The moment Kira stumbled upon the cave; she knew something was incredibly wrong. It took the blond-haired woman a few moments to realize that the forest had gone silent and the birds that were once singing hid among the branches. The way the wind seemed to die the moment she stepped near the jagged rock entrance sent chills up her spine. For some strange reason, the cave her eyes peered into felt ancient and unnerving, humming beneath the earth.
She had been hiking alone, a last-minute decision to clear her mind after a stressful week at work. The fact her boss hinted that she would be fired after the three day weekend did not help her mood.
“How the hell am I supposed to keep the numbers up if they keep raising the amount,” she grumbled to the trees around her.
Her friends often teased her about going off the beaten path, but Kira relished the isolation. Working at a call center, talking all the time made her want to avoid people. Solitude was a balm, a way to reconnect with herself after all the cynical noise from her customers. She hadn’t planned to stray this far. Kira was certain she had followed the trail, but when the trees thinned and the rocky outcropping appeared, the woman realized she was in a part of the forest she had never seen.
“Where am I?” Kira said looking around at the clearing she had stumbled into.
The cave beckoned her with its gaping mouth, a jagged crack in the earth that seemed to sink deeper than the eye could follow. The air spilling from it was cool, carrying a dampness that clung to her skin. Despite the growing unease crawling up her spine, Kira’s curiosity won over.
She had no flashlight, just her phone, but the battery was low. Still, the light was enough to make out the path ahead as she carefully picked her way into the cave, each step echoing in the suffocating silence. The deeper she went, the more the air changed. The crisp, natural scent of earth and moss gave way to something pungent, like stagnant water.
Kira knew she was being stupid, but something was drawing her in. An insatiable curiosity about what was at the end of the tunnel.
After what felt like an eternity of walking, she reached an expansive chamber. The walls glittered with moisture, and in the center had her frozen to the spot. A lagoon lay nestled in the middle of the cavern, its surface glowing with an ethereal, blue light. The water shimmered, casting soft reflections across the ceiling like dancing spirits. Kira stood at the edge, mesmerized. The glow seemed to pulse gently, as if the lagoon had a heartbeat of its own.
For a moment, the unease she had felt dissipated. It was beautiful—unnatural, yes, but undeniably captivating. Kira knelt, her hand hovering over the surface of the water. She wanted to touch it, to break the mirror surface but her hand did not move. Something about the way it shimmered seemed… wrong. The glow, though soft and inviting, felt like something grinning and trying not to show its teeth.
A sudden splash echoed through the cavern, sending ripples across the lagoon. Kira’s heart jumped, her gaze darting to the far side of the water. She saw nothing, just the stillness of the glowing lagoon and the jagged walls beyond. The water was undisturbed, but she had heard something hit it. The quiet wasn’t comforting anymore. An oppressive, weight wrapped around her lungs like thick fog trying to force her to the ground. She could not see it, but she knew.
Something was watching her.
Kira stood up quickly, backing away from the water’s edge. The light from her phone flickered, and she cursed under her breath. She needed to leave. Now. Desperately turning to find the path back, something in the water stirred again—this time closer.
She froze, her breath caught in her throat. Slowly, she turned her head back toward the lagoon, dread pooling in her stomach. Did she have time to run? Was it close to her? Was she about to die?
The glowing water began to churn, and from its depths, a dark shape started to rise. At first, it was nothing more than a vague shadow beneath the surface, but as it neared the top, Kira could make out more details. The figure was massive, its form serpentine, with limbs too long, too thin, stretching out like twisted branches. The glow of the water cast sickly reflections on its slimy, dark skin.
It had eyes—pale, milky orbs that seemed to bulge from its skull, locking onto her with an intensity that made her mind freeze in place. Its mouth, if that’s what it was, stretched open into a grotesque smile, filled with needle-like teeth that shimmered in the blue light.
