Paulina, a rotund woman, groans while rolling her dark brown eyes.

“Are we done, I wanna go back to the hotel. We’ve been walking for hours in this freaking pine forest.”. Wearing blue athleisure clothing, and black, dressy sneakers, she leans her back against the dusky, flaky bark.

“Come on cuz, it’s only two hours. Man, would you rather be stuck in a room? Like at work, all day in a stuffy booth doing nails. Or would you rather a nature walk on an island? In an open space with fresh air. Take a break from the same old, same old.”, said Narah, a stout woman with box braids. She stops walking for a moment.

“But girl, I also want a break from this walk. My foot hurts. And we don’t know the wildlife here. What if something attacks us?”, Paulina said, holding herself, observing the multitude of tall, thin trees, and the patches of thicket. She starts to walk with Narah, airing out her short, wavy, navy-blue weave.

“Why you gotta be like that. You said that before, and you know what? We never got attacked yet. Maybe there isn’t any … human-eating wildlife. You’re just looking for an excuse.”. Narah who’s wearing active clothing, and red running shoes, stops and turns to her.

“Why don’t you like doing new things? Look at me. Look at my new black bird shirt.”. Narah pulls on her white tank top that has a picture of a black swan sitting with open wings, and red eyes, on the front. “Look at the nature, man.”. She spins around with her palms facing up. “It’s awesome!”. Paulina scrunches her nose, glancing side to side. Narah jogs to the other tour-guideless wanderers. “Come on cuz. My favorite cousin. I love you.”, she said with a menacing smirk.

Paulina trails behind with a sneer. She surveys the surroundings, holding her arms. A stick cracked beneath her. Abruptly, she turns. The sound of flapping topples down from the thin canopy.

“Wh-where’s that coming from.” She quickly pivots around, tightening her hold. Her eyes suddenly lock onto a shadowy figure in the shrubbery. Her heart batters her chest. A chilling sensation slithers from her head to her spine, seizing her breath. She takes a step back. Unexpectedly, a loose branch falls. The end of it grazes her dark, cool, oak-colored leg as it lands with a thump. Her scream erupts from her mouth. Numerous birds fly out of the nearby trees and shrubbery, twisting the air around. Needles, pines, and sticks from above, land on her as she darts to Narah and the other ten hikers. She shouts, “They’re coming! They tryna eat me! I saw them! They attacked me!” Three of the hikers screech, then run away. The rest of the group follows their lead down the lengthy gentle slope.

The panting group find themselves in front of an extensive fissure on the elevated rocky terrain. The hikers talk among themselves.

“Should we go inside the cave?”

“What about them cave animals, like bears? They might be inside.”

“They have bears here?”

“I don’t know?”

“None of us researched this place?”

“They’re not here now. Let’s just hide from the thing that’s chasing us.”. One of the hikers begins to walk backwards.

“I can lure the creature away and maybe find help.”

“But bea, I don’t want you to—”

“Don’t worry, I’ll be safe.”. The muscular woman with light, cool, spruce colored skin winks at her thin, warm and dark aspen color skinned boyfriend, then runs back to where they came from, shouting.

“She’s a simp. Shouldn’t the guy do that?”, Paulina questioned, following the others.

“Did you see her, man! Besides, she volunteered. She’s grown, and probably stronger too. Whatever works, works. Now let’s go in the cave.”, said Narah. Paulina turns to her.

“Girl you trippin. She’s getting help.”

“She may be the strongest person here, but that doesn’t mean she’s gonna win against a … What animal was it anyway?”, Narah said as she and the others traipse into the cave. Paulina trails behind them.

“Girl, I-I don’t know. I didn’t get a good look at them.”. Narah pauses, resting her hand on the entrance.

“Them?”

“One was hiding in a bush, and the rest were behind me. When I started to run away, I felt the wind as they were tryna get me. An-and, I think one of them grabbed my leg here.”, Paulina said with a tear in her eye, pointing at a long line of pink flesh budding red, on the side of her left leg.

“Come inside so we can give you a band-aid.”

“Nah. Who knows what kinda cave dwelling creatures that might be in there. I’m staying here for a few minutes then I’m leaving. I’m going back to the hotel.”

“Paulina, come on cuz. Man, I’m not staying out here to fight those … whatever they are. Everyone else is going deeper to explore. We’re gonna be safer in bigger numbers. Now let’s go.”

“I said no Narah. I don’t wonna to explore. I wonna go back to the hotel, period.” Narah pulls her head into her neck with the corner of her nose raised. “Whatever was chasing us is probably following that woman. We can escape now, before things get worse.”, Paulina remarked. Narah responds with exaggerated head movements.

