“It cannot be seen, cannot be felt, Cannot be heard, cannot be smelt, It lies behind stars and under hills, And empty holes it fills, It comes first and follows after, Ends life, kills laughter.” - J.R.R. Tolkien
We saw the already weak light vanish before us, tons of solid, cold rock collapsing behind us but we never gave up, well, until now. Our water and food soon finished and fatigue came in. Most of our friend's cold, vulnerable bodies were under that pile of rock. We have already passed our first night, I couldn't sleep, there were shadows in that dark cave, they moved, writhing, twitching...
There was also that scratching, never-ending, high pitched...
The next day I started exploring the empty cave but with no results. We were stuck, but when I returned to the group I could see heavenly beams of light filtering through the walls, but what I saw, illuminated by the light, was unearthly.
Dismembered bodies, severed limbs, and dry corpses, full of flies. Flies! If there were flies there could be an exit to the surface!
I couldn't look anymore at the massacre so I turned around, willing to search for an exit, full of hope, but behind me there were figures, dark, bloody smiles, emotionless faces, black, empty eyes... They sat there, unmoving, unblinking...
They were the things we tried to repel by sleeping, the real light...
“We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.”-Plato