full image - Repost: Antilight Switch (from Reddit.com, Antilight Switch)
Mining:
Exchanges:
Donations:
WE WERE HERE"We were exploring a new cave system, going through a network of passages, chambers and then...........how did I get here? How did I end up in this state?" the thought comes crashing down as I struggle to stand up from where my body lay, spiralled and dumped like a bag of potatoes in a warehouse."Ooooouch....uuuch"***The light is blindingly bright, and I'm girdled by a mob of hazy, not easy to make out faces; all of them mumbling in a repeated chant “Turn it on. Turn it on”. I study, trying to concentrate on a sluice of faces approaching me in a slow, deliberate way. I back up precipitously, fear and confusion cloaking me, but they continue to advance. A fuzzy figure that looks like an arm stretched out with a beacon - the only visible thing in the room - “Turn it on” voices whispers in my cognizance and each around me.I am dreaming. It's a damn fucking dream.I shut my eyes and plug my ears, hunkering low and repeating a chant of my own, “No. No. No”***The soft rustling of away leaves carries over to me on a gust of chilly wind, pushing through the fog of restless slumber clouding my subconscious. Every muscle in my body pained, I felt stiff and cold lying on something hard that was not meant to be laid on. I open my eyes sluggishly, preparing for the rush of bright lights, but I am rather saluted with darkness. I am confused, it's so dark save for a single flashlight illuminating rough gravestone walls, a roomy but empty chamber - for lack of a better word - echoing every sound the wind makes. My mind is fuzzy, my vision foggy; and I am frantically searching with every sense available to gain some kind of understanding as to where I am.As I open my mouth to call, the taste of dust comes clashing with my tongue, something snapped. I freeze, pressing myself against the cold, wet stone, my gaze flicking across the unyielding darkness of the cave. My stomach clenched at the unmistakable scratch of paws passing over debris and a snout snuffling the air, rooting for a foreign scent: me……... My head hurts, feels like it graciously collided with a volcanic bump or an andesite, probably a mixture of both. There's a sharp but slight pain in my side, and my sight seems to be partially taken away. I reach for the only light I see in the room, rather hallway better still something I later discovered to be a cave - that light seems to be my flashlight, if I turn it off, a kind of super scary darkness would envelope the room. I've seen darkness before, and I hate the sound, sight and thirst of it. I hate what it does to the mind, the trick it plays with the eyes and the kind of paralysis it injects into the body, truly darkness isn't exciting - I really do wonder what Gena Showalter was thinking when she said there's ecstasy in darkness or Coda when he said there's free will, liberty and serenity in darkness. I once heard someone say, "I like the darkness, there's something to the feeling of not knowing your surroundings, not seeing the colors of things as they appear but as they truly are. There's something about the unknown, the quiet and the cold. There's something unspoken about the dark, something I can never put words to, something so terrifying but beautiful" and for once I agreed though he might be stupid, he still understands that there's something terrifying about it that makes me wonder which darkness is scarier, the one with the lights out and no how to find your way in a room or the one within you. Motivational speakers are crazy. Whoever sees this darkness as not to be sore and unfriendly must be mentally unstable. It is worse than a forceful collision, it's like the blasting of landmines. Sadness and darkness are natural cousins, no wonder why, people have worn black to express their grief from the very beginning of the world. Darkness and melancholy, there's a certain kind of romance between them. Darkness is the creaky bones, the bad eyesight, the demon in every mind, the very wicked path of destiny - it lets the claws of doom grip you and makes the reign of fear seem pleasant. Like a shroud, it wraps and bears one through mist and cloud. DARKNESS IS DEATH.I feel like one who's been hit with a few doses of amnesia as I get blurry images of what must have been, what must have led me to this absolute loneliness.