Chương 139: The Cave of Spirits.
The entrance to the cave was a narrow loophole that could be easily mistaken for an ordinary cleft, no more than a meter deep. This was one of the reasons why only someone who knew about it could find this place.
"We definitely came to the right place, right? What I see in front of me is no more than a regular hole in a stone, except perhaps a bigger one. Such we have already met along the way," Daniel looked skeptically at the entrance. Somehow this place did not fit with its menacing name. "Somehow this spirit has got a very modest mansion," he said. Four days of his torment and sleepless nights were for this?
"Do not judge the book by the cover if you want to leave this place safe and sound," Sam commented on the tart words of the elder Anderson. "When you go inside, hold on to the left wall and do not let go of your hand from it. So you will pass about fifty meters, and in front of you, there will be an open area with several entrances. You will need to count from left to right up to fifteen. That exit, which will be the fifteenth, will be the very entrance to the cave," explained the guide.
"Can't you just say which one of them? Left, right, middle? Why to count?" Jun asked.
"Ahaha, that's why I say that you are naive and do not understand anything. The number of entrances changes each time. I do not know how this happens, either this is an optical illusion or one space overlaps another, I heard a lot of theories, but the essence is the same - you cannot trust your eyes. Therefore, simple counting is the most effective way. This is what mom told me."
"Okay, thanks for the tips, Sam," David thanked the guy.
"No need to be grateful, not knowing what you thank me for, if you get out of there alive, then you can add a couple thousand above as a bonus," Sam grinned. He was not friendly but did not wish them to be hurt either. Therefore, the idea of getting a great financial bonus from above reassured his sense of conscience, which decided to wake up at the most inopportune moment. "I will not go further with you, but so be it, I will wait for you at the bottom, near the car. But I'll wait for you only til the evening! I am not inspired by the idea of spending the night near this place," he waved his hand and went downstairs.
The company watched their guide go, and turned in the direction of the cleft.
"Well, who is first?" Daniel asked uncertainly.
"Ahaha, chickened out already? You can wait in the car if that is so," David grinned and winked at his brother. He himself doubted whether to go there all together.
"I'm with you and don't even think of leaving me here," Elena immediately stopped all his possible attempts to leave her behind. Whatever happened, she intended to stay close to him.
"Well, if so, go ahead!" Jun commanded gaily and stepped into the crevice. But as soon as he lifted his leg, David immediately grabbed him by the collar, "Whoa, hold it, little horse. Where are you going? You will be in the end. First I will go, then will come Elena, and then you and Daniel. Look after them, okay?"
Daniel nodded his head, "Yes, boss!"
The crevice was narrow, but as they squeezed inward, the walls expanded in unexpected ways and they plunged into complete darkness.
"So, stop! Do not move! What did Sam say? Keep your hand on the left wall. Is everyone ready?" David, by default, took the role of a leader upon himself. They lit the flashlights on their heads and the walls of the cave glittered in various colors.
"Wow, holy Moly! What kind of stones are these?" Jun froze, spellbound by the rainbow highlights emanating from the walls. Minerals of different colors, interspersed in the walls of the cave, reflected the light of the flashlights in tune to their shades, creating the illusion of a huge kaleidoscope changing its design with each step.
"Oh, let's take a selfie! I bet, this will be the coolest photo of the year! Then we will sell it to some magazine for a lot of money!" Daniel's proposal did not cause great enthusiasm among friends. "C'mon, you guys! Just wanted to defuse the tensions here. But you know, if seriously, I now understand why you need to hold on to the wall. Looking at such beauty you can easily get confused and turn the wrong way."
"Oh, even the stopped clock gives the right time twice a day, yes brother? Do you still have bright thoughts in your head?" David grinned wickedly.
"Hey, do you think I have two higher education degrees out of nothing?! Or have you already forgotten who is the youngest Nobel Prize winner here, eh?" Daniel took his brother's joke as a reproach but willingly entered his game.
"Do you always talk like that? I'm surprised that you haven't crippled each other after so many years," Jun was genuinely amazed by this style of communication. In whatever situation they were, these two brothers would not miss the moment to prick up each other. Even now, walking along this beautiful, but slippery and cold wall, they were joking and arguing among themselves, as if it were an ordinary pleasure walk. Were they not even a little scared?
