by Melissa Frey
They had landed in a small room. With the exception of the shaft they had just descended, the room had only one exit—a tunnel that led further into the darkness. Grady shuddered. Why on earth is this here?
Grady suppressed the thought and went back to examining the room they currently found themselves in. Especially the floor. He wanted to be sure he knew where they were walking before they took their first step.
“Grady, look at this.” Kayla’s light was focused on the wall next to her.
Grady took a cautious step over to her, leaning down to examine the wall illuminated by Kayla’s flashlight. He didn’t see anything. Was he missing something?
“There’s nothing here,” Grady tentatively offered, hoping he wouldn’t sound utterly stupid.
Kayla shook her head and pointed, seemingly oblivious to Grady’s concern. “Look closer.”
Now Grady saw it—saw something—but he couldn’t tell what it was. Even from a foot away, he couldn’t quite make sense of it. But then, he didn’t read Mayan very well. Not as well as Kayla, anyway. “What does it say?”
Kayla’s brow furrowed and she bit her upper lip as she concentrated on the tiny symbol etched into the wall. Grady studied her face closely, fighting a grin. The expression on her face was so . . . well, cute.
After a few lengthy seconds of confusion, recognition suddenly flashed across her face.
“What is it?”
Kayla drew a sharp breath, and Grady instinctively tensed. This couldn’t be good.
Kayla exhaled pointedly before offering an explanation. “A few days ago, just before I left for the flight here, I received an anonymous package in the mail.” She hesitated, frowning.
“What was in the package?” Grady prodded.
Kayla glanced back at the wall, eyes wide. “This symbol.” She pointed at the small hieroglyph they’d been examining. She didn’t continue, but Grady waited. He sensed she wasn’t done.
He was right. Kayla was reaching for a chain around her neck, pulling something out from underneath her shirt, something attached to the chain. She pulled the chain over her head, handing it to Grady. “This was inside.”
Grady’s eyes fell on the charm at the end of the chain, then shot to hers before he took the necklace. Kayla continued. “This is the Mayan symbol for lightning—well, the universal symbol for lightning, but the way it’s chiseled definitely points to Mayan origins. That’s what’s here, on this wall.” Kayla pointed again. “Can you see it?”
Grady leaned in closer to the wall. Suddenly he saw the image for what it was, a tiny replica of the shape in his hand. “Of course!” How did he miss that before?
Kayla cleared her throat. Grady thought she sounded almost . . . nervous. Why would she be nervous?
“This charm . . . what if it’s a warning? To stay away? What if . . .” she swallowed hard. “Maybe we shouldn’t be here.” Grady saw something new flash across her face. It almost looked like . . . fear.
Grady abruptly felt an inexplicable urge to comfort her. “I’m sure we’ll be fine. How would whoever sent this know we would find this room? It doesn’t make any sense.”
Kayla slowly nodded, but somehow she didn’t look reassured.
Grady tried a different approach. “Look, let’s not worry about it now, okay? Let’s see what we can find down here tonight, and worry about the charm tomorrow. Agreed?”
Kayla looked past Grady and bit her lip.
He lifted a hand to touch her shoulder, then rethought it and lowered his hand. Instead, he moved directly into her line of sight and stared directly into her eyes, not moving until she met his gaze. “Agreed?” he repeated, refusing to back down. Something told him that Kayla wouldn’t give in otherwise.
Kayla hesitated a moment longer, then sighed. She nodded once. “Agreed.”
Grady smiled at her, then, without thinking, draped the necklace over her head. His hand brushed her forehead. For an instant, he took a half-step back. Then he steeled himself, took a deep breath, and stepped toward her, reaching for her hand.
The warmth of her hand caressed his skin. This was something he could get used to.
Before she could guess what he was thinking—he hoped—he pulled her toward the dark tunnel. “Come on. Let’s see what we can find.” He flashed a smile in her direction.