“This is not my bedroom” I believe.Bits and pieces of a strange dream foray my studies, vague images flash through my head, alongside undecipherable whispers that sound chant - like, and I shake my throbbing head to clear it. The name “Izzy” keeps replaying in my head, and I spend what feels like hours making any form of connection to the name. Izzy is my woman. I told her I was going stargazing with the boys, a usual routine and one she approved of over some other dangerous hobbyhorse I could not flash back yet; and that is what we were doing up until they started excitedly about discovering what looks to be the entrance of a delve and how it would be cool if we explored it. That was when it clicked. I'm in a cave.We were about three men who entered into a dark and dreary place where the only sound heard was the drip, drip, drip of water from the stalactites hanging over the ceiling, our booted feet scuffling over the floor, the skitter of animals and insects whirring, bat wings fluttering and crickets chirping, the only available sight is that of stalagmites protruding from the floor, beautiful and undirected carvings over stone walls, dead leaves swimming over twigs, spiders intertwining webs over webs, insects doing the usual bustle of life, running round for meals, building finger sized castles and intercoursing without shame. The smell was like that of decayed animals mixed with wet cold stone, briny smell of slimy lichen and stale air. The air is thick with humidity, and it's difficult to breathe. The darkness is so thick that it's impossible to see more than a few feet in front of you and most of the time, our flashlight batteries are most likely to fail us at the slightest opportunity. My eyes hit a glass that tends to shine through shimmers, and then I wake up here. It feels like I've been dead for a few hours.We were exploring this new discovery that indeed led to a massive cave when all of a sudden, the earth started to rumble as we accidentally awakened whatever dark spirit whose space we had encroached on with the flip of a single switch.I continue my search, whispering, “Jack! Chris” quietly, because I was still too scared and weak to shout. I pick up my dwindling flashlight and point in literally every direction, looking out for movement of any kind; and I find none. This is bad. This is really bad. I need to find Jack and Chris, and soon it will be good. Jack, Chris and I had met sometime in August some two years ago at a mountain climbing trip in Idaho. We got talking and soon realized we shared a similar affinity for adventurous activities like bungee jumping, zip lining, hitchhiking and spelunking.I had told me of my experience from when I just turned eighteen. I was ready to make my mark on the world then, silly me. A friend, Phillip and I left Oklahoma in my car headed to Wyoming to work in the oilfields, that was one big thing then. The car made it to Denver and blew up. I sold it for salvage, and we started hitchhiking the rest of the way. It was cold and snowy in the Rocky Mountain and took quite a couple of days before we finally made it to Grand Junction, where we had to head north to get to where we were headed in Wyoming. We decided to check before heading north and found out there was no work available for two skimpy eighteen-year-old laborers, and so we decided to head to Oregon instead. When we got to somewhere in Utah, we got dropped off at a gas station on the interstate. It was just about closing time when we got there. We started talking to the guy running the place, who also happened to be the owner. I believe we called him Andre. Anyway, Andre was a big guy 6’7” or so and in talking to him, he offered us both a job. He had a “camp” set up in the mountains about 20 miles away where he had a trailer, but there was no electricity or running water. He said he’d take us up to the “Post” camp, furnish all supplies like food, water, dope to smoke, etc… along with an old dump truck and all we had to do is go into the forest and cut down a certain size of tree that he could sell for fence posts. He said the truck would hold 500+ and that we should be able to fill it once a week. In addition to the supplies to survive, he’d pay us $2.00 per post. We thought we’d hit the jackpot. So we went to his house that night, and we all got stoned. The next morning, we went to the store and bought our supplies and headed to the camp. He led the way and I followed in the old dump truck. It took several hours to drive the winding, treacherous road to the camp. When we got up there, we noticed that there weren’t any trees around. They’d all been cut down. He said we’d have to go a little way, but there were plenty to be cut. It turned out that we were miles from any significant amount of trees. We ended up cutting about 30 trees that week. We also smoked all the dope he gave us and ate all the food. I had a watch, but at some point, it had stopped, so we didn’t even know what time it was. We got up at what we thought was about 3am in the morning and started down the mountain. It took forever to get out of there and by the time we got to the gas station the sun was coming up. We just knew that Andre was going to kill us or something. Anyway, we got to the station, parked the truck with