The Tree of Knowledge
Chapter 33: Caving

I’ve realized now what’s higher up on the hierarchy: boredom. Boredom and loneliness. I’d read my two books twice, gathered food, and worked up the nerve to kill a bat (the other bats did not claw off my face, and it smelled pungent and strange while it was roasting but kind of tasted like chicken). Having done all that, I am left with endless hours of nothingness.

So after five days in my new, dark little home, I decide to go exploring.

The object of the game is to not get lost.

The first tunnel branching off of my home winds and winds for an hour through smaller caverns filled with huge column shaped stalagmites and stalactites in shades of moss green and tan. It eventually ends in a caved in passage.

The second leads to another drop, much like the one where I came in from. Since I only have the one long nylon rope, if I use it to repel down from here I won’t be able to get back out again. I spend some time peering down into the dark depths, wondering what lies at the bottom. I’m not even certain my rope would be long enough. When I drop a rock over the edge, I never hear it hit.

The third tunnel is the biggest, and it marks the start of a maze of branching passages going who knows where. I could probably spend weeks exploring them all. But I don’t trust myself for a minute not to get lost. I imagine dying in there, shivering and watching the batteries of my flashlight flicker and die out while I slowly starve to death. Not my first choice of ways to go.

Instead, I kill time for three days gathering a bag full of Jerusalem cherries. My book tells me these are poisonous, and while not usually life threatening I would still seriously come to regret popping the cherry tomato like fruits into my mouth. But the plan is not to eat them. Instead, I toss them all in a bowl and grind them into a juicy, red paste with a little water.

I’ve made paint!

With my paint, at every turn I mark where I came from with an arrow. And there are a lot of turns; splitting right, then left, then narrowing to a claustrophobic army crawl down a narrow passage, my flash light beam sending spiders scuttling back to their crevices.

This far from the sunlight, it’s difficult to know how long I’ve been at this. Hours? Days? Minutes? My only clock is when my belly starts to growl, indicating that it’s probably around noon. I dig into a lunch of roast bat and cactus fruit, idly dreaming of Rebecca’s cinnamon rolls.

The next passage I take is another narrow one. I manage it stooping over for awhile, but eventually have to crawl again. I can hear running water up ahead, and see a faint light. Maybe I’ve found another entrance? That’s actually not good. That means someone could crawl through here and sneak up on me. When I head home, I should replace a way to block this tunnel.

I emerge from the passage and climb to my feet, dusting myself off and glancing around my surroundings.

I stare across a pool of water and realize there are people staring back at me.

There are people, gathering water on the other side of the pool. One woman screams. As fast as I can, I pull out my gun and point it their direction.

“Nobody move!” I yell, doing my best to sound intimidating, but mostly just feeling foolish.

Three of them pull out guns, pointed back at me.

“Put the gun down!” a man shouts.

“You put yours down!” I yell back.

I’m wondering if there’s any way I can back up and into the narrow tunnel without getting shot. It doesn’t seem incredibly likely.

“I think everyone just needs to calm down!” a woman says.

“Fuck calming down!” retorts a gun wielding boy. “How the hell did she get in here?!”

“Shoot her!” someone shouts.

My finger on the trigger, I’m wondering if I can manage to hit any of them from this far away. Maybe if I just fire randomly it’ll scare them enough to let me scurry away.

And then with a flash of pain from the back of my head and a loud crack, the lights go out.