She attempted an answering smile. Grady’s smile widened. At least she was trying.
Kayla ducked low to avoid a small stretch of low ceiling, wincing as she saw that Grady had to bend nearly in half to continue.
She hoped this tunnel opened up soon. It felt like they had been walking for hours, and she could feel claustrophobia slowly setting in.
Several long minutes later, the beam of Grady’s flashlight was no longer illuminating the rocky walls of the tunnel in front of them. Instead, it seemed the walls were gradually moving away from them, opening into what appeared to be another room. Kayla sighed in relief.
Just before they reached the room, Grady stopped abruptly. Kayla had to jerk to a stop to avoid running into him. “What is it?” she whispered, not sure why she felt the need to keep quiet.
Grady apparently didn’t have the same need. “Look.” His voice echoed back to them quickly, bouncing off the walls of the invisible room in front of them. A hand shot out to stop her from going any further. “The floor drops off.” He shined his flashlight over the edge. The floor was a good twenty feet below them.
Kayla flashed her light around the opening and into the black room. There didn’t appear to be a way through the room. With the aid of her light, she could just barely see an identical opening on the other side; they could get down, if they really had to, but couldn’t get back up. Kayla didn’t like that idea.
Kayla studied the space around her more closely, her light piercing the darkness erratically as she searched. A leaning, partially decayed wooden post was stuck in the ground just to her left. She leaned over to see the other side of the post, the side that faced the room. As she expected, a thin shred of rope dangled from the base of the post. There must have once been a bridge that crossed this room, but it had long ago rotted through.
She sighed. “I guess we’ll have to bring a ladder in the morning.” She started to turn around, but Grady was frozen in place. Something had caught his attention.
Grady stared at the room’s ceiling, which was softly illuminated by his light. Hanging from it, at inconsistent intervals, were roots from the trees above. They dangled into the dark space like tendrils that would certainly catch a person in their grasp if anyone ventured too close. Grady shivered at the thought, quickly trying to put it out of his mind.
Because he had an idea.
“Kayla . . . how much do you trust me?” He smiled deviously as he said it, realizing as he did that there was probably no way she would trust him enough to follow his plan. Especially once she heard it.
To his amazement, Kayla just smiled back at him. She actually looked . . . excited. Like she was up for anything. She stood up straight in the small space and put a hand on her hip. “What’ve you got?”
Grady shook his head at her, still smiling, then chuckled before speaking again. “I had a crazy idea.” He flashed his light at the roots hanging just above their heads. He reached out and grabbed the nearest one, then pulled on it, testing it. “You in?”
He didn’t need to explain the plan—he could see immediately that Kayla understood. Despite her initial enthusiastic response, he saw a hint of apprehension flash across her face before she buried it. She shrugged. “Sure, I guess it’s worth a shot. I just wish we had some rope or something.” As she said it, the mask on her face slipped. Apprehension was back, not so quickly hidden this time.
Grady had to hide a smile as he handed her the first dangling root.
“You’re loving this, aren’t you?”
Grady’s smile broke through; he couldn’t help himself. “Of course. Adventure, mystery, a beautiful woman . . . what more could a guy ask for?”
Kayla releas
ed the root with one hand to punch him playfully in the arm. He pretended that it hurt. “Ow!”
Kayla wrinkled her nose at him, letting go of the root and stepping back from the ledge. She crossed her arms stubbornly and nodded toward the entrance. “You go first. Maybe you’ll get lucky and the roots won’t collapse and kill us both.”
Grady just reached for the first root and grinned.
Kayla followed him out into the darkness, their flashlights stowed in their pockets, the lantern on Grady’s belt swinging lazy circles around the room but offering little help in dispelling the suffocating blackness. Only Grady’s steady breathing told her he was still there.
“How far across is this room?” Her whispered musings were swallowed up by the darkness as she stretched to reach the next hanging root. She struggled to remember how large the room had looked in the light. It hadn’t been very big, had it?
