in my hands, I slowly sink to my knees. I’m breathing lightly, and am fairly dizzy. I rip a piece of my pants leg off to crudely bandage my cut hand and settle into a sitting position as the elevator begins to shake and grind once more. The three walls pull up out of the ground, and the roof lowers from somewhere above, until I’m back in the box. The shakes slowly subside, and I begin to move upwards. It picks up speed for a little while, and when I pan my light to the missing wall it’s taken up by shaft wall. It picks up speed for a little bit, but not nearly as much as the descent. At this rate it will take hours—who knew, maybe days—to get to my latitude. That was alright; it would be some time to rest.

Moving slowly, I lay down and curl into a ball around the cool metal tip.

I wake up to flashing lights and a lot of people around me.

“I told you, this cavern wasn’t here earlier!”

“This’ why you don’t let girls cave.”

“Hey, move over!” Jerome’s sweaty face fills my vision, tilting my head up to face his. “Liz! Are you okay?”

I brush off his hand and slowly sit up. The people around me move back—it’s hard to tell with their lamps pointed at me, but I’m pretty sure they’re the members of my caving crew, amautures every one.

“Hey, Liz, look at me.” Jerome says, and the concern in his voice forces me to look at him. “You were radio silent for over eight hours. Are you hurt?”

“Yeah, what happened!” Someone pitches in.

I huff and motion for Jerome to help me up. “I’ll tell you guys once we’re on the surface. I need some flippin’ medical attention.”

Jerome helps me up, keeping the weight off my ankle, and our party moves slowly out of the elevator and along the route towards the caverns’ entrance. The tip is heavy in my pocket as we walk.