Pantomaniac

Chapter 20

Kef dashed through the trees like a sprinter, almost banging into the thick barks several times. But he didn't care. A lightbulb moment had landed on his brain and he wasn't about to let it go dim. He didn't know why and how but his session with the psychiatrist made him reach into something, a form of memory. Except it wasn't really a memory.

It couldn't have been because how could he possibly remember something he didn't even know in the first place?

Within minutes, he stood facing the menacing bungalow. The sky was slowly facing into darkness, enveloping both Kef and the house in a shade of gloom. He stared at the house and it stared back at him.

Kef advanced...slowly. Instead of going into the premise, he crept around the bungalow from outside. His eyes hunting for something, anything, that could match the whisper in his mind. The voice that said he knew how to get inside the bungalow. He just needed to find the beginning.

A tunnel.

The psychiatrist mentioned that word philosophically but Kef was about to use it physically. He somehow knew that was his way inside.

He didn't realize he was moving further away from the bungalow until the air started to feel thick. When Kef looked back, the house seemed quite a distance away. Only when he turned back in front did he spot something he was looking for. An opening. The opening.

Kef ran towards a tree and knelt down. His eyes were fixated on the ground below the huge bark. Lying there, shaded by layers and layers of leaves, was a mound of broken branches and dead leaves. There was nothing unusual. But when Kef looked closely, he saw the concentration of leaves was thicker than any other part of the forest.

He rummaged through the mess. Kef gasped. He was right.

Underneath that pile was a trap door. For a few seconds, Kef just looked at it like it was something otherworldly. He wasn't sure what to do. His mind failed to process that he had just, possibly, found a way into the bungalow. He wasn't sure how, or why, what Dr Janet said made him find the trap door. She had touched a part of his brain which had been unreachable. It was like he had been searching for a diamond in a bowl blindfolded and someone had taken that blindfold off. He was not certain how the diamond would have turned out but he knew he would have it in his hands.

Gathering his senses, Kef reached for the steel hook and yanked it upwards. A creaking sound echoed throughout the forest. Kef grunted. He summoned his entire strength to fight the weight in his hands. With a deep breath, he pulled the door all the way and finally dropped it onto the ground.

He looked down. What he saw was a dark hole. He could barely make out anything inside except for the glimpse of space. It was a tunnel. He tried to decide if he should go in.

*****

The air was stale. It smelled of moss, dirt and cobwebs. Darkness was all around, biting at Kef like a hungry shadow. He didn't move. He waited for his eyes to adjust to the darkness but even after several minutes, nothing much changed.

Kef could make out the shape of the tunnel. It was like a construction pipe. But he could not tell how long it stretched. There was only one way to find out. He had to trail the length. As he made that decision, the smell of dirty water and mud crept into his nostrils. He instinctively pinched his nose.

Moving closer to the side, Kef reached out and felt for the wall. His fingers touched a damp surface. It was cold. And the fact that he could barely see anything made everything feel colder.