“If you’re gonna be like that, well fine. Have fun walking back by yourself. I hope you don’t get lost.”. Paulina’s face becomes twisted as she watches Narah’s warm, light, fir-wood colored skin disappears behind the crooked, thick line of darkness on the rocky hillside. Paulina clasps her arm on top of each other, looking around frantically.

“Maybe they’ll come back soon. How deep can a cave be?” Paulina hides between some bushes at the edge of the cave’s entrance.

After several moments of constantly looking over her shoulders and shifting around at every little sound, Paulina whispers to herself.

“They’re trippin. What’s taking everyone so long? An hour, really. We’re supposed to go out for dinner soon.” She creeps out of the bushes, examining the area. Paulina confronts the cave’s threshold. “Augh! Narah knows the way back. And I ain’t tryna face those animals alone again. Narah! Are y’all done in there! I wonna go back! And eat real food! Narah! Girl! Narah!”. She inches closer to the cave. “Narah?” Paulina looks around. She takes a deep breath, then heads in. “Maybe I should just call nine one one.”. She dials the number. Before she can answer, she walks into a spider web just beyond the threshold, off to the side. Paulina yells and catapults her phone, while brushing herself wildly. “Aah! Get it off! Get it off! Where is it?”. She runs out of the cave. Outside, bending over and holding her knees, she gathers her breath. “Where’s my phone?”. Paulina looks at the cave, groaning. She drags herself back in.

Paulina finds herself in an orbicular area with blackish-brown, uneven walls containing shallow ridges, and soda-straw formations, hanging from the low ceiling. The area has a thin layer of mud. She inspects the warm and frowsty, somewhat lit cave. Paulina searches for her phone amidst the gritty ground as it gently slopes down, while the ceiling becomes higher with drapery rock formations. She starts to call for Narah with short echoes. Only the birds chirping outside respond. She reaches one end of the small cave. She starts to walk backward to another end, looking around.

“What? Where are they? There is literally no other place to go—” Paulina plummets into a wide hole on the ground.

She smacks against the serrated wall during the fleeting fall. At the bottom, Paulina finds herself groaning in a large, light-brown, shapeless cavern, with torn clothes, lacerations and bruises dripping blood. Shuttering on her hands and knees, her sight darts around the dirt-less, dim cave, that’s filled with different infinitesimal levels of flowstone formation, and a few stubby stalagmites. The cavern’s ceiling is crammed with various stalactites, drapery and soda-straw formation. The cavern is littered with spiky, multitudinous walls, a few pillars, and a myriad of glassless windows and entrances. Paulina jumps onto her feet, looking up into the tunnel, screaming for help.

“Someone please come get me! Help!”, she shouted with prolonged echoes. Tears stream from her eyes. Her breathing suddenly intensifies in the earthy scented still air.

She probes around, eventually finding her phone. She turns on the phone and waits for it to reboot. Immediately after, she tries to turn on the flashlight with the shattered screen, from the quick menu. Just then, something catches her eyes through an enormous hole in one of the cave’s craggy walls. She staggers closer.

“Are those bodies?”, she shouted. “Narah, where are you! I-I need help. I’m stuck, and can’t get out. I got scratched really bad. Someone, help me! There are dead bodies here. Narah!”. Her voice bounces off the walls. After a while, her ears were crammed with the deafening quietude of the cavern. She pokes her head through another extensive hole, sniffling and squinting. Her eyes dilate as she wipes her nose. Far below in the darkness is a much larger cavern with a stronger earthy smell. The cavern is yellowish white with various patches of dark-yellow stains. Assortment of long stalactite and drapery formations hang above the countless pools of still, limpid water. The ground is sate with yellowish, stalagmites, pillar, flowstone, and column formations. Her legs crumble underneath her. She slumps onto her knees, then crashes onto the ground, guzzling air. “The air is so stuffy. I feel so weak.”, she said as her eyes closed.

Paulina suddenly finds herself standing in front of the extensive fissure. 

“Arugh! I need to focus. My phone!”. Paulina frantically pats herself all over. She slowly faces the crack. She groans and tip-toes in. She stands in a yellowish, round cave that’s enclosing short stalactites and stalagmites. “Where’s Narah?”. She gasps and dashes through a large hole in the textured wall. “Narah? Girl, I hope that’s not you.”. She slides to the body shaped mass, like a baseball player sliding to the next base. “Phew, these just rocks.”. She walks back to where she was, ignoring the missing entrance. Paulina investigates the tunnel that appeared above. She analyzes the downward facing denticulated rocks, coating the inside of the tunnel. “There’s no way I can go back up there.”. She grips her dusty biceps while inspecting her surroundings. She takes a deep breath, then walks into one of the three openings. “I hope this is the right way, I ain’t tryna get lost. There’s probably an exit they came out of. Or did they get lost?”. She rubs her arms as she enters the middle path.