Panic surged through Kira, every instinct screaming at her to run. She turned and bolted toward the tunnel she came through, but as her feet hit the rocky ground, the creature let out a sound—a low, giggling laugh like that of a child that echoed in the cavern, reverberating off the walls like a living thing. It was followed by a splash, and she knew without looking that it was following her.
Her phone’s light flickered again, the battery draining faster now as if the very air was sucking the life from it. The woman stumbled, her foot catching on a loose stone. She hit the ground hard, the wind knocked from her lungs. For a terrifying moment, she lay there, gasping for breath, her lungs refusing to pull in the air that she desperately craved. The sound of water sloshing and something wet dragging across the stone floor was audible now. It was slow but certain.
Legs finally started cooperating and Kira pushed herself up. She ignored the pain in her ankle and the tremble in her legs. She had to get out. She had to get out now! The tunnel felt longer than what it had been when she came in. The scared customer service agent ran, her breath ragged and her chest tight with fear. Behind her, the sounds grew louder, the wet dragging noise now accompanied by something else—something like a giggling whisper.
“Kira…Where are you, Kira?” Her name was drug out in a long sentence.
The voice was low, wet, but the tenor of a child. It slithered into her ears, making her skin crawl. The woman glanced back, just for a second, and saw the creature’s pale eyes gleaming in the darkness, peering around a turn in the tunnel, it’s one eye visible and half of a toothy smile staring at her with glee.
Terror gripped her. She pushed herself harder, her legs burning as she raced toward the cave’s entrance. The blue light of the lagoon still reflected in the tunnel behind her, casting eerie shadows on the walls. Somehow feeling as if they were reaching for her itself. Kira could feel the creature’s breath—cold and damp—on the back of her neck as it closed.
Then, just as the darkness around her seemed ready to swallow her whole, Kira saw a faint glimmer of daylight ahead. Sprinting the last few yards, she threw herself out, rolled and faced the entrance terror filling her wondering if it had leapt out after her.
The entrance was dark and still, the lagoon and the creature hidden dep within the earth. But she knew it was still there, lurking, watching. The whisper echoed in her mind again.
“Kira…”
“Screw you,” she hissed back.
She sat on the forest floor, trembling, her breath still shallow. Her pulse pounded in her ears, and the sunlight shone on top of her. It was still daylight and she had time to get back to the car.
She couldn’t stay there, that was for sure. Gritting her teeth, Kira pulled herself to her feet, wincing as her weight shifted onto her injured leg. She needed to get far away from the cave. No more curiosity. No more exploring. Just survival.
As she limped through the forest, the trees around her seemed ominously still, as if the very world was holding its breath. She kept glancing back over her shoulder, half expecting to see those pale, bulging eyes staring at her from the shadows between the trees. But nothing followed her.
After a few minutes, Kira finally reached the familiar trailhead that marked the beginning of the hiking path. Relief washed over her. She knew her car was just a few more minutes awake but her ankle was screaming louder every step of the way.
Kira’s phone was nearly dead now, but she tapped the screen to check for a signal. Nothing. No bars.
“Shit,” She cursed under her breath, scanning the forest for any sign of other hikers, but she was alone. The growing dusk stretched the shadows longer, the daylight fading fast.
“Just keep moving,” she muttered to herself. “You’ll be fine once you get back to the car.”
As she hobbled along the path, a gnawing thought surfaced in her mind. The whisper. That thing in the cave had said her name. It knew who she was. How? A chill rippled down her spine as her mind raced through the possibilities. Maybe she had imagined it. Maybe her terror had twisted the sounds into something she could comprehend. But no matter how much she tried to reason with herself, the whisper had felt real. Too real.
The sun dipped below the horizon as she reached the edge of the parking lot. Her car sat where she had left it, the only vehicle in sight. She fumbled with her keys, her hands shaking as she unlocked the door and collapsed into the driver’s seat. Shutting the door with a slam, she exhaled a shaky breath, locking all the doors before slumping back against the headrest.
