a.k.a. Katana

Chapter Four

Chapter Four:

Katana suddenly realized there was no more ground underneath her feet. She reached desperately for something to hold onto, but there was nothing. Her stomach lurched at the feeling of her body free falling. The icy cold water gripped her with surprising force. It pulled and pushed her down and away and spun her around. Even if she had had super human strength to swim against the current, she wouldn't have been able to get her bearings.

She felt the water release her head for an all too quick moment and she caught the tiniest breath of air before being dragged back under. An episode of Survivor Something or Other flashed into her mind, "Swim at an angle to the shore..." Not a chance. Where was the shore? Where was up and down?

Suddenly, it was pitch dark and she felt the feeling of falling again. She squeezed her eyes shut and her soul sent up a cry of help, repentance and despair in a single shot of energy.

There was a sharp stop at the end of the fall, a bone crunching shock of pain, and then an eerie, relative calm. There was no use struggling because she couldn't figure out what to struggle against. Her lungs felt as if they would burst and she wondered if she should keep trying or just inhale and get it over with-no. There was the bottom. She pushed against it with her feet and then felt the water break over the top of her head.

She filled her lungs with air and coughed it back out again. Somehow she had made it to the edge of the water and could hear it lapping gently against the pebbles that made up the shore. But it was still dark.

She crawled onto dry land and lay on the pebbly shore still gulping air and numb from the cold of the water. She imagined this is what a fish must feel like after it's released back into the water and vowed never to do such an awful thing to the poor creatures again. She wondered if this was somehow Karma; and if it was, if she had a lot more rivers to fall into.

Eventually she chanced movement and took inventory of all of her parts. Nothing seemed to be broken, but 'bruised' seemed like an understatement. Instinct told her that she must now find light.

The only strategy she knew to come up with was to feel her way along the water's edge on her hands and knees and use it as a guide through the cave. She hoped it wouldn't suddenly drop off into a much deeper hole or stop suddenly at a dead end.

Her eyes continued straining to peer through the darkness until she found just the smallest ray cascading down a wall of rocks, creating a tiny circle of light on the floor of the cavern.

She moved towards it and looked up to the source. It seemed like a thousand feet away, but what choice did she have? She tried calling for help until she was hoarse and then began the climb.

The rock was unforgiving and didn't care if it was scalable or not. There were few places to hold oneself up. Katana clawed her way up, jamming her fingers and toes into the tiny cracks. Her whole body strained to fight gravity until every muscle shook with fatigue.

A third of the way up, the rock under her right foot crumbled and she slid down the slick wall of rock. Her knees hit every bump on the way down and her feet and ankles took the brunt of the impact of her weight on the hard ground.

She grit her teeth and tried not to panic. She told herself she didn't have the energy to cry and panic. She took a deep breath and tried again.

Every inch was a victory, bringing her closer to life and farther from a cold, lonely death at the bottom of an unknown cave.

The muscles of her legs cramped and she slid again. Refusing to give up any more progress than was absolutely necessary, she dug her fingers into the rock with all her might and forced her muscles into submission.