Story by gordon the friendly dragon

Dave finally found the light at the end of the tunnel, but it wasn't exactly what he had been expecting. He'd lost his only light source, a tiny plastic squeezable flashlight that he kept on his key chain, after he tripped over his own feet. His only tool, the only advantage he had in the light forsaken pit he'd stumbled into, and he let it get swallowed by the darkness. He could still remember the sickening feeling rising in his stomach as he blinked the afterimages of the cavern out of his eyes and tried to remember the arc of the keys as they left his hands. Clink, chink, scritch went the keys in the darkness.

He could almost hear the shiny surface of his house key begging for a glimmer. Pleading for the faintest shimmer so it could call out to him, but no light would find it. He'd crawled on his knees, hands probing the cold stone around him. At first he tired not the think of all the horrible things lurking in the crevices as he plunged his fingers through layers of mud and grime, but soon his hands lost feeling from contact with damp fifty five degree stone and he couldn't be sure they hadn't scrapped across metal. He had to trust his ears to detect his only chance for escape.

It could have been days that he searched the ground around him. Three times he fell asleep searching, and continued his search when he awoke. He searched the floor and walls until he became as familiar with the cracks and holes in the stone as he was with the keyboard on his computer or his remote control. He became intimate with that twenty foot stretch of tunnel, but it would not yield up his keys, so he left. If he had no light, then he would continue on without it.

He walked into a spider web in the first few yards. Sticky stands wrapped his face and hands. Imagined arachnid horrors worse than anything reality could offer ran eight legged races over his flesh. In his terror he put his foot into a water filled hole and nearly broke his ankle as he tripped. A jagged outcropping slowed his fall, but did horrible things to his face, and he came to rest in an inch of muddy muck. He lay on his stomach, frigid water seeping into his underwear, and began to cry. Hot tears rolled down his cheeks leaving clean streaks on a grimy face that would never again see the light of day. Great sobs echoed round his head, and something warm trickled from his nose.

He almost crawled back. The urge to return to something familiar, even the familiar stones that kept his salvation hidden in their lightless holes, was nearly overwhelming. He forced himself to his knees and began to crawl backwards. Mud squelched through his fingers. He almost slipped again but he found his feet and stood, teetering on the edge of choice.

Should he return the bottom of his... his what, you could hardly call it a cliff. Twelve feet of sheer inverted stone was not grand, but twelve feet was higher than he could jump. There was no chance he would be leaving by that route. Sure, there was probably a light hiding in plain sight (well, plain for those with the power to see), but should he spend his last hours feeling about for something he may never find?

No, let the spiders keep his keys.

He'd wandered on through the darkness. When he could no longer stand the burning in his gut he licked the trickling water from the walls. When hunger threatened to drop him in his tracks he ate lichens. Surprisingly, he fell ill only once, vomiting and defecating till he thought he would die. At times in the few days afterwards, he wished he had. Fear of falling ill again kept him from the only sustenance available, and the going slowed as his strength left him, but he crawled on. He crawled till he was sure he had worn the skin and nails from his finger tips and pulled himself along with unfeeling bones. He crawled till the strength left his arms and legs. He crawled till all sensibility fled. He crawled a little more.

Perhaps two weeks after his fool headed decision to explore the depths of the cave behind his new home, Dave saw light again. At first he could not be sure it was real. He had just wakened from his exhausted stupor. The lights dancing on the wall ahead of him were dim, and he thought they might be an illusion conjured by his stimulus starved retinas. He flexed his fingers and found them whole, and he discovered that his legs would once again support his weight. Even his stomach seemed to be back on board with his fight for survival now that survival may be no more than a few minutes ahead. Hunger and thirst were memories.

He took a few cautious steps, and then a few more. Before he knew it he was moving at reckless speed. The light up ahead grew gradually brighter and the cavern around him became more distinct. The air and stone grew warmer and the floor began to slant upward. The light was tinged with red, and the air had taken on an odd odor, perhaps skunk, but smelling a skunk at sunset jumped straight to the top of his priority list as he considered finding fresh water and looking up on the stars. Heck, he still had his wallet, maybe he'd pop out behind a Denny's.

The air grew warmer still and he could hear something in the distance. It could have been trucks on an over pass, or kids playing with firecrackers in a trash can, it was July after all. He was running full out now. His hungry eyes could pick out every stalactite and stone. He looked down at his hands and saw that he had bent back most of his fingernails, and they began to throb as waves of heat rolled over him, returning sensation to parts of his body that his nervous system had forgotten, but pain was better than nothing at all. He rounded another sharp bend and stopped in his tracks.

Flames billowed towards a solid stone ceiling hundreds of feet above. Steam gushed from a boiling lake that stretched as far as his eyes could see. The skunk he had smelled earlier was nowhere to be seen, but the sulfurous air bit at his eyes and nostrils. Dave fell to his knees. He looked over his shoulder, thinking of the miles of tunnel and the twelve foot wall that separated him from his brick bungalow and feather pillow. He looked up into the flames, then back to the gritty stone at his feet and wept.