A moment later, she thought she heard something—Grady’s feet landing on the ground, maybe? She was sure it would’ve been accompanied with a yell if he’d fallen nearly thirty feet to the floor of the room, and besides, she probably would’ve heard him land. So did that mean he’d reached the other side . . . ?
Suddenly, there were no more roots in front of her to grab on to. Her heart raced as panic threatened to set in. What was she supposed to do now?
But then she remembered what she’d heard, and surmised that maybe Grady had reached the other side after all. She hoped. She tentatively stretched her hand out farther in front of her . . . and her palm hit a smooth and invisible rock face. She slowly ran her hand down the rocky surface until she found the upper edge of the opening, her heart pounding in her chest.
Then Grady’s hand was there, pulling her into the tunnel. She let him pull her down, her breathing rapid as her heart tried to pound through her chest. Without thinking, she leaned into him. After only a second’s hesitation, she felt Grady’s arms slide around her as he pulled her to his chest.
Leaning heavily into Grady’s embrace, Kayla felt herself relaxing. Her breathing started to slow down and she felt her heart start to return to a normal pace. Who knew she would be this—anxious—in the dark? It had never freaked her out before.
Once her breathing was back to normal and she realized what she was doing, she abruptly jerked away from Grady’s chest. She coughed once as she took a step back and instinctively straightened her clothes. “Sorry,” she muttered.
She could hear the smile in Grady’s voice. He actually had the nerve to sound smug, too. “It’s fine. It was . . . nice.”
Kayla wanted to hit him for the second time in just a few minutes. Instead, she did the next best thing: she pulled out her flashlight and shined it in his direction. The sudden bright light blinded them both, but she took comfort in the fact that the light was directly in his face. That’s what he gets for being so smug about everything.
“Sure, whatever.” Kayla pushed past him when she could see again and headed down the tunnel. She heard him follow close behind, but she refused to turn around. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing the embarrassment most certainly plastered all over her face.
But as they continued down the tunnel, the embarrassment faded and Kayla began to remember what it felt like to be in his arms. How comforting it was just to have someone care enough about her to hold her until she calmed down.
She almost snorted. Her mind was playing tricks on her. Grady had no reason to care about her. He was probably just put in an awkward position and did the first thing that came to mind.
Besides, she’d been over this. She couldn’t let herself get involved with anyone, especially anyone she worked with. Again. And not at this point in her life, when she had just gotten everything she’d ever wanted—a prestigious job in the field she loved, a nice condo near the university . . .
She sighed. She couldn’t even think of anything else. She’d let her work consume her life, so much so that now she didn’t even have one. Brilliant.
Kayla started to notice the tunnel opening up again. She braced herself for another drop-off, but one never came. Instead, the tunnel opened up into—well, blackness. Her light was swallowed up by it.
Thankfully, the floor of what had to be a huge room met up with the floor of the tunnel. No more climbing from hanging roots again. At least not until they had to head back. She swallowed hard, trying to suppress the less-than-helpful thought. First things first.
Grady came up next to her. They shined their lights into the room and tried to make sense of it, but their lights simply disappeared into the darkness.
Kayla shined her light on the one thing they could see well, the floor, and looked at it more closely. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Its sandy surface seemed safe to walk on.
But Grady had found something else. “Kayla, look at these walls.” His voice echoed back to him as his light illuminated the nearby walls of the cavern. They curved away from the entrance. “We could follow these walls and try to meet up on the other side of the room. Maybe we can get some sort of idea of how large this room really is.”
Kayla nodded. “I’m just glad we have a floor this time.” She grinned.
Grady smiled back. “Me, too.” He reached for the walkie-talkie he’d strapped to his belt before their descent and turned it on with a crackling sound. “Just make sure you keep your radio on. Don’t want to lose you in this gigantic black hole.”
