Veins of the Earth

The cave is uncharted, a brand new discovery out in the high deserts. Maybe a newly opened sinkhole or some kind of subterranean collapse opened it recently, but its hard to tell. Its not on any maps, that's for certain. But now might be the opportunity to put your name on those maps. Your bag is stuffed full of gear and your lantern is fully charged. Its time.

The cavern entrance is a wide sinkhole with relatively gentle slopes covered in loose stones, like a circular scree slope. Its easy to scramble down, dropping 50 ft or so to the rough bottom of the pit. There, off center, is the true entrance to the cave. Its no bigger than a manhole cover but through it is seemingly infinite cave darkness. A stone thrown into the hole bounces off stone a half dozen times against unseen ledges before splashing into water far, far, far below. No wind blows out from the hole and no sound rises from it. The only thing visible is the bright yellow rope that dangles down into the pit, falling into seemingly infinite darkness below.

The passage gets smaller and smaller. At first it's tall enough to scramble through, bent over, but then only crawling on hands and knees. Then it becomes a squeeze, the ceiling and floor getting closer and closer until they're only a hand's breadth apart. The space forces your head to the side, compresses your chest, and pins your arms to your body. The terrifying weight of unseen miles of stone is balanced precariously on your spine and cheek.

The passage, now no more than a thin crack in the stone, suddenly snakes downwards, nearly vertical. Your light, strapped tightly to your forehead, shows an undulating shaft downwards to an opening about the size of a manhole with darkness beyond it. That hole looks positively spacious compared to this squeeze.

Gravity does the work at first, pulling you down towards the promised exit of this suffocating tunnel. But then, halfway down, the stone seems to grip you. You're wedged, trapped, stuck upside down. Your arms are pinned to your sides. Your feet have no purchase, nothing to push on. Stuck.

The cavern's rough stone walls begin to change the deeper it goes. The entrance is hours and probably vertical miles back and throughout all of that distance it has seemed utterly normal and natural, though gigantic. But now that rough stone is becoming smooth; not the smoothness caused by erosion but chiseled smooth. There are tool marks everywhere and it looks like the cramped tunnel has been widened, judging by the visible strata in the stone. It's clear just by looking at it that this must have taken a great deal of work, tools and effort. But how or why would it have been done here? In the depths of the earth, hours down through winding squeezes, sumps and passages.

The further you go the more the tunnels change. Their shapes, winding and organic, are clearly made by nature but their surfaces are artificial. The smoothed surface is slowly replaced by carved pillars and alcoves, almost Greek or even proto-Hellenic. Then there are statues, crude and badly worn at first but then more and more crisp. They're human, still vaguely Greek, but something is odd about them. Their proportions are slightly off in a way that isn't immediately apparent but is subconsciously unsettling. Arms a bit too long, hands too big, etc. Like some lost limb of the human evolutionary branch, close but not quite us.

There is a sound of rushing water now; not the terror of an oncoming flood but water running somewhere nearby. As though you are drawing closer to a river or spring. Or maybe a great body of water is sloshing about behind one of these stone walls.