The Maze of Madison: Chapter Two, Into the Dark

Chapter One

Chapter Two: Into the Dark

As we passed through the mouth of the cave, it felt as though we were entering something darker than merely the absence of light. The cold of the wind whipped around the mouth and twisted our hair and pulled at our hoods. It was far from silent. Yet as we went in, as we progressed, the light, the sound and the wind itself receded.

There was a howling.

But it became distant.

There was light.

But it faded.

There the shadow of the dark wrapped itself around us, coiling and gripped and embracing us. It was still very, very cold, but the darkness seemed to tell the air: be still. These are either my guests or my victims. I have yet to decide. So leave them be and let me make my decision.

The air felt as though it were thickening around us. Its grip tightening.

Needless to say, for a teenager, that was pretty freaky. My heart pounded. I kept wetting my lips. I was really, truly scared. Tobias seemed to tremble. I am sure had I asked him, he would have said it was the flickering torch from the MadLife tree. I also knew he was full of cock and bull at his age.

We moved slowly, carefully. The sounds seemed to intensify. The howl of the wind, with is fierce warning at the entrance was fading. The light, that blessed light of the sun, died away as well. Some small part felt there ought to have been a sign ‘Abandon all hope…’ placed when the first turn came up. At that moment when the last pale light of the entrance was gone. When the explorer would have turned the corner, made the choice to go farther, deeper, darker.

Our eyes seemed to adjust as well. What we were not noticing before, we now did. The floor was smooth, but not so much a person walking would have a problem with sliding. It was also smooth enough had we wanted, we could walk without shoes. That would have been dumber than a brick given how cold it was, but I am just describing the floor.

The walls were strange. They looked chiseled at, least in the beginning, but smoothed afterwards. They had some age to them, or so it felt, but that can be affected. We couldn’t really tell what we were seeing. Something old? Something new? It definitely wasn’t blue though.

At least at the start, there were no forks or branches. We were not prepared for that. I was cognizant enough that had there been a way to get lost, I would have forced us back outside. Tobias would have grumbled and groaned, but he’d give in. He was being macho, possibly for my sake, which was a slightly uncomfortable thought. Then again, he might have been that way just because he thought he was supposed to be that way. One couldn’t be Armin Singh or Indiana Jones without showing off the bravado. People can be hard to understand at times. Even those whom are your best friends. Why and what and how they do things, that is a huge question mark at times.

Whatever. My mind had wandered to deal with the fear.

We encountered another turn. This one went left. The previous one had could right. This would be taking us further into the mountain then. The amazing thing was there was no sign of water. There were glaciers above, perched on the mountain like a dragon upon its gold, there were rivulets and streams snaking off the icy dracon’s flanks, yet here, within the tunnel, it was completely dry. It was another sign, of where we were, was made.

We turned left again. It had seemed like an eternity since we first entered the engulfing blackness, but it had only been thirty minutes. Thirty minutes! We had been walking in the large for that long. Cautiously, after all, haven’t you seen scary movies? I mean, the monster or killer always jumps out if you are not careful. And as far as we knew, we were the first people to have ever been here. I would have guessed we would have covered three times as far had we walked our normal pace to head back home in the woods. However, we were being careful.

Our footsteps had been the loudest thing. But we heard…something. We moved foreward and our hearts pounded again. Monster? Madlife critter lost within? We didn’t know. We couldn’t know. It was simply too dark. As we walked, for what my booster counted off as being ten minutes, the noise got louder. It seemed echoing, deafening in the enclosed space.

And then the corridor opened up.

It appeared to be a natural cave.

It was huge.

Perhaps a cavern might have been a more accurate description.

It really was huge.

And the noise was clearly an underground river or stream. We couldn’t see it just yet. The cavern was large enough it was echoing. It made me a bit nervous. Could this place all fall down? Water had a way of wrecking rock.

We might not have been able to see much, but our path continued into the chamber. We ventured off, carefully! We are not complete morons to take a look at the walls. They were natural. There was little to no sign of any working on them. We didn’t check all the walls, but enough to make us sure we were actually in a cavern instead of a large, made chamber.

We returned to the path and walked further, carefully and starting to seem like were expecting an attack. It was actually pretty comical when a Tobias found a MadCat skeleton stuck on the edge of the path. He yelped. I squawked. Then I hit him. Not hard, but enough to show my displeasure. Clearly, it had wandered in. Clearly, it was lost and couldn’t find its way out. And Clearly, it died in here.

We pushed on and into the blackness along our path and we reached a bridge. Yes, a bridge. A made one. Carved from stone and obviously lain down across the underground stream. The stream was much louder than it had any right to be, obnoxious thing it was. We crossed the bridge and it was very ornately carved. The symbols were not something I was aware of and my booster definitely didn’t get a signal out to Madison’s newborn net. Despite what they show in Immies (immersive entertainment or education), radio doesn’t penetrate rock very well.

I looked closely and made sure to snap pictures of whatever was here. My booster took the images from exactly what I saw and downloaded them into itself. It would upload them to my virtual space when I got back online. We had been recording the entire time, of course, but it is not something I do unless I am worried or want something specifically recorded. I do like my privacy and Tobias knows my preference. Some people record EVERYTHING they see for their entire lives, they stream their experiences to their boosters, all their sensations and even their thoughts as they have them. There they save them and create virtual spaces. Some people even sell their experiences. We had a few here on Madison. Unfortunately, they were not very welcome socially. People didn’t want the rest of humanity to know how they lived in detail. A docusperience was one thing, but a live stream of one’s entire existence was another. I was pretty sure that the streamers would stop as they felt the social pressure. Their ratings would fall and that would be that: who wants to sit inside the experience of a depressed person all the time?

That’s sort-of what I was doing now, but this was meant to be in case something bad happened to me, so people would know what had actually happened and avoid it. I was also doing specific detail shots as well. Still meant to be preserved at a higher than normal resolution. I was no cyborg, but the human eye was pretty impressive.

I finished documenting the bridge and Tobias was amused. He didn’t see the point. It was a bridge. A stone one. One made and lowered into place. Someone could probably come and take a look later. We were here for ADVENTURE. I gave him an eye roll and rose.

And then we pressed on.

We made to the other side of the chamber and promptly found a door. It was locked. And it had a puzzle on it. To get through we were going to have to solve it.