Kayla clicked her radio on, testing it once before clipping it back on her belt. Just before she headed into the pitch-black room, she offered a “see you on the other side” to Grady.
Grady nodded once before heading to the right. “Be careful.” Kayla watched him disappear into the room, then turned to start her own trek into the unknown.
Kayla made her way around the room, checking her watch frequently to make sure that she didn’t miss her every-two-minutes check-in with Grady. She didn’t think there was any reason to be worried, but she kept checking anyway. If something happened to him . . .
Grady’s voice squawked through her radio just before the third check-in. “Hey . . . Kayla?”
She raised the radio to her mouth. “Yeah?”
“I’m . . . it looks like there’s something just ahead of me. I think I’m starting to see some, uh, light . . . huh. That’s weird . . .”
“What? What do you see?”
There was a long pause. Kayla could feel panic starting to rise in her chest. She held her breath for five infinitely long seconds. Then, as she slowly raised the radio to her mouth, his voice broke through the silence. Kayla jumped.
Grady’s voice sounded a little odd. “I think you should come over here. This is really strange.”
Kayla froze; she had to get to him, but she didn’t want to leave the wall—she could get lost in this huge, dark place. And she hadn’t really made much progress anyway.
Then she noticed something. Something that didn’t make any sense. Something that shouldn’t be there, something she shouldn’t be able to see.
A boulder materialized to her right. Then another a few yards beyond that.
Kayla blinked a few times, trying to figure out why she could suddenly make out more of the room. Surely her eyes were playing tricks on her . . .
The room got even lighter. She could see to the other wall now. She scoured the room, her tensed shoulders releasing when she spotted Grady a good distance away from her, looking as though he’d made only a little more progress than she had. He was standing just in front of the far wall, his back turned to her. Something was . . . well, not really wrong. Off, maybe.
The wall behind Grady, the wall he now stood frozen in front of, seemed to be the source of the light. The wall glowed around Grady, casting a surreal halo of light around him. Shadows stretched toward the middle of the room. Kayla imagined his shadow was stretching to reach her, beckoning her to his side . . .
The room lightened further, almost as if the light was on a dimmer and someone was slowly turning it up. N
ow she could almost see the whole room. It was gigantic.
But she could only think of Grady. She could clearly see him across the room now, and he hadn’t moved an inch. Had something happened to him?
She set off toward him, cautiously at first, then gradually breaking into a run. She reached him more quickly than she would have thought possible, coming up close beside him; her short breaths were the only sound in the deafeningly silent room.
His deep blue eyes were wide; he stood motionless, just staring at the wall. Kayla followed his gaze.
The glow in the room, the glow that was now shining brightly and immersing the room in light, was coming from behind the wall. Kayla inhaled sharply and impulsively reached for Grady’s hand.
As their hands met, the light behind the wall started glowing brighter—almost too bright to look at directly—yet Kayla was unable to look away.
Grady broke the silence. “Are you seeing this?”
Kayla nodded. “Amazing. How is it doing that?”
Grady shook his head. “No clue.” He blinked once, then again, then faster. He seemed to be coming out of whatever spell the light had had him under.
Kayla turned to him, her eyes now as wide as Grady’s had been. She opened her mouth to say something, but caught a glimpse of the room beyond him before she could. Her jaw dropped.
The vastness of the cavern was staggering; she hadn’t fully taken it all in before. The ceiling towered over them, easily five or six stories above their heads—probably more like ten. Kayla couldn’t believe they’d ventured so far below the surface.
The walls were roughly circular, and, at their widest point, stretched out to what had to be over a hundred and fifty yards. This room could hold an entire football field—and probably the stands, too.
But, as shocking as the size of the room was, it paled in comparison to the radiant light emanating around them.
The light, shockingly brilliant, nearly blinded them after traveling in the dark for so long. It exploded out like lightning rods from behind the glowing wall, reaching even the furthest edges of the room. Kayla was speechless.