"Yes, baby Junie, this is how David and I love each other since childhood, so get used to it. You'll get a dose of that too when you get home," Daniel patted the guy in front of him on the shoulder.
"Ahaha, well, no, I don't need such happiness," Jun laughed and his internal tension decreased. It seemed to him that he was the only one who felt insecure in this strange and incomprehensible cave, but he did not dare show others his worries.
Elena silently followed David and smiled, having communicated with these extraordinary brothers a little longer, she already understood that all these humorous conversations were nothing but a way to defuse the situation in which they were now.
"I think I see the entrances Sam was talking about," David lit up the way ahead and saw several tunnels going in different directions.
"Excellent ... ah," Elena tripped over a stone, and to keep her balance, she reflexively pulled her hand away from the wall. At that moment her eyes were flooded with white light, and then everything instantly went dark.
"What the hell?! I almost went blind! What was it now?" Daniel took the flashlight off his head and flipped it several times, but the flashlight stopped working. They all were standing in complete darkness.
"Hmm, it looked like a power surge, and the light bulbs in our flashlights just burned out, but only how?!" Jun started poking around in his backpack, looking for another flashlight.
"It's useless, it seems, electrical appliances do not work here. Daniel, get the signal flare, you should have one in your backpack. I will light up mine too." David found the rocket in his backpack and lit it. A bright red flame lit up the arches of the cave. Before them there were several tunnels, the only thing left was to choose the right one.
"Sam said to count left to right, right? Who to entrust this honorable mission? Elena-" David turned around, and an eerie cold ran through his body. He raised the pistol flare light up to illuminate as much space as possible. "Where is Elena?" His question, like a bolt from the blue, made the other two turn around. The girl was not with them.
"I... I don't know, she was definitely in front of me before this flash of light blinded us," Jun began to recall what happened at that moment, but he was sure that he had not noticed anything unusual.
"Damn, it couldn't be worse," David's heart began to pound quickly, an unpleasant feeling began to seize him from the inside, "Elena!" He shouted in the fullest power of his voice, and her name echoed through the cave tunnels in different directions. Then there was complete silence. He called two more times, and only the third time he heard a slightly choked voice in response, "David? David, I'm here!"
The voice of the girl came from the entrance nearest to them, the men turned in that direction.
"Hey, don't you think it's strange that her voice comes from there? How could she be there?" The atmosphere in this place did not inspire confidence, and Daniel was ready to suggest anything after the guide's stories.
"Ok, you stay here, and I'll go check it out. Don't go anywhere, we'll be back here," David pulled a second pistol light out of his backpack and went into the tunnel.
. . .
'Damn, how could I catch my foot?!' The girl mentally reproached herself, trying to find the flashlight button on her head. "David!" Elena screamed, but there was silence in response. "Damn, why is it so dark?" She began to dig in her backpack to find something to illuminate the space. Thank God, she had no fear of the dark, otherwise, it would have been a serious problem.
"Elena!" David's voice came from far away.
"David, I'm here!" The girl shouted as loudly as possible, found the pistol light in her backpack, and lit it. As soon as the red light illuminated the space, the first thing the girl saw was the wall.
"W-what? What the hell?" She turned her head, but there were only walls on both sides. Elena intended to turn in the opposite direction, but her body froze on the spot. This unpleasant feeling, like a hundred spiders crawling over your bare skin, bound the girl from head to toe. She felt that gaze on her back again.
"Pffff..."
The pistol light fell from Elena's hands and rolled on the ground. Her heart was pounding like crazy. No, she definitely wasn't mistaken, it was definitely someone's breath.
"Who is here?" She asked faintly, unable to turn her head and look at the creature behind her back.
"What do you think?" An insinuating male voice sounded right in front of her ear, his hot breath touching her skin.
"The... The spirit of the cave?" She tried not to panic, but her body began to shake by itself.
"Are you sure that the spirit is capable of such a thing?" After these words, Elena felt the man's fingertips slip down her cheek, burning with cold. His hand went down smoothly along her torso. He grabbed her around the waist and pulled her close.
No, it was definitely not a spirit. It was a human.