For a moment, Kira sat in the stillness of the car, her mind racing, replaying the events in the cave over and over. The creature, the glowing water, that voice—none of it made sense. It felt like a nightmare, but she knew it had been real. Her ankle’s sharp pain was proof enough.
With trembling fingers, she started the car. The engine’s rumble was a comforting reminder of normalcy, something familiar during everything she couldn’t explain. She put the car into gear, ready to speed down the narrow forest road and never look back.
As the tires crunched over gravel and dirt, Kira glanced into her rear view mirror. The entrance to the hiking trail slowly disappeared, swallowed by the thickening night.
Home. All she wanted to do was go home. She glanced in the rear view mirror and something caught her eye. Just barely visible in the dim twilight, she saw a faint glow. A soft, blue light shining through the trees. Her breath hitched, and she forced herself to focus on the road ahead. It was just her imagination. She was exhausted, shaken, her mind playing tricks on her. The highway was only a mile more.
The further she drove, the more her panic began to settle. The radio buzzed faintly as she turned it on, hoping the music would drown out her thoughts. But the signal was weak, crackling with static. She twisted the dial, trying to find a clear station, but all she got was more hissing and buzzing.
“Kira…Where are you going? I want to play with you.”
She jerked the wheel, her heart slamming against her ribs as the whisper sounded by her ear. She looked in the mirror and saw no one in the back seat. The car swerved slightly before she regained control, her eyes wide and her hands gripping the steering wheel tight.
“No, no, no, no!” Kira whimpered.
The road stretched out before her, endless and dark, the trees pressing in from either side. She pressed her foot harder on the gas, the car speeding up as the headlights carved a narrow path through the night. Her heart pounded in her ears, drowning out every rational thought. She had to get out of there—get as far away from the forest, from the cave, from “It”.
But as the car sped down the winding road, the blue glow appeared again, flickering in the distance through the trees. It was following her. No matter how fast she went, no matter how far she tried to drive, the light was always there, faint but persistent.
“Come on, Kira. Let me play. I want to feel your sinew strain as we dance to Sarnithis’ song. Listen to the song your voice makes as we dig into your nerves.”
The whispers were coming from every direction now. It seeped into her mind, cold and wet, wrapping around her thoughts like the touch of something long buried in the depths. She slammed her hands over her ears, trying to block it out, but the voice only grew louder.
It was only in that instant before the crash that Kira realized that she had taken her hands off the wheel. The vehicle careened off the road and into the gully. The crunch of the brush and thud of hitting a stump silencing everything.
Dazed, she tried to force the door open and after a few pushes it popped open. Kira fell to her face and tried to force herself to stand. It was only now that she realized the blue light was around her that reality came rushing back. She had left the safety of the car!
Kira could not run, wet, sticky incredibly long fingers slid over her scalp from behind and she let out a cry as the sharp claws dug into her forehead to hold her. The woman felt herself being lifted off the ground so that her legs were dangling a good two feet from the forest floor. The searing pain swept through Kira’s lower back as the impossibly sharp claw pushed through her skin and nicked her spinal column causing her legs to go limp and useless.
“There, there, Kira,” it giggled in her ear, its breath smelling like rotting fish and earth. “Don’t fight it. I look forward to giving you the privilege of being twisted into perfection for Sarnithis. He enjoys such beauties as you.”
She did not know if it was the pain or something about the creature who was dragging her to a torturous fate, but she could see in her mind, the following morning where the wardens would find her car miraculously back to where it had been, undamaged and the keys sitting on the cushion. They would look for her. For two weeks nobody would find her. They would even search around the cave but never see it, but it did not matter, she would have had her limbs and bones snapped and re-arranged into something beautiful for ‘it who breaks the veil’.
One thing was for certain. No one would see Kira again.
(C) 2024 by Jonathan Snyder. All Rights Reserved.