Life, Love & Other Short Stories

:the crypt:

Wind is whistling through the stalactites cropping out from the roof as the three explorers trapeze off the edge of a cliff and around into the mouth of a structure that could just as easily be a tomb as it is a cave. It's cold and dark and wet and dank and eerily silent and— Lorelai jumps as her twin brother digs the butt of his flashlight into her back, just under her bag. She punches him on the arm, forcing a smile to sprout onto his face.

"You're not scared are you, Lori?" he asks honestly, though she can hear the humor in his voice as he pushes past her into the all-encompassing space.

"S'gonna take more than a little torch in my side to send me packing, Leo, you know that." She brushes a stray strand of sweat-curled hair behind her ear then runs her hand over the rest of her ponytail to smooth it back in place. She huffs a breath and takes another dragging step.

The stones above their heads are dripping a soft pitter-patter onto the rocks around them. A few drops of the watery substance splash onto their boots as they hike further into the bleak nothingness. They're following one of the local town merchants who'd been born in the area and offered to help when he heard about their efforts to learn about the area and its legendary caves. Leo tries to pull the same torch stunt with him and is sent back behind Lorelai with a straight face and an annoyed tone so he instead turns his attention on making her miserable instead. And as much fun as she knows her brother is having, tormenting her and their guide, this is still her expedition. She stands her ground with him enough to tell him to just shut it, and marches on; she hasn't traveled the two hours from Bristol to Hertfordshire just so her brother can annoy them all to death before she can even complete the recon of this cave.
It feels like it's been hours when they finally find a room full of tiny lights that have been noted as the halfway point of the cave, and the merchant is talking about their ancestors who used magic to bend the world to their will, but Lorelai knows that the lights are just glow worms. She doesn't know the specifics of course, because that isn't her field of expertise, but she knows enough to know what bioluminescence is. She doesn't correct the man, however, simply follows him out of the space and back into the dark on the second half of their journey, their flashlights clicking back on seconds later. The air around them echoing with the noise and something more.

The walk down the inky corridor is suffocating. The constant drip-drip-drip off of the ceiling is no longer peaceful. It seems almost restless as it splatters against the ground or bounces off the walls. She requests that they take a quick break to grab a granola bar from her backpack and force the bundles of nerves tumbling around in her abdomen to stop. Leo is sitting next to her, looking just as shaken. She tells herself it doesn't mean anything. They've just been walking for too long. Her brain has had too much time to think. She's the restless one, she decides. She stands up abruptly.

The break is over almost as soon as it starts.

"Excellent," the older man says, tapping his long gnarly fingers anxiously against his own satchel. "Must keep going, yes?"

Lorelai wonders what kind of work the man has done all his life to get determination almost as strong and gnarled as his hands look, dry and cracked and calloused but consistent. Steady, she corrects instead. She tries to remember what he had been selling at his station back in the market, but she comes up blank. She doesn't think it's anything to worry about right now, not when she's lost sight of Leo and the crunching of their boots sounds more like the grinding of teeth. There's another sound somewhere in the chaos of her head, but she can't identify it. It takes longer than it should for Lorelai to realize it's the sound of the man talking to himself and she thinks she's had quite enough of the merchant's inconsistent chattering. He's been mumbling under his breath for almost as long as they've been exploring this half of the bloody cave and she is one false sound from losing her mind.

He stops when they come to a fork in the too-dark cavern. Her torch doesn't go too far in either direction, the shadows seemingly swallowing up any semblance of light. She thinks she should turn around. Leo has been absurdly quiet since their break. Something in her tells her she should have high-tailed it out back at the glow worms' pit, but a more stubborn part has her lifting her foot and following the old merchant down the left path. Her torchlight isn't lighting the way so much as it's become a part of her by this point. She can barely make out her own feet when the grinding sound crescendos louder.
They step into another clearing full of more glow worms and she wants to take it as the final sign to run. To grab Leo, wherever the bloody fucking hell he's run off to, and get as far from this cave and that man as possible, but she can't. She has to see this through. The merchant sits in the middle of the room and pulls out a dripping brown paper bag. She thinks the droplets look too dark to be water, then the smell hits her. It's like iron but more pungent, slightly rotten. She gulps down the urge to vomit.

"I think your lunch is a bit past due, yeah?" she says to the man in what she hopes is a light tone. Why he's carrying a dead animal carcass is none of her business. She just hopes he doesn't start in for a bite. "I have a sandwich in my bag if you—"

"Oh, it's not for me," he says, cutting her off,  a crooked grin slinking its way onto his face for the first time since she and Leo had agreed to let him lead them into the unknown. He points into the vast and dark beyond as the grinding comes closer, the glow worms going blindingly bright before going out altogether. "It's for her."