Paulina squeezes through the crevice, and into a tight, light-brown passage. Her uncut skin skims over the jagged wall that’s filled with ample, shallow cavities.

“I hope this isn’t too long, period.”, she said to herself with pursed lips. She starts to call for Narah. The narrow space progressively becomes wider with gigantic holes on the walls and ground, increasing in number. “Am I trippin, or this isn’t so bad.”, she said with a smile. “I just need to watch where I’m going. It’s kinda pretty in here. What’s that?” Paulina squints, leaning forward. A glimmer twinkled in her eyes. Hurriedly, she treads out of the cramped passage with an ajar mouth. “Oh wow, this is beautiful!”. Paulina saunters around the blackish-brown cavern. It’s infested with vibrant blue opal, bulging out of every wall, pillar, column, stalactite, and stalagmite that permeate the area. “Girl, I wish Narah was here.”. Paulina continues forward through the basins of clear water, lined with the gemstone.

She enters a small, yellowish, oval-ish cave with short stalactites and stalagmite, just like before.

“It’s really quiet in here.”. Paulina looks at the three different paths. “I’ll go here.”. She walks to the opening on the right. She enters the light brown tunnel that’s wide as her wingspan. Large holes occupy the coarse wall and elevated ceiling. Paulina stops for a second, looking around. “It’s so quiet.”. Her shoulders elevate as her head sinks inside the space between. She grasps her elbows. “Where’s everyone?”. After a while, Paulina finds herself in an immense blackish-brown cavern with opal peeking out of every wall, stalactites, stalagmites, and puddles of grayish water. She presses her arms against her stomach and calls for Narah. Moments later, she fortifies her grip. “Where is everyone? And why is it so quiet? This isn’t right—” Paulina twists her neck, looking behind with a rigid body. “H-hello.” Silence suffuses the cave after her long echo. “I thought I heard … it’s nothing.”. She continues onward.

Gradually, a lurking feeling creeps into her chest. She stops again, trembling and scanning the area.

“Girl, it’s nothing. I’m just trippin. It’s okay. It’s all in my head.”, she reassured herself with a restricted deep breath. She presses on. Paulina finds herself in a small, yellowish, oval-ish cavern with short stalactites and stalagmite. “Hold up. Have I been here before?”. She suddenly gasps, and spins around. She rubs her arms. “I know I saw a—” she frantically peers around. Paulina rushes into the opening on the left. She looks back. “Now I know something in here watching me. I can’t be the only living thing here. It’s too quiet. What’s going on?”. Promptly, she proceeds onward inside a cavern resembling the narrow passage from before. Paulina begins to unceasingly keek over her shoulders. “Why is it so quiet? There’s always nature making noise.”. A rock falling echoes throughout the cavern. She halts for a second, then advances down the tapering path as the walls become more textured and sharper. Paulina reaches the end of the tightly squeezed area and into another cavern. The area seems wall-less. The ground is dark brown and grainy, as well as the ceiling. “I wonder if all the wildlife is hiding from something. Like a huge monster hidden somewhere.”. The cavern becomes foggy and darker. “Maybe that’s why it is so quiet?”. She becomes still, staring ahead with widened eyes. “Maybe that’s why she is not answering.”

She traipses into a different section in the blackish-brown cavern, that’s contaminated with opal. Her eyes sodden with tears.

“We knew nothing about this place. I told you the wildlife might be dangerous.”, she said with a broken voice. She starts to sniffle. “W-we could’ve been at dinner eating, not being eaten.” Paulina suddenly steps on something squishy. Immediately, she looks down. Tears deluge her sooty cheeks as she starts to whimper. She balls up her hands and presses them against her stomach. She slowly moves her foot. “No! This … oh my Gleam! Your pretty red shirt with the black bird. You were excited to wear it. It’s all torn. What thing did this to you?”, she said, staring at Narah’s mutilated body. Suddenly, a low grumble transmits in front of her.

She slowly looks in that direction. Her eyes lock onto a pair of inordinate dark purple eyes. The hair on the back of her neck bristles. She quivers as vapor rolls off her lips, as her warm breath intensifies in the gradually freezing cave. The huge creature plods closer in the thick fog, revealing its massive bear-like paws and legs. It roars, displaying sharp pendant teeth inside a gigantic, curved, dark gray beak on the end of its small round head. The breath of it dissipates the fog, and brushes Paulina’s short, wavy hair back. She screams, sprinting away. The creature starts to gallop after her with its bulbous, slightly gelatinous, dark gray body. Paulina runs into a diminutive hole in the craggy wall. She leans against the short tunnel. “Girl, what is that thing?”, she asked herself. The creature smacks into the wall. Paulina eyeballs it. The creature has round ears, and a long neck saturated with long, hard spikes that become thinner and shorter as it trails down to its mid back. The creature’s tail is large and shaped like a fully fanned crow’s tail.

