Chương 107: Chapter 107
Lawrence never thought he would mess up. It was just another dive, another day in the cave. He had been at it for years, alone, just him and the tunnels that seemed to breathe with him. The darkness inside those caves felt like home. He had mapped hundreds of miles, memorized the bends and cracks, always careful, always meticulous. He knew how to get out.
That day, though, something was off. Something in the air, something under his skin. It started the moment he lowered himself into the water, the cold bite of it making his teeth chatter. He didn't know why he felt uneasy, but the feeling gnawed at him, deep in his gut.
The cave was quiet, a perfect silence that usually gave him peace. He could hear the echo of his breath, the soft splash of water against the walls, but nothing more. It was always like this, until it wasn't.
The first warning came when he noticed the rope. The line he had set up earlier, a safety measure, was no longer in the place he left it. At first, he brushed it off, thinking it was just a mistake. Maybe he hadn't tied it properly the last time. But then he saw it again. The rope wasn't just out of place. It was tangled, frayed at the ends, as though something had pulled on it from below.
He paused. There were no animals down here. No predators. Nothing that could have disturbed it.
The feeling in his stomach twisted.
He reached for his light, but his hand froze before it touched the switch. The water rippled unnaturally, as though disturbed by something heavy moving beneath the surface. Lawrence's heart beat faster. He shouldn't be scared. He had done this a hundred times. He had explored deeper, more dangerous caves, but this... this felt different.
His breath quickened. There was no explanation for it. No rational reason. But the fear in his gut was real.
He turned the light on, the beam cutting through the water. It swept across the walls, the ceiling, the floor—nothing out of the ordinary. But then it stopped. His breath caught in his throat as the beam landed on something strange.
A crack. A fissure in the wall. It wasn't supposed to be there. He knew the cave. He knew every inch of it, and this—this wasn't part of the plan.
He pulled himself closer to inspect. The crack was narrow but deep. It extended far beyond what the beam of light could reach. Lawrence hesitated. Something about it felt wrong, but curiosity got the better of him. He reached out, touching the jagged edge of the fissure with the tips of his fingers.
A soft tremor ran through the rock.
The hair on the back of his neck stood up. That wasn't supposed to happen. He yanked his hand back. His mind raced. He should leave. He should turn around and go back. But the pull was strong. Something was calling him deeper.
Lawrence took another breath, this time steadying himself, forcing calm back into his body. He moved forward, carefully, towards the crack, his light flickering in the darkness.
It was harder to breathe now. Not because of the cold or the air, but because of something else—something suffocating, like the walls themselves were closing in.
He tried to ignore it.
The crack led into a wider tunnel, one that Lawrence was sure he had never seen before. The walls here were damp, slick with moisture. The air smelled stale, like something had been trapped for far too long. He followed it. There was no sound now. No echo of his footsteps, no drip of water, just the thrum of silence.
His head felt fuzzy. He pressed on, the passage narrowing further. His hand brushed against the walls, every movement slow, deliberate. Something felt like it was crawling underneath his skin. His fingers trembled as they touched the cold stone.
Then, his light flickered.
It went out.
A curse rose in his throat, but it caught in his chest. Darkness swallowed him whole, and for a moment, he couldn't breathe.
It wasn't normal. It shouldn't have happened. The light had been new. There was no reason it should have died, not here, not now.
He fumbled with it, twisting the switch, shaking the torch. Nothing.
Panic crept in. He cursed again, louder this time, but the sound didn't feel like it belonged to him. It felt distant, like he was calling out from somewhere far away.
His mind raced. He had to get out. He couldn't stay here. Not in this dark, not in this quiet.
But when he turned to go back, he saw it.
A figure.
At first, it was just a shape in the darkness, but it grew clearer the longer he stared. A human shape, but wrong. The body was bent in strange angles, twisted in ways Lawrence didn't think were possible. Its limbs moved with a jarring, unnatural rhythm, like it wasn't quite sure how to use them.
It wasn't standing still. It was crawling toward him.
Lawrence's breath hitched. He turned, trying to find his bearings. The walls pressed in, closer than they had been before. He couldn't see the tunnel ahead. He couldn't see the way out.
The figure was closer now. Closer than it should have been.
He stumbled back, his legs scrambling to find purchase, but his foot slipped. He hit the ground with a thud, the air knocked from his lungs.
And then, the thing was on him.
The cold, clammy hands grabbed at his arm, dragging him back toward the crack in the wall. Its breath, if it could even be called that, reeked of decay. It pulled him into the narrow gap, the walls scraping his shoulders, his chest.
He didn't scream. There was no time for that. There was no room for noise here.
The crack opened up into something far worse.
The darkness stretched out like an endless void. The walls were made of something other than stone, a flesh-like substance that pulsed with every movement. The air was thick, heavy with the smell of rot. Lawrence's head spun. He fought, tried to push the thing off him, but it was too strong. It was a part of the cave. It wasn't a creature. It was the cave itself, alive and hungry.
He tried to push his way back, to scream, but the walls closed in, tighter and tighter. He couldn't breathe. He couldn't see. His chest was crushed beneath the weight of it. The thing, the cave, the suffocating dark—they all consumed him.
There was no more Lawrence.
And the cave kept breathing.
Somewhere, far away, above the surface, someone would find his gear. His last dive would be forgotten. Just another casualty of the caves. But in the depths, Lawrence was still there, tangled in the walls, suffocating in the silence.
He wouldn't be coming home.
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