the 30 or so trees, and ran to the interstate to hitchhike out of town. We were literally running down the road for a couple of hours before we got a ride. We kept looking back as the sun got higher in the sky, but he never came after us. It was one hell of an experience.The friendship between we trio kicked off from there, and not too long after we are taking these crazy trips and arguing over the next one to engage in. Our last trip was to Arches National Park in Utah, where we were met by a disastrous, unexpected rainstorm that upturned trees and left me hospitalized for a month after one fell on our tent with me inside on our camping trip that usually precedes our spelunking exercise. Izzy, my wife, decided then that our trips had gotten too dangerous and needed a break. Hence, her reluctance when I mentioned stargazing with the guys after dinner what should have been hours ago, but I'm not so sure now. It is during those moments of calm that a new discovery is discussed, and tonight? Was no exception.The guys have been a huge part of my life these past couple years, and I didn't want to lose them. I couldn't bear to. I have to find them.“Guys?” I call out louder now, ears primed for any sound at all. None came.I pull myself up from the floor and go on my knees, crawling shakily around the cave. I still felt too sore and weak to get up on my feet. I hear a clicking sound from a far corner of the room and jerk my head in that direction, fear temporarily paralyzing me and forcing my breath out in short, labored pants. My mind is reeling, my entire body trembling as I scoot farther away in the direction the sound came from.I reach the boulder in the middle of the room and use it as leverage to hoist myself to my feet. I'm shaking with effort by the time I gain balance, perspiration has beaded on my forehead and between my brows, and is rolling down my back in salty streams. Now on my feet, I look over to the side of the room I was inching toward on my knees and aim my flashlight at the floor. A bunch of those red jewels decorating the walls are strewn carelessly about, like they were tossed down in anger or frustration. I swallow thickly, and wobble slowly on my feet in the direction of the narrow opening Jack had gone through, determinedly ignoring the jewels.We have had to learn the hard way not to touch everything we see in this cave, if my stiff, sore and fear stricken body was anything to go by; so the jewels were a definite ‘hell no’ for me.I get to the opening and flash my light in, scanning carefully what little space I could see and calling out “Jack” in hopes that he would hear me now that I was closer, and I wouldn't have to go in. The sound only echoes and carries back to me like it was mocking me, and still, I get no reply. I square my shoulders, preparing to go in to properly search for foolhardy Jack. I take one final look around - or what should have been a final look around - before slipping through, when something catches my eye. I contemplate for all of two seconds whether or not to check it out or continue on my mission before I finally turn away from the too narrow passage, and walk slowly - not that I could walk any faster in my current condition anyway - and cautiously toward it. I come to a front of what we thought is a diary even though it looks like an ancient spell book from the dark ages, and bend to pick it up. My hand hesitates over its surface as I wonder whether or not picking it up is a wise decision. I straighten up, eyeing it suspiciously. A voice in my head tells me it might hold answers to some of the questions churning inside my head, and I bend again to pick it up. That's when I notice it is perched at the edge of a hole that was not here before, with a rope - one end tied in a sailor’s knot - going inside it. I pick the book up and tuck it at the back of my pant’s waistband, then pick the rope edge in my hand, tugging on it gently. It doesn't budge. I put my flashlight in my mouth, using both hands to pull strongly on the rope. It pulls out a little and stops, and I realize the rope is too short. I grunt in frustration, lowering myself to the ground to get a closer, clear look at the rope end. I need to know if it broke or was cut off by someone or something. I raise it out of the hole and pull my flashlight from my mouth, holding the rope up to my face for examination; and my vision goes black. I'm momentarily stunned, shaking my head slowly to check if I've somehow been rendered blind by the strange rope. I make out faint outlines in the dark and growl.