by Don P. Bick
Chapter 34
Darkness. There was nothing but complete, absolute and total darkness. The last time Druc had experienced anything like it was the night he arrived in this land, the night he had spent in the lotus flower. Not really sure what had happened or what he did to trigger the door mechanism, he turned around and tried to exit the dark. The stone slab was right behind him but it was solid. He couldn't go through it and he could find no opening. He stepped back a step to retrieve the stone lighter from his pocket, and one of the torches from the knapsack still on his back, and stepped off into space.
Screaming as loud as he could out of fear, Druc fell. Down and further down he went. There seemed to be no end to the fall. As he fell he continued to scream. He screamed until his voice became hoarse. He expected to hit the bottom at any time, crushing the life out of his body the instant he hit. But he kept falling and screaming until he could scream no more.
Just as he quit screaming a strange thing happened. His rate of descent slowed. Just as he had resigned himself to death once more, thankful it would probably be a quick one compared to the last time he had experienced it on Saturn, he stopped falling altogether. He could feel ground beneath his feet once again. Did he really fall or was it all in his mind?
Shaking, and on the verge of vomiting, from the knot of fear in his stomach, he pulled out his lighter and reached in the knapsack for a torch. He couldn't hold his hand still and was unable to light the torch on the first try. His lighter was only good for three or four lights and he couldn't remember how many times he had used it, if any, since the last refilling. He waited for a short while, until his heart quit pounding quite so hard and he was shaking less, then he tried the lighter once more. This time the torch caught. In a couple of minutes the darkness started to recede as the fire took hold of the torch and lit up the area around him.
Druc stood in a small cavern, on a level floor of square cut stones, tightly laid in random patterns. Behind him was a step approximately two feet high, with a narrow ledge running below a large stone slab. The slab had the outlines of a door etched into the rock in the same dimensions as the one he had entered. Could it be, thought Druc, that it is the very same door he had entered and the fall was nothing more than a couple of feet? How could that be? He knew he fell for several minutes, or at least he thought he did. Could this be some kind of mind illusion, a traveling of consciousness like the last time he died? Perhaps that was it. He died in the fall and this was where he ended up, just like before, only it isn't a lotus flower this time.
Druc stepped up onto the ledge and examined the stone slab. Although he couldn't be sure, it appeared to be just like the one he came through. He felt all around it, tried pushing on it, but was unable to cause it to open. But he was convinced that it was the door he had come through.
He wasn't convinced that he had just died, however. Although he certainly wasn't any expert on the subject, for one thing he still had on his clothes. The last time he didn't have his clothes. In fact, he didn't have a thing when he arrived in the flower. And what about his lighter and the torches? He still had them with him. “No,” Druc said out loud, “I don't think I'm dead this time.”
The doorway, whether or not it was the same door, was a dead end. Druc turned back to the cavern and began looking around. Although the room was small, he couldn't see the far side very well. The torch cast more shadows on the opposite wall than it did light.
Jumping off the step, Druc braced himself for a repeat of the fall he had just experienced. Nothing happened except he landed on the floor below. He walked across the square cut stones to the opposite wall. There etched in the rock was another large stone stab with a door outlined in it, exactly as the other.
Druc put his hand out the way he had the first one. It opened and he was instantly on the other side. He couldn't remember taking a step, just arriving on the other side. These must be one-way doors, Druc thought, trying to regain the control he had lost out of fear during the fall. He was feeling a little better. He was half expecting another fall or something even worse to happen as he went through the door, but nothing did.
Before him was a narrow corridor. The floor was stone, laid the same as the cavern floor. Before he continued on, he tried to go back through the door. Nothing happened. It was solid, the same as the first door. He knew without a doubt that this was the door he had just come through so that confirmed his suspicions. The doors only worked in only one direction, at least up to this point.
As his courage began to build, he started down the corridor. He could see no end to it. Druc thought, why him? All the others had pushed on the door and tried every which way to gain entry, but none had gained access. He somehow held back, or, as he was beginning to wonder, was he held back until the right moment? Perhaps any of the others would have been able to go through the door, if they had come out alone in the night as he had done. But somehow he didn't think that was true. He was beginning to believe that he was the one meant to enter the stone slab door and no one else.