The girl's knees trembled, but she could not even move, as if this man had paralyzed her only with his presence.
He removed the disheveled strand of hair from her face, brought it to him and breathed in her scent. The hot breath of this man was so close that it seemed to Elena that she even felt it through her clothes. The longer he was holding the girl, having pressed her to himself, the stronger the feeling of disgust filled her.
"Who are you? What do you want?" She asked, gathering the last bits of courage, but the tremor in her voice betrayed her worry.
The girl heard a slight laugh, after which the man answered, "You look so much like your mother, E-le-na," he whispered in her ear.
These words like a bolt of lightning pierced the girl. It was him. That man without a face.
"You, it was you who was chasing me and my mom, right?" She asked, to be sure of her assumptions.
The man turned her around, and the girl saw a black impenetrable abyss in front of her.
"Ask me this question when we meet again, baby," he kissed her cheek and pushed her down. Falling into the darkness, the girl managed to see only a malicious smirk on his face, illuminated by the burning red light behind him.
. . .
Elena fell to the ground, but at the first attempt to get up, her legs gave way, and she collapsed down again. The girl rose again and looked around. The dim red light on the left and the familiar voices made her legs go by themselves, quickening her pace.
She turned the corner and saw Daniel and Jun standing next to several tunnels leading into the depths of the cave.
"Elena?! How did you? You..." The men were surprised to see the girl behind them, as David had just gone inside one of the tunnels, from where they could clearly hear her voice.
She was pale as if she had just seen death, and the only thing she wanted right now was to press herself against David so she could calm herself down even a little.
The man came out with a torch, and she ran towards, but he seemed not to notice her, turned around and went back inside.
"Hey, Elena, David! What the hell are you doing? Can't you wait for us?!" Daniel shouted indignantly and rushed after his brother and the girl, but Jun stopped him.
"Stop! Something is not right here! David entered this tunnel, so why did he come out from another one?"
At this point, Daniel realized that his brother had actually come out not from the tunnel which he entered.
"There's a dead end and no one's there, most likely, a voice came from another place."
The men turned around and froze on the spot. David himself came out to them, in his hands was a signal light and a backpack. "Did Elena show up?" he asked with obvious anxiety on his face.
"Um, just now... She ran after you there," Jun pointed to one of the entrances.
"What do you mean, after me? I have just come here," the man did not understand what the guy meant.
"That's exactly what we are talking about. If you are here, then who was it before?"
All three fell silent and stared at one of the entrances to the depths of the cave.
. . .
"David! There, just now, I met that man, he is also here!" The girl shouted to the man after him, but he seemed not to hear her. She quickened her pace and reached out to grab him, but her hand went through the air.
Elena stopped short. The figure in front of her stood with its back to the girl.
"You-you- are not-David, right?" Elena's lips quivered, she had not yet recovered from meeting an unknown man who had made her whole body grow cold with horror, so now there was something in front of her. And now she was sure that this was not a human.
The figure turned, and with David's face and an absolutely strange smile, it answered, "Right."
The creature took a step forward, the girl backed away. She felt how the air around her grew darker and heavier, the ground disappeared under her feet, and Elena felt herself falling into a dark abyss, moving farther and farther away from the dim light until it disappeared completely.
. . .
She did not know how much time had passed, maybe a minute, and maybe several hours, but the pain in her head made it clear that she was still alive.
Elena opened her eyes and looked at the ceiling. The vaults of the cave were no longer as dark as before, and it seemed as if sunlight was filling the space to make it lighter. But how could the sun rays come into the cave?
She wanted to get up and look around, but a strange noise made her freeze. It looked like the fate decided to bring her to a heart attack today, constantly throwing unknown creatures on her way. Is this why people don't go to this cave? Apparently, the guide had his reasons when he warned them about this place.
The girl took a deep breath. Well, and who is it going to be now? But she did not have time to think about it, as the male voice made everything completely clear,
"Oh, long time no see. And you know how to surprise. What brought you here, my little kitten?"
She did not need to turn around to understand who it was. Of all the possible options, it was the only one that did not come to her head. The girl was sitting with her back to the man, and this man, no doubt, was him. Rick Stein himself.
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