“Shit!”My flashlight battery just died. Great! The beginning of my journey through darkness.HERE LIE THE TRUTH"Man! Who ever thought this place up is a genius” Jack says appreciatively."Whoa man, no way in hell this place was built. This is a work of nature" drawls Chris with his hands on his hips as he turns around oh so slowly, taking the place in. He looked completely awestruck, and I could not blame him. This place is huge, with narrow openings that presumably lead into a different part of the cave, dark jewels of some kind - I could not place these - glittering a veritably weird shade of red beautifully decorating every inch of the walls, giving them a rough feel. A small creek ran through the floor from one of the narrow openings into a small hole on the bottom surrounding a slightly elevated boulder that looked like a platform where priceless, precious artifacts are displayed in a gallery.I give voice to Chris' assessment of the place. “Yeah, I don't think this was built either, it looks and feels natural"."Mmm.hmm” Chris agrees, running his hands over the jeweled walls in a reverent caress.“What's this?” Chris whispers, as if he were scared of speaking any louder. I turn to see what he is talking about. In his left hand, was raised to casket position what looked like a tome, complete with vine trappings and some kind of antique lock; his flashlight trained on it.“What's that?” I ask right back, too far away to see it easily myself."I do not know” Chris explains, “it looks like a diary though"He turns it over, his fingers running slow and gentle over the book, though it looked hard and rough from here. Jack comes over and takes the book from him.“Huh. This looks like some girl’s diary” he huffs, “Here, have it back. I'm sure there are better things to find here anyway”“What's wrong with you, dude?” Chris complains as Jack carelessly tosses the book back to him and walks back in the direction he came from. Jack, ignoring him, saunters down, flashlight roving over every surface as though he were looking for something."Anything written on it?” I ask, decidedly overlooking their exchange.It is not unusual for them to squabble like little kiddies, especially over new discoveries such as this, and I had gotten used to it. Their arguments noticeably lasted a shorter period of time when nobody interfered, so I made an internal note to not be the person to fuel their sparks of fire and turn it into a full-blown flame.Chris raised the book to his face and squinted to get a better look at it upon hearing my question and gasps."What?” I ask, “What man? Does it say anything? What does it say?” My questions are fired rapidly, one after the other, not really giving him time to respond."You guys are seriously paying too much attention to that book. There are better things we could spend our time on", Jack calls in an irked tone from his far-away position as cave explorer.He was closer now to one of those narrow openings in the cave, and he was inching near doggedly, like he planned on going in there. Knowing Jack, though, I do not doubt that that is his plan.“You can't seriously be thinking of going in there all by yourself, dude” I call back warningly, raising my voice a little to carry over the distance.He doesn't even turn around, just continues on his way and replies; “Don't you want to know what a cave as massive as this holds inside?”"We can't go wandering around, Jack, we don't know yet what this place is about”"Well, there is only one way to find out” he quips and slips through the opening, angling his body sideways to allow his huge frame space to pass through.“Uhm... you have got to see this man” Chris says softly, drawing my attention away from where Jack just went through and back to the fact that he was here as well and staring at the time-like diary in his hands with wide eyes.“What does it say that is freaking you out so much?” I inquire, stepping around the hole on the cave floor to get to him. I didn't even realize I had wandered that far.I choose not to dwell on that, or on the pricking of my skin and hairs at the back of my neck rising to attention as I walk towards the book."It's not the words, even though they are strange and cryptic. Kind of. It's that the handwriting looks really familiar, but I can't seem to place it. Here, have a look” he offers, pushing the book toward me just as I get within touchable distance.I put my hand out, and he places it in my palm. The book felt old and cold. I lifted the cover and started reading. The handwriting really did look familiar, but even I could not place it. I continued skimming through till I got hooked on a particular part of it that was highlighted and calligraphed in handwritten italics, pulling on every ounce of curiosity mankind was known to possess. It read: “As the bulb exists inside your universe, so your universe exists inside the bulb. Do not turn it on. Once you see what lies in the darkness, there's no unseeing it”.Strange. I could not make any sense of it. I pondered and tried to connect it with all the weird tales I liked to read to see if that would help me better understand it, but came up empty."Do you understand what any of that means?” Chris asks, looking hopeful. Like my understanding, it would make it less strange for him.I shake my head, and continue to stare at the book in my hands."Let me have that then” he says, picking the book out of my slightly outstretched, upturned palm.