Kapitel 239: Chapter 239
Sam had always been drawn to the deep, silent places of the world—the caves, the tunnels where no one dared to go. The Amazon was no exception. It had taken years to hear of the hidden cave system buried deep in the thickest part of the rainforest, its entrance swallowed by vines, trees, and forgotten lore. Most adventurers who tried to find it never returned. That was all Sam needed to know. The danger was part of the allure.
He arrived at the outskirts of the jungle, backpack heavy with supplies. Sweat soaked through his shirt within minutes, the humidity thick and suffocating. His guide, a local who spoke little but understood the forest in ways Sam couldn't, led him through the towering trees. The thick canopy blocked most of the sunlight, casting the ground below in perpetual dusk. It was a silent place, the kind of silence that pressed in on you, almost oppressive.
The guide didn't look back, moving like a shadow through the forest. Sam struggled to keep up, the weight of the air and the weight of his own excitement making his movements clumsy. He wanted to ask questions, to prod, but something in the guide's posture warned against it. There was a tension in the man's step, as though he was afraid of something that might hear them if they spoke too loudly.
Eventually, they came to a clearing, and there it was—the entrance.
The cave mouth was nearly swallowed by vines and thick moss, dark and forbidding. It looked like it had been untouched for centuries. Sam's heart raced, his fingers trembling as they brushed over the jagged stone. There was something in the air here. Not the oppressive heat of the jungle but something colder, older, like a warning. But Sam was too far gone, too deep into the obsession to care. He pulled out his flashlight and flicked it on, the beam cutting through the thick darkness like a knife.
The guide stood behind him, motionless, arms crossed, staring at the ground. His eyes never once shifted to Sam.
"You go in," the guide muttered, his voice strained. "But you come out. You hear me? You come out."
Sam gave him a nod, though he didn't think it would matter. He'd been to caves before, countless times. This one was just like all the others. He walked into the cave, the light from his flashlight bouncing off the jagged walls, casting long, distorted shadows. The air inside was cool, a stark contrast to the jungle's suffocating warmth. But something else was there too, a scent—faint, like damp earth and decay. It lingered, clinging to the back of his throat.
The ground beneath his boots was uneven, and the walls seemed to narrow as he pressed further in. Every step felt deliberate, as though the cave was watching him, feeling him out, letting him pass—but not without cost. The deeper he went, the more the air seemed to thicken, the silence growing heavier with each passing moment.
Then, he saw it. A carving, etched into the stone, so faint it could have been mistaken for a trick of the light. It was a symbol, crude and ancient. It looked almost like an eye, but the lines were wrong, the proportions twisted. The flashlight trembled in Sam's hands, the light flickering once, then stabilizing again.
He stepped closer, brushing his fingers along the carving. The stone was smooth, unnaturally so, as though it had been worn down by something far older than any human hand could have achieved. A feeling crept over him, a sense that he wasn't alone in this place. The feeling was nothing like the thrill of discovery—it was something darker. Something hungry.
The flashlight flickered again, this time more violently. Sam cursed under his breath, slapping the side of the light, but it kept flickering. Then, just as the light was about to cut out entirely, a sharp sound echoed through the cavern—a scraping noise, like stone grinding against stone.
His heart skipped a beat.
It was coming from behind him. Sam turned, the light catching the narrow passage he had just passed through. Nothing.
Another scrape. Closer this time.
He took a step back, then another. His breath quickened, the noise reverberating through the cavern. And then, as if the cave had decided it was finished with him, the wall in front of him shifted. Slowly, painfully, it groaned and moved, revealing a new passage, one Sam hadn't seen before. The walls seemed to pulse, like something living, something breathing.
Without thinking, Sam found himself walking toward it. He wasn't sure what was pulling him—whether it was his curiosity or something else, something deeper. He was drawn into that darkness, into the unseen, and he couldn't fight it.
The passage twisted and turned, the walls narrowing until the air felt thick, suffocating, like it didn't belong to him anymore. The scent of decay grew stronger, mixing with the damp, the stench of something ancient and wrong. Sam's footsteps echoed in the confined space, louder than they should have been, as if the walls themselves were amplifying his every movement.
And then, at the end of the passage, he saw it.
A stone altar, slick with some black, tar-like substance. Atop the altar was a figure, coiled in an unnatural position, its form obscured by the shadows. It was not human, not any shape he could recognize. The longer he stared, the more his mind tried to push it away, to make sense of it. But it didn't make sense. It was wrong.
It was there that Sam made his mistake. His hand, trembling now with a fear he couldn't name, reached out for the altar, the stone cold under his fingertips. A low growl, like a rumble deep in the earth, vibrated through the air.
And then, the stone moved again.
A crack split the altar's surface, and the figure began to stir. The darkness in the cave seemed to gather, thickening like a living thing, creeping up Sam's legs, pulling at his mind. The scraping sound returned, louder now, more insistent, as the stone creature—no, whatever it was—began to shift. Its body was jagged, like broken bones jutting out at unnatural angles, wrapped in layers of something that might have been skin or scales.
Its eyes, black as pits, opened slowly, fixing Sam with a gaze that seemed to pierce right through him.
"Leave," it rasped, the sound not coming from its mouth, but from everywhere—above, below, around him. Sam's breath caught in his throat.
His mind screamed at him to run, to escape, but his body didn't move. He was frozen in place, as though the cave itself had taken root in his bones.
Then, the altar split fully open, and from the depths of the darkness beneath it, something reached out.
It was a claw, long and twisted, followed by another, dragging itself out of the stone, pulling the creature free. The air in the cave shifted—no, not shifted. It fled—like the very oxygen in the cavern was escaping into the void. The ground beneath Sam's feet shook, the walls rattling, groaning, as the world seemed to crack open. The clawed hand reached for Sam, and he stumbled backward, finally managing to turn and flee, but it was too late.
The cave was alive now, the walls closing in, the very stone shifting and warping as though it were a living thing. His flashlight flickered one last time before it died. The darkness was absolute.
He ran, stumbling through the twisting passages, but the walls no longer followed the path he had taken. The ground beneath his feet cracked open, swallowing him whole. His body hit the floor, pain shooting up his spine. He crawled forward, trying to find any escape, but there was nothing. The stone was closing in on him, every direction leading to more darkness.
Then he heard it, clear and undeniable: the sound of footsteps behind him, heavy, slow, deliberate. He turned, but it was too late.
The cave had claimed him.
And in that final, desperate moment, Sam understood the truth. It wasn't the cave that had been waiting for him—it was something far older. Something that had always been there, waiting for the right moment to emerge.
And Sam had been its catalyst.
Wöchentlicher Energiestatus
-- Power-
Rangliste 
-- Power-
Stein