HADAGERY, Book of Elysium

Chapter 6

Steady phantasmal breaths mysteriously persisted to whistle throughout the caverns. Hadge lay on a bed of vines listening to the creepy sounds, each draft waywardly performing over a calliope of windpipes. He was tensely magnetized to these unknown sounds, whatever it may be, alive or otherwise. The vantage point from where he slept next to the waterfall, he could see everything. He could see the flow of the waterfall gently sway amid each surrendering breath, giving away an eerily concealed breach in the cave wall, hidden behind the waterfall.

He stared for sometime at the hole behind the waterfall, bleakly musing over that damnable book, which he had no way of reading, and hopelessly no prospects of reading in the future. All he had was this shadowy world around him, and it was falling apart a piece at a time. He realized he couldn't just sit here and do nothing, and pray the world would resolve its issues, which would be counterproductive; he had to do something, and do it now.

Hadge felt a spark of life, no longer immersed in pity, and his first act in living was to find out what was behind that waterfall. He waded through the crystal clear water, to the hole in question. Then climbed into that proverbial rabbit hole, and into the crack behind the waterfall.

He stepped through the veil of water droplets, head first, into the unknown, having no idea what lain in wait of his arrival. At fist sight, it was a much larger cave, stretching further than the eye could see in the dark. The cave was an ominous dark complex of witch's fingers and columns, which gravely stretched up from the floor to the ceiling.

Hadge desperately tried to locate the floor on the other side, discovering only air All at once his hands slipped from the supporting hole, and he fell head first through the opening. Groggily he rubbed his forehead, groaning, "Ooooo....mmmyyy..." Then angrily berated his idiocy, "What a grubb." Unquestionably glad the fall was only about five feet from the opening, or he might not be alive to tell about it. He was sitting discomposed atop a naturally occurring rock formation, as it gently descended like an awkward flight stairs. Hadge could see no sense in whining over the mishap, since it wasn't his first accident, and certainly not the last.

Then he perilously arose upon the slick surface of the awkward stairs, no worse for wear. Completely drenched from the waterfall, and embarked upon the downward journey of the rounded steps. This was the top of the world; so to speak, you could see the entire cove. The walls were all carved in dentritic patterns, with the ceilings silvery crowns bursting amid a force of thin hollow mineral tubes, which constantly expelled obedient tears. Each clear straw tube deliberately distributing a drop at a time, as if it were an inharmonious choir singing every note out of tune. Fleetingly he realized that the breathing sounds had subsided, they had gotten misplaced along the way. He doubtfully reasoned, "Did I even hear them at all?"

Hadges thoughts disquietly returned to the book, as he pulled the backpack into sight, and couldn't help but to wonder, "What am I going to do now?" He aimlessly found a large rock in the shape of an open fist, settling his back against the groove of its thumb, and slide down its side. His body stopped once he reached the floor, as he sat arbitrarily next to this strange rock, with the object of his distress peeking from the edge of his backpack.

He bitterly mumbled to the book, as if he thought it was listening, "I should put you back where I found you." An otherworldly female voice responded, "Never give up." Then another voice joined, "There's always a way." He uneasily twisted upright, this way and that way, trying to discern the source of the sound, and was convinced it to be Ruby or one of the other fairies. He demanded to know, "Who's there?" He skirted the rock structure, still demanding the perpetrator, "Who's there?" At that moment his hand oddly fell into the palm of the fist, where the indent of a book used to lay. Hadge inspected the indentation closer, and it was unquestionably the same size as the book in his backpack. He was certain this had to be where the book came from, hearing the foreign sound of his own voice ask, "What is going on here?" Insured that he was alone, and he started to think, "I'm going crazy."