High school was supposed to be fun. At least that's what all the movies and TV shows made it seem like. It was a time to experiment, discover your true friends, find a niche, and let your body grow and develop. In reality, it was nothing of the sort. Well, except for the body bit, and that was the part that Vickie Silverston hated most of all.
It happened last summer when her father, Dave, decided to take her on vacation with him. As usual, he wasn't interested in what Vickie wanted, but insisted that a few days of amateur spelunking would count as quality, bonding time. Vickie had no idea if the aftermath was bringing them closer together or isolating her from the whole world.
The first two of the three planned caves were very ordinary. They were small, the paths were clear to see, and not a lot of climbing was involved. They just turned on their lights and wandered through, admiring the stalagmites and stalactites, photographing a few bats, and growing more and more bored. They were simple structures, perfect for if you were traveling alone. The conversations were few and the excitement low.
However, there was that third cave. Her father had saved the best for last. It was an old, massive South American cave that was virtually off-limits to amateurs and the general public. They say that you want most what you can't have, and the idea of an forbidden cave made Dave all the more eager to find a way in, and he was plenty eager to drag his teenaged daughter into his exploits. Vickie sarcastically bought him a Father of the Year Award card once, though the joke was lost on him.
The entrance was small, barely visible through a tightly woven tapestry of branches, weeds, logs, and rocks. It looked like a small, gaping mouth, gasping through the side of a small mountain range. The sun was beating down on them, sweat pouring down their backs and faces by the time they found it, and the dark hole looked like an oasis compared to the rest of the woodland.
The pair eagerly stepped through and sloughed their backpacks off, gingerly gulping down a few swallows of water. The wind trickled inside the cave, combating the humidity that seemed to linger from all over. She was just an amateur, but Vickie could tell that there would be no escaping it. It seeped down every tunnel and flooded every room. Caves had a way of doing that, which is why she hated the hobby so much. Professional cavers could see things and explore worlds that had been lost long ago; amateur spelunkers were confined to hot, boring holes that had suffered through years – even centuries – of abuse. Even if this was supposed to be off-limits, Vickie supposed that her dad at least had common sense enough to keep them from seeing anything really exciting.
“You excited, Sweetheart?” he asked, eyes wide and grinning as he brushed his sandy hair from his brow.
“You bet!” she replied, trying hard to mask her indifference.
“Good. You remember to listen to me, okay? This cave can be really, really dangerous. I can't overestimate that.” He looked hard at her, which always made her insides churn, before continuing. “Now, if I think things are out of our league, we're leaving. I can't take chances with my only daughter. If your mother were still with us, she'd kill me!” He let out a small chuckle before heaving his pack back in place.
“I'll listen to you.”
“And -”
“And,” Vickie answered, “if I'm uncomfortable with doing anything, I'll let you know.”
“There's a good girl.”
Dave produced a coin from his pocket and flipped it, pointed to one of the tunnels and the pair headed off.
Darkness slowly enveloped them, the streams of light and whispers of wind vanishing as their chosen tunnel wound its way through the mountain. It went up and down, opening into what could only be described as rooms, then tapering off into narrow corridors. The humidity was constant, however. It choked the air from their lungs and made them feel as though they were swimming at times. During these moments, Vickie found herself having to consciously restrain herself to keep from throwing off her backpack and letting what cool air there was find its way around her flesh.
Bats occasionally swooped around them, obviously unused to strangers trespassing on their territory, though they never got too close.
Every once in a great while the tunnel would suddenly drop down. Each time it did, her father once again demonstrated how to tie knots, went through the safety precautions, and volunteered to descend first. Vickie figured she should be offended by his infantile treatment of her, but she was used to it by now. Her dad was a bizarre mixture of reckless thrill seeker and helicopter parent, and she'd found a way to deal with that kind of incongruity long ago.
Finally the tunnel appeared to be slightly illuminated at the end. The two rushed to it, their weary legs threatening to trip them up every step of the way. It turned one last time and opened into an underground jungle, an untouched sanctuary preserved by time to be a safe haven for weary, illegal spelunkers.
Sunlight poured in from an unknown source above, it's streams literally visible as it bounced off the cave walls. A lake had pooled at the bottom of the expansive room, nurturing a crop of trees that stretched towards the light. They'd never reached the cool air of the outside world, never had a bird nest in them, yet they held a kind of dignity that nature generally hides from human sight.
Clots of dirt with grass growing out of it also littered the ground, though the thing that piqued Vickie's curiosity was a small, disk-shaped object. It was to tell from the high angle she stood at, but it didn't appear to be rested on the ground; it seemed to hover. A murky darkness seemed welled up inside, swirling like she imagined a black hole would.
“Dad,” she said, tugging lightly on his shirt.
He turned to look at her, almost reluctantly in the beauty of the underground paradise. “Isn't this great? If it wasn't illegal, I'd return to the surface and proclaim that I'd found Eden!”
Vickie pointed down to the object. Dave pulled a pair of glasses from his pocket and squinted. “No idea,” he whispered to no one in particular. He leaned as far as he dared, his beady eyes straining to see something that basked plainly in the sun's rays. He snapped a few photographs and zoomed in as far as he could, though it still looked like a pool of black mist.
“Should we take a look?” Vickie asked. Her eyes were transfixed on it. In this small bit of paradise loomed a single dark pocket, it's black depths gently swirling as though someone were using it as a mixing bowl.
“Not too close,” her father advised. “We'll get a bit closer, just to see what it looks like from a different angle, and then we'll find a way out of here.”
Vickie prodded the cavern wall, her hands gliding along the clammy stone for support. She had great balance, but her feet slid helplessly about in her sweat-soaked boots. Despite the difficulty, she navigated the narrow ledge with relative ease, rope tightly hugging her waist as her father followed, albeit more slowly. The ledge was difficult for his larger frame and clunky feet, but he steadfastly continued, his eyes darting between his daughter and the protrusion she was groping towards.
Just before reaching it, the ledge fluctuated in width. Tiny sections stuck out mere inches from the wall, others a few feet, but the plank of stone was easily wide enough for both of them, at least at the base. Like an ironing board it began broad then tapered into a rounded point at the end. It jutted out directly above the dark hole by about 12 feet.
Dave worked to fasten the rope as Vickie crawled towards the pointed rim, the stone beneath her hands growing slightly colder despite the ample sunlight. She peered forward, her arms straining to push her torso as far over the edge as she dared let it.
Dave gave the rope a final tug. It's resistance held fast.
“Dad!”
He whirled around to see Vickie. Her entire upper body stuck out over the ledge, her legs straddling the protruding stone for dear life.
Vickie heard her father's footsteps rushing towards her. Her muscles ached as she tried to fight, feeling herself being pulled like a metal object drawn by a magnet.
“Something has me!” she cried. “I can't pull back!”
A final tug came, so strong she toppled headfirst towards the black pit beneath. Dave watched helplessly as his daughter's body fell towards the black pit. Faster than free fall, she looked like a human canon ball, her screams echoing off every wall and down every tunnel, but mostly in her father's ears.
Within seconds Vickie slammed against the ground, the muddy ground softening her fall. Above her the black mist swirled, still retaining its perfect circle. It was like a black hole – a tear in the fabric of space itself, and Vickie had just been pulled through it, dumped out on the other side as though nothing had been there at all.