“What do you want it for?” I ask suspiciously, or is that confusedly? Urghhhhhh!“Nothing. I am just going to hold on to it. We will figure out later what all of that poetic jargon means after we get out of here. For now, we have some exploring to do” and with that he turns on his heel and walks to a corner of the room cloaked in shadows, his strides easy and relaxed, confident yet silent, despite his feet being heavily booted.“We are going to leave here with that?” I repeat questioningly, pointing at the book tucked securely under his arm.“Heck yea!” he choruses, “Ain't no way I'm letting someone else take the glory for what looks like a promising discovery”“Yo man. You guys have got to see this” Jack calls out from the passage entrance, holding up a beacon and smiling proudly.We had not even heard him come out; it is almost as if every section of the cave is soundproofed against the rest. The beacon in his hand is shaped like a globe. It is made of transparent glass, and adorned with tiny gold fixtures. The lens in it is surrounded by a ring of triangular prisms, meant to retract and focus the light. It looked entirely like a bulb that is or was used in a lighthouse.“Whoa! That is.... precious” Chris gushes calmly, watching the beacon with a glint in his eyes.“Told you there were better things to be found than some chick’s diary” Jack spits, irritation evident in his tone.“Where did you find that?” I inquired, pulling Jack’s attention away from his irritation over our interest in the weird tome, and back to himself discovering lightbulb.“In there” he replies, pointing in the direction of the opening he had slipped through earlier.“I think we should add that to our pile” Chris suggests, indicating the bulb in Jack’s hand.“Pile? You mean to tell me that y'all found something other than or more interesting than the diary?” Jack asks, looking from Chris to me and back again.I shake my head negatively, and he barks out a sharp laugh.“Yea. Figured”“This is not just any diary, man. It could be magic for all we know” Chris throws back.“Right. Magic” Jack scoffs“This place seriously can not have been built. No way” Chris retorts, sounding pissed."Okay, things are getting heated fast" I think to myself.Jack scoffs, “That so? Then explain this” he challenges, raising the beacon for emphasis.I tune out their childish argument and resume my exploration, moving silently over the streams of water running slowly over the floor to settle in the boulder housing hole on the floor. I run my fingers carefully over the jewel covered walls as I walk around the cave, until something akin to a twig - although more solid - catches my finger. I point my flashlight almost instinctively to the place where my fingers lie to check out what I've discovered by accident, and see what looks to be an antique light switch. The place where my finger meets this switch hums with energy, causing my skin to come alive as buzzing sensations race over it. A dozen strange voices whisper in my ears in a silent invitation, “Turn it on. Turn it on”. I shake my head in an attempt to clear it, those sounds were kind of creeping me out. They sound like a mob chant. I pull my fingers away from the switch and the voices quieten, even the buzzing sensation dissipates; I put my hand back and everything resumes with a vengeance, mindless chants and buzzing feel. I repeat the process a dozen times and then stop.I look over to where Jack and Chris were arguing minutes ago, and realize none of them are there any longer. Huh! I didn't notice them quitting their argument, much less leaving.“Guys?” I call out tentatively.“Yea? Did you find something?” Chris calls back, sounding interested in whatever it is I have to say.“In here” Jack draws absently from somewhere beyond the walls. I guess he has gone back in through the opening he has chosen to explore, “Find anything cool?” he continues, laying emphasis on the word ‘cool’.“Uhh... I think so” I call out. They both surface from whatever secret inner chamber they had chosen to explore, looking at me with curiosity dancing in their eyes.