To Survive without the Guardians

Chapter 6: There May Only Be One

The first peculiar thing about the hole in the cliff was its walls. They weren't just plain rough rock. Although they were in fact made of such a material, they were covered in words- no, in names. Hundreds of names were scrawled in identical dark cursive ink in neat rows and columns. Matt moved forward and inspected a few. Chester Julius Vaughn. Reed Herbert Lyle. Angelia Kristine Seymore.

"Hey Matt, look over here!" Haven called, and he came over and peered at where she was pointing. Haven Trinity Avery. Matthew Ian Sloan. Their names?

"What the heck?" Matt muttered to himself again. "Why are all these here? And who wrote them?"

Haven frowned and flitted her eyes around the room a little. "Whoever it was knows who we are."

"And knows lots of other people," Matt added.

The other odd thing about the area was the floor, circular in shape. It was hard and uneven like a normal cave floor, but it also bore unnatural coloring. At the center was a white circle about twice the size of Matt's palm, and five faded dark stripes radiated toward it from the edges of the cave, wider toward said edges and thinner toward the center, looking a bit like swaths of curtain all pinned under the painted middle shape. The rest of the ground looked like it was once a different dark hue with sparkly multicolor specks scattered all around it, but now it was all dim pastels, although the dots still shone if they caught the light (which sometimes reached the floor, but never the walls).

"What is this place?" Haven asked aloud.

Matt dropped to his knees to observe the floor more closely. "I don't know." That's when he noticed there was a thin crack around the center circle. The piece of ground could be removed. He stood back up, went over to the entrance, and began looking for a thin stone outside that he could use to help pry it off.

Haven turned her head away from the wall and toward him. "Where are you going?" Matt mumbled about looking for something, not really caring about communicating anything until he came across a worthwhile discovery. "What?" He spotted a tannish stone that looked like it could work and retreated back into the cool shade of the cave. "What are you doing?"

Matt sighed. "Look here." He tried to fit the rock in between the edge of the circle and the rest of the floor but failed, so he got up to find a slimmer one. "There's a crack around that circle in the middle. I think it can be lifted off." If only he was allowed to carry a pocket knife. A knife was probably just the right size for the job.

Haven bent down to examine the crack while Matt searched for a less fat rock. He soon found a chalky white one and joined Haven on the ground. This time, he was able to insert it into the crack, and managed to lift the circle up just enough that he was able to grab it right as the stone snapped in half from the weight. The circle actually wasn't too heavy, Matt found, but the rock hadn't been particularly strong.

He took the shape out of the earth to find a mug-sized hole underneath with an object at the bottom. Haven reached in and lifted it out. It appeared to be some sort of compass covered in a fine layer of dirt (which she brushed off to the best of her ability). Its edges looked to be brass. The actual indented compass part of it, however, was a silvery powder blue on one side and a golden orange on the other, split exactly down the middle, and the needle was white and pointing at the center of the blue region, unmoving even when Haven rotated it. If it was a compass, it was pretty broken.

Haven flipped it over. Its bottom was also brass and was convex instead of flat. The oddest thing about it, however, were the words carved along the edge in a different script than the names on the wall: There may only be one.

"I wonder how long that's been down there," Matt said. "Can I see it?" Haven handed it to him. It fit in his palm and was kind of weighty but not overly so. He turned it over and over in his hands, trying to make sense of it.

"I don't think it's a compass, although it certainly looks a lot like one," Haven said. "If it was a compass, the needle would move, and it would be labeled with the cardinal directions in some way."

Matt nodded. "What do you think it's talking about, the people on the wall? It seems like it's only mentioning two things because of the two colors, but there are many more names than two."

"Huh," Haven said. "Maybe your grandpa knows. It is his land, after all. Maybe it was even him who put everything down here."

Matt frowned. "I doubt it. His handwriting's not as nice as this. But we could at least show him this...this thing. He might be able to make some sense of it. We wouldn't be able to get him to come down here, though. He'd say he's too old and wouldn't make it."

"We could still show him pictures, though," Haven pointed out, and she began to photograph strange aspects of the cave.

"Yeah, that's a good idea," Matt said. Haven smiled at the compliment.

"He won't think we're insane, will he?" she then asked. "About the cave?"

Matt shook his head. "Not as long as we prove it exists, and the pictures will do that. He couldn't see the demons when I took a picture of them a couple years ago, though."

"I hope this is something that other people can see," Haven said.

"Yeah. Me, too."

*}{*}{*}{*

When Matt and Haven reached the former's paternal grandfather's house, the teenage boy opened the door and walked in, a feeling of comfort arising in his chest. He always felt at home here, almost more so than in his actual house. He usually only came if he had had a particularly bad day, however, in order to be somewhere quiet where he wouldn't be irritated further by his immediate family members.

The two high schoolers walked down a narrow hall decorated with a potted plant here or there into a small kitchen and dining room. Matt then led the way into his grandpa's bedroom to the right. There the man was, sitting at his desk next to his bed and beginning a sketch of something.

"Grandpa Sloan," Matt said, "we have something to show you." The old wrinkled man with thinning gray hair and dark-rimmed glasses turned toward him and Haven. The black cat that had been lying on the bed came over to greet them, rubbing against Matt. "Hello Leg. How have you been, boy?"

Haven raised her eyebrows in amusement. "Leg? What is that short for?"

"Nothing," Grandpa Sloan replied with a twinkle in his eye. "His name is Leg. You will notice that his right eye is blue and his left is green. I thought that such a unique cat deserved a unique name, so I decided to call him 'Leg'. I've never heard of any other companion being given such a title." Haven's own eyes sparkled with mirth. Grandpa Sloan looked at Matt and gave a little laugh. "I see you have finally found someone 'deserving' of your company. A girlfriend of sorts?"

"No," Matt immediately responded. "She's only with me because she can also see the demons. And we found something in your woods that we want to show you. We're wondering if you know what it is." He took the compass-like thing out of his pocket and showed it to his grandparent. The man took it and looked at it closely, then turned it over and read the words inscribed on the back.

He looked up at the people in front of him. "Where did you find this?"

"In here," Haven replied, pulling out her phone and showing him pictures of the cave, particularly the one of the hole in the ground.

"It was in the little ravine," Matt added.

Grandpa Sloan shrugged. "Maybe it was buried like a sort of time capsule? I don't know. I never put anything down there myself, and neither did your Grandma Sloan before she died, as far as I know."

"What do you think the words on the back of the compass thing are talking about?" Matt asked.

"I have no idea," Grandpa Sloan replied. "It's probably nothing special. Looks broken to me. The needle doesn't move, see? I don't know why all those names are in the cave, though. Perhaps a vandal put them there, as well as the paint before that. But they couldn't have been written before you were born if yours are among them, especially if they're that dark still. In fact, they couldn't have been written that long ago at all."

Matt made a quizzical expression. "I guess." But who would put them there?

"I wouldn't worry about it," Grandpa Sloan said. "As I said before, it's probably nothing. Now, you said this girl here can see the demons, too? Tell me more."