The corridor began to slope downward after a while. Still, Druc could see no end to it, nor were there any corridors branching off. He kept walking. It began to get warmer the further down he went, until it became downright uncomfortable. He started sweating heavily. Still there was no way to go but to follow the corridor down. He couldn't go back.
The first torch began to flicker out. Before it died completely Druc quickly grabbed another one from his knapsack and lit it with the old one. He hadn't paid much attention to it, engrossed as he was with looking ahead, as well as behind. He needed the light and the lighter may or may not light anymore. He couldn't take the chance of using it again unless it was an emergency. He didn't have his refill oil or any of the things he normally carried in his pack. He had only intended on checking out the door before going to bed.
It became harder to breathe, and it was terribly hot. The sweat poured off of him, running into his boots and making a noise as he walked. Druc didn't see how he could continue much longer if it was going to get any hotter. He had no water and was starting to become thirsty. But he had no choice but to keep moving forward down the corridor.
There, up ahead, he could see another stone slab. Druc picked up his pace until he reached it. The corridor abruptly ended in front of the stone slab etched with another doorway, just as the other two had been. He went through easily, only to find he was in another corridor. This time there were holes in the floor.
Druc walked up to the first hole and held his torch out over the darkness. As far as the light traveled down into darkness, there was no bottom. The holes were so deep he had to make sure that he didn't fall into one. They weren't very wide, about three feet across, and he could easily jump that distance. Before jumping over the first hole, he walked back and checked the door just to be sure. It was also one-way.
Druc worked his way down the corridor, jumping the pits of darkness every few feet. The heat was still there but it didn't seem to be getting any hotter. It didn't feel quite as bad as it had before, or maybe he was becoming somewhat used to it.
The second torch finally began to go out, so he lit a third. He only had five in his knapsack when he left the cave, plus the one he was carrying. He left the one he was carrying outside the first stone door when he began to investigate it. That left only two torches in his pack, after the one that was now lit burned out.
Druc began to tire from jumping the bottomless pits. That was what he had begun to call them. The heat and loss of fluids from his body was beginning to take its toll. Just when he thought he couldn't make one more jump the corridor ended at another doorway. Without hesitating this time he went through, and immediately began falling. He dropped the torch and even though he could see the floor a couple of feet below him, he couldn't reach it. He kept falling. Fear gripped him once more, but he was determined not to scream. He knew he wasn't really falling. It was just an illusion, in the same manner the door was an illusion.
The fall didn't
last as long as the first one. Perhaps it was because he had retained greater control over his fear. In any event, the sensation of falling ended. He stood on the floor once more, two feet below the ledge and stone doorway. Druc bent down and picked up the torch, his heart was still racing from the shock his system had just undergone. Before moving on, out of habit, he hopped up on the ledge and rechecked the door. Nothing. He didn't really want to go back that way and re-jump all those holes anyway.
This corridor was much cooler, and still it sloped downward. There was an occasional pit to jump but not many. The going was much easier than the last section. He made faster time going down this corridor. The third torch was replaced by the fourth as Druc approached the next door.
Going through this door Druc steeled his mind for another fall. It didn't happen. Instead he was surprised to find himself inside a large cavern. It was much colder in there than the last corridor. In fact, it was real cold, uncomfortably so.
Druc walked around examining the walls for another door, just assuming there would be one. There wasn't. He went around looking until the fourth torch was finished, then he lit the final one. He was beginning to feel a bit panicky, thinking he would be stranded in this room far beneath the ground without any light.
He felt his way along the wall hoping a hidden door would be reveled when his hand touched the right place. There wasn't any. Eventually he gave up, sat down on the floor and put the torch out. He didn't want to use up the entire torch for no real purpose. Whether or not the lighter would re-light it, he didn't know. He had no choice but to take that chance.
It was cold and dark. Druc sat shivering on the floor, lonely and without hope.
