3 - The Cave

The soft, orange light was blinding as the large, yellow star made its appearance from behind the horizon. Once again, I felt the soft, dark soil compress beneath my boots as the five of us set out for the cave. After a lot of arguing, Scarlett had eventually seen reason and remained behind. There was no way she would be able to make the trek with her purple, balloon-like ankle. Zander led the way; our pace was significantly quicker than the previous day. We stepped around the spherical colourful bushes, clambered over fallen trees and weaved around hanging vines, all the while being mindful of possible snare traps. Soon we passed the river that we had originally seen the two strange creatures, they weren't there today. Onwards we marched deeper into the forest; it didn't take long before I no longer recognised the area.

"Where abouts are you guys?" Scarlett's voice flooded my ears via the exosuits communications.

Elysia place a hand on the side of her helmet as she responded. "Not far past where we separated from you and Jacob, yesterday."

The journey was tough, after a few hours, my legs were burning and a small ache became present in my lower back. I constantly kept an eye out for more reptilian creatures. I wondered if what Zander said yesterday was correct. Could that snare trap have been made by the smaller lizard? The sun was directly above my head, half concealed by the forest canopy, by the time Zander raised a hand for us to halt. We stood at the foot of a cliff; its colossal face could have stretched into the heavens for all I could tell. I looked left and right along the face until I noticed a shadow.

"See that, Jacob?" Zander pointed. "That's the cave entrance; this is as far as we came yesterday. How about we go in for a closer look?"

"Can you guys please switch on your helmet cameras?" Once again, Scarlett's voice came through the suits comms.

"Good idea, Scarlett. At least if we lose contact we will still be recording everything," Thomas helped us all activate the recording function.

The blackness of the cavern reminded me of the void that I so often stared at from the observation deck. Zander squeezed into the rocky maw first, followed closely by Clint, then Thomas, Elysia and finally it was my turn. I slung my carbine and placed both hands on the large stones that lay in the opening. A grinding noise made me cringe as my helmet scratched across the cave walls. Once inside, I was again reminded of the unending vacuum of space. Our exosuit flashlights struggled to pierce the darkness within the deep tunnel. The narrow passage was forced us to proceed in single file. The deeper we went, the moister the floor felt.

"It must be incredibly humid in here," Clint ran his fingers along the wall to his left.

Eventually, the tunnel widened. We now stood in a cavern; the ceiling was so high that it vanished into the black void above.

"This cavern must be frequently used by some species of large animal," Thomas squatted to look at the ground. "It's far too smooth for a natural rock formation, unless it's been worn down over years of use."

"Hey guys, look over here," Elysia had been walking around the cavern, following the walls. "This looks like some kind of doorway."

Her description was accurate; a rectangular hole began another tunnel on the far side of the cavern. A large rectangular object lay on the floor just before the new tunnel. It looked as though it had been cut out of the wall somehow.

"What could have caused this?" Zander spoke for the first time since we entered the cliff face.

"Who knows," Clint's voice quavered slightly. "Perhaps rocks here form in a different manner than on Earth."

"But the rest of the cliff face and all the rocks outside are very similar shape to those back home," I noted.

Scarlett's voice crackled inside my helmet, "Wha…gon….eck."

"All the rock surrounding us must be interfering with the signal. We may as well push on."

"You're right, Thomas," Zander stepped up to the rectangular opening. "Let's go."

As we trekked deeper into the dark passageway, the walls and floor became visibly smoother. Thoughts swam wildly inside my head, could this tunnel have been machined out by something? The moisture on the floor thickened and started to feel sticky. Lifting my leg became more difficult each time I dragged it from the strange adhesive-like substance. I spun sharply to look behind me; I swore I heard something, like a drip from a leaky tap.

"What's wrong?" The light from Elysia's headlamp was blinding.

"I thought I heard-" There it was again. I was definitely hearing something.

I could see Elysia's eyes widen. She heard it too.

"Keep moving, guys. You don't want to be left behind," Zander's voice sounded distant. We had fallen behind. Elysia panicked and ran to catch up to the others. I looked back once more before setting off at a light jog. The viscous fluid on the floor made each step an effort. I could hear Elysia calling out for me to hurry up. This made no sense; I should have caught up by now. Horror struck me as the inside of my arm brushed up against something soft. I froze and looked down at my torso. I tried to scream but no sound escaped my wide open mouth. The hideous, grey tentacle-like thing tightened around my waist. I slammed my rifle into my shoulder and tried to turn to shoot whatever had latched onto me. I felt the floor vanish from beneath my feet, my carbine was ripped from my hands and the distant light from the others headlamps became smaller and smaller. I could hear them all yelling out to me. I opened my mouth again to scream for help but was cut off by a deafening noise that echoed through the tunnel. Tiny flashes of light up near the distant torchlight told me that the sound was gunfire. My stomach tumbled as I was dragged upwards. The sticky floor soon vanished behind the veil of darkness. Fear pushed almost every though from my head. Is this how it ends? Did I spend a thousand years crossing the galaxy just to be eaten by some alien squid? My wife entered my thoughts, her long golden locks, and her beautiful smile. Would I ever see them again? Did I even deserve to see them again? I became too tired to keep fighting. The monster was far too strong for me to overpower. I decided to save my energy until an opportunity to escape arose. The sound of gunshots could no longer be heard. I hoped that the others weren't about to share the same fate as me.