“What did you find?” they shout in unison, both aiming their light beams at me.I run my hand back over to the switch to show them what I found, but I'm instantly pulled under the thrall of the chanting mob as they repeat, “Turn it on. Turn it on. Turn it on”.THE LAST MEI emerge from the opening I felt for and through with my hands for what felt like days after my flashlight eventually gave out, and find myself outside the cave. The ground is an uneven mix of grass, stones, twigs and both small and medium-sized rock formations. The sky was starless, the moon adorning it faceless, and overshadowed by clouds; plunging the valley into murk and dashing all hopes of leaving the looming darkness behind as I sought an escape. The air is chilly. Goosebumps coat every layer of my skin - exposed or not -, my teeth chatter uncontrollably and fingers go numb in a matter of mere seconds. I still felt stiff, sore and cold, staying on my feet was a battle in and on its own, and I still have no idea where my friends, Jack and Chris, went or if something bad happened to them.I feel terrible. It is all my fault. If only I had not flipped that switch.***The chanting from the switch on the cave wall had persisted, despite my best efforts to silence them. It was like every time I tried to ignore it, it somehow became louder, more intentional. It was important to the desperate, angry mob - whoever they were - that someone, anyone flipped the switch. I can remember the splitting headache that threatened to push my head to combustion as I tried fruitlessly to tune out the wild voices urging me on with their “Turn it on. Turn it on. Turn it on” chant.I flipped the switch, assuming it would turn on lighting of some sort in the cave, or maybe even the delicate bulb that Jack had discovered, but for the first ten seconds after I pushed it, nothing happened.We were both confused and disappointed, with Jack even muttering an “urgh man” and turning to return to whatever important search he had to complete now, when suddenly there is a flash of overwhelmingly bright white light.“What the hell man” Chris yells.I am momentarily blinded, but that is the least of my problems as the walls and floor begin to vibrate, slowly at first, and then with frightening speed, throwing me completely off balance. The vibrations soon become violent, spinning out of control and knocking the jewels decorating the wall behind me down in rapid succession. The commotion is met with the answering caws and squawks of birds hanging in nearby trees.“What the fuck! What did you do, bro?”Jack roars as the violent display jerks us from one place to another. Struggling almost futilely to remain on our feet.One of the jewels falls on my neck, cutting me a little, and I growl, getting two responding growls from two different corners of the room.“I did not do anything more than flip the switch” I snapped, watching as jewels hit the ground, one particular one spotting a darker point - from where my blood spilled on it - than the others. This just could not get any weirder.“Flip it back then” Chris thunders, fury and fear mixing an unhealthy cocktail in his voice.“Quick” Jack concurs instantaneously, and even in this scary as hell situation, I can't help but think about how weird it is that they both agree on something.I struggle to regain balance or at the very least remain on my feet by supporting my whole weight on the vibrating wall. Stupid, I know. But it was either that or being tossed around on the equally quivering, stalagmite infested floor.I feel up the walls, searching desperately and hurriedly for the switch that preempted this very uncoordinated dance we have been doing to flip it back in hopes that it stops whatever it is I unknowingly started, but come up short.“Can't. Find. It. Guys” my voice is vibrating almost as hard as the walls and floor, so there is a tremble to my words that makes it almost incomprehensible, and I doubt they even heard me.“Wait. What?” Jack yells at the same time that Chris yells, “You have got to be shitting me”I guess they both heard and understood me then.“Damn.Damn.Damn.Damn.Damn.Damn” Jack sputters repeatedly “This place might be hunted dammit”“I wonder what your first clue was,” Chris quips.There was a bite in his tone that let me know he was scared shitless, but that did not let me overlook the fact that they were back to being at each other’s throats.Just then the domineering, deafening roar of thunder, accompanied by a swift flash of lightning, its sidekick, knock my flashlight out of my hands and sends me to the floor where I roll around involuntarily until my head collides with a jewel roughened wall; and darkness rushes up to meet me in a cold embrace.***This adventure was the height of it, I guess Izzy was right all along. This petty fantasy of ours was getting too dangerous, now too dangerous to have caused the thin air disappearance of my best buds. It all felt wrong when we entered the cave anyways from the discovery of a tome-like diary that seem more like a Grimoire to the finding of the switch, but the curiosity of every explorer always clouds his judgement that he would see danger and rate it no harm. To hell with this damned place and to ashes with this cursed thing.
Social Media Icons