She starts to smile at the gray creature’s attempts. It suddenly squeezes its soft body through the hole. Paulina’s smile drops as she veers around, running forward. She finds herself in a yellowish white cavern with sharp black diamonds jutting out on every inch of the jagged walls, pillars, columns and soda-straw rock formations. Her eyes dart around. She then glances at her feet, soaking in a large puddle of blood. She stumbles back with a twisted expression and agape mouth, pressing her hands against the black diamonds. A shriek escapes from her lips as she instantly removes her now bleeding hand. Muffled, the creature roars. It’s dark purple eye with a white pupil, pops out of the hole. Slowly, the rest of it oozes out. Paulina swiftly wades through the blood as it gets deeper.

“Girl, I see it! Haha!”. Paulina climbs out of the waist-high pool of blood, and crawls through an opening.

Paulina finds herself in an immense brownish-gray cavern with low ceiling and a singular narrow walkway in the middle of an abyss. The area is filled with rocks of different sizes protruding from the far walls that’s cluttered with diverse spikes and holes, as well as the walkway understructure. Paulina warily tightrope on the narrow path. All of a sudden, the creature smashes into the cave, sending debris towards her. Boulders crash onto the bridge, cracking it, while some fall off to the sides, echoing its way down the dark chasms. She screams and cowers. As the creature shakes the debris off its face, the sound of millions of feet marching congest the cavern. Paulina peeks over the edge. Her lungs plummet into her stomach as she watches thousands of spiders crawling out of the holes in the bridge’s substructure, and the walls below. Few spiders drop from the stalactites above onto her. She frantically brushes them off, nearly losing her footing. She then starts to run across the narrow path.

The creature dashes towards her, losing every other footing, as the bridge starts to crumble under it. Paulina looks over her shoulder and watches the creature drawing nearer. She trips, nearly sliding off. It jumps over Paulina as she hits the ground. The creature lands a few feet from her. The bridge begins to deteriorate under its paws. It slowly creeps closer, grumbling, as she tries to scurry on to her feet. Abruptly, the bridge collapsed under the creature. It tumbles into the abyss. Paulina manages to stand. She scrutinizes the gap between her and the exit. She cries.

“I can’t make that jump.” Behind her, a sea of spiders reaches the top of the platform, steadily making their way to her. Her breath sharpens as she watches it. She peeks over the edge. The creature’s eyes glow back at her from the blackness below. Paulina scans around. “H-ha ha, ha! Over there!”, she shouted. The creature bellows. The crescendo sound of its claws clinging onto the substructure, scrapes her eardrums. Paulina launches onto a rock branching out from the bridge understructure. She then jumps to a lower level. She sees the creature climbing out of a hole on the bridge’s substructure just below her. For a quick second they made eye contact. A part of Paulina’s soul absconds her lips. The creature roars again, rattling the cavern and what’s left of her psyche. Paulina dashes and leaps onto a textured arc that’s next to her. With all her strength, she vaults into a tunnel ahead.

She finds herself in a large, black cavern containing hundreds of stalactites. A warm, bright, yellow light suddenly emanates from ahead. The light source broadens as she stares at it with a smile, and tears.

“Girl, I’m finally out! Thank—” a large stalactite crashes down in front of her. She looks up. The creature begins to roar. Stalactites above start to sway. She gasps as she covers her mouth with her scummy, bloodied hands. The creature breaks through the wall. The stalactites jerk ferociously. Paulina screams exude through her fingers. She sprints towards the light. The creature thunders closer with each step. Stalactites rain from the ceiling. Paulina maneuvers through the storm. She glimpses over her shoulder. The creature gallops on, as the stones bounce off its body. Suddenly, a huge stalactite lands a few inches from her. She crashes into it. Paulina instantaneously turns around with leaky widened eyes, and dusty wounded hands covering her mouth dripping blood. The creature skids to a halt just a few feet from her and stands on its hind legs. It roars with its chest. All of a sudden, the yellow lights become warmer and brighter. The creature quiesce and slowly backs away on all four-leg. Eventually, the cave permeates with the blinding light.

Paulina opens her eyes, with her lungs grasping the air. She peers around her blurry surroundings.

“She’s breathing! She’s breathing!”

“It’s not a total loss. We have a survivor! She may have brain damage, but at least she’s alive.”

“I can’t believe she survived in a cave with only eight percent of oxygen.”

“She’s probably the one that called and went in last.”

“Good thing she did, because that other hiker couldn’t find the way back …”. Paulina mumbles.

  “Where is Narah? I want to go back home.”.