I had no idea how high this thing was taking me. Eventually, I heard a soft clicking noise. With all my strength, I squirmed to look upwards and the tentacle shifted around me. Suddenly, I was falling. Somehow I had slipped out of the creatures grasp. I didn't have time to come to terms with my new circumstances before the tentacle tightened around my ankle and began pulling me upwards again. The blood rushed to my head and I could feel my heartbeat inside my skull. Looking upwards, I saw what was making the clicking sound; a fleshy wall blocked the way. The tentacle that constricted my leg looked to be retracting into the flesh-like barrier. The feeling of panic hit me again. An opportunity to escape wasn't coming; I wasn't just being carted off to another location to be eaten. The tentacle was the creatures tongue and was slowly retracting back inside its mouth. The fleshy valve that the tentacle was disappearing inside of extended towards my foot and completely enveloped it. I thrashed as hard as I could but the monster had a much better grip on me than before. My other foot vanished inside the horrifying beast, then my legs, then my hips. The tight grip of the tentacle loosened and I was being held but the creatures grip on my waist. The next few moments felt like hours as my torso disappeared, the wall of flesh crept over my helmet and the rocky tunnel vanished from view, replaced by a pale grey. The walls of the creature's throat contracted, pushing me deeper, closer to my doom. I considered myself lucky that I was wearing an exosuit. I probably would have suffocated inside the tight tube otherwise. An intense pressure started winding its way up my legs, almost as if they were being bound together. Whatever it was causing this compression made its way over the rest of my body. Through the visor on my helmet, I could see a strange red string wrapping itself around me, blocking everything else from view. My thrashing became squirming as the string tightened.

A part of me couldn't help but think about how strangely this creature ate its food. My though was interrupted by a sudden impact to my back accompanied by a metallic clang. It felt like I had been dropped on an incredibly hard surface. There was silence for a while. Where was I? Was the creature's stomach made of metal? At this point, almost nothing would have surprised me. I wiggled and wiggled, trying to loosen the red string that cocooned me. My fingers contacted the hilt of the utility knife on my hip; inch by inch I dragged it from the holster. Once the tip was clear, I started scratching at the inside of my red prison. The string snapped and I was able to free myself. I rose quickly to my feet, prepared to cut my way out of the monsters stomach only to find that I wasn't in a monsters stomach. I looked around, bewildered. I was in a room, perfectly square with a door on the far side. Unlike the rectangular doorway that we had found in the cavern, this one was an actual door; it had a handle and everything. Behind me was a hole in the wall of the room, replaced with the same pale grey flesh that had not long ago enveloped me. The floor of the room was littered with bundles of the red string. I noted that none of them were human shaped, some though, looked like they could contain creatures similar to the scrawny lizard from the river. I would have tried to help them but I noticed that they all had large puncture wounds in their heads. I made my way to the door on the opposite side. Grasping the handle, I opened it slowly. The hinges let out an ear piercing screech. I cringed and looked around to make sure I wasn't attracting some other creature. Something caught my eye in an open vent on the ceiling. It looked like a shiny, black insect leg emerging from the darkness. Hastily I darted through the doorway and closed the door behind me. Whatever it was, it obviously hadn't mastered the operation of a door. I found myself in an empty corridor, broken glass scattered the metal floor. I felt like I was back on Earth, the design of this place felt eerily human. There was no point trying to make sense of it all now, I could do that later when I found the others. I made my way down the corridor, very slowly. The glass crunched under my boots with each step.

At the end of the corridor the way split off to the left and the right. Both directions were shrouded with darkness; my exosuit flashlight was the only source of light. As far as I was concerned, neither way was any safer than the other. I noticed a marking on the in front of me; most of it was covered in thick, sticky grime. With my left hand I wiped as much of the gunk off as I could and found that the marking was a sign and was written in English. My mind begged me for answers that I could not give so I pushed those thoughts to the back of my mind and decided to focus on survival. The sign had an arrow pointing to the right; above the arrow I saw an all too familiar word, 'CRYOGENICS'.

Without a moment's hesitation, I turned to the right and continued on my way, "When in doubt, stick to what you know."