Cave Adventure

Written 11/2007, for a High School AP English writing assignment.

Jeremy was home, and I was ecstatic. Even though he was only home for the weekend, I knew we’d be doing something crazy or illegal. Whenever someone asks me for a story, my mind always runs through one of the countless adventures the two of us have managed to find in our completely explored, suburbanized, and generally uninteresting America. Unfortunately, I am not allowed to recount the best of our stories, for reasons I’d best not say. I’m sure you can think up some good reasons for yourself. My brother and I have been best friends ever since our first adventure, which is, sadly, one of those stories that will remain unwritten. However, there was one completely legal adventure that we recently went on, and that one I’d be glad to tell.

One weekend, Jeremy swooped his way past our house, picked me up, and off we went. As usual, I knew nothing about our destination or goal. Now I'm sure most of you have been to a place like McConnell’s Mills - a place with lots of trees, paths, and creeks. Basically it’s where old people go to "enjoy nature", where dedicated runners go to train, and where those weird goth kids go to make out. Anyway, this place was our ultimate destination. Beforehand, Jay had been ominous as always, making me bring old clothes, buying a couple flashlights, and leaving a message on a friend's voicemail in case of "an emergency". After we parked in one of the higher parking lots, we started walking down some stairs, a usual routine for most tourists. I was rather annoyed, as I remembered several "character-building nature hikes" with my parents in that place, and said hikes were not what I imagined as an adventure. Just as I was starting to say this to Jeremy, he suddenly dashed off to the left, right along the rock face. He stopped in front of a odd split in the rock face and beckoned. Evidently there was a cave in this weird hole, and we were going to go inside and explore it. He walked inside the split, and pointed at the ground at the far wall. "It’s down there" he smirked. He was pointing at a hole the size of my foot. I didn’t believe him at first, but when I shined my flashlight through the hole, I could faintly see rocks, about ten to fifteen feet straight down. Being a lot smaller than Jeremy, I went in first.

I don’t know if any of you have ever done hardcore caving before, but in these kinds of caves you don’t get to stand up and walk around; it’s much more like a cycle of straining to get an inch of your body through a ridiculously small hole, resting, straining, resting, etc. In my opinion, the opening of the cave was one of the hardest parts - laying on your side, you had to inch your legs in first. Then you had swing them about ninety degrees to the left, almost like you were sitting, and madly stab about wall with your feet, looking for a toehold. Only once that was done could you begin to move your chest and shoulders through the hole, scrabbling for nonexistent handholds on the wall above you. During all of this, you had struggle not to impale yourself on a very long, hard, and pointy rock, which just happened to be put in the most inconvenient of places. Hopefully you managed to find a handhold somewhere, as without one you’d fall straight on some more rather pointy rocks directly below you, on the cave floor. Eventually, we squeezed though intact, and, finding absolutely no handholds to help us down, we both made the jump to the bottom without landing on anything inconvenient. There was virtually no light coming from the entrance of the cave, so at the bottom, we turned on our flashlights (which had caused us much pain in the process of entering the cave). 

We were in a long corridor about ten feet long, three feet wide, and twelve feet high. Directly in front of us, on a strangely natural rock platform, was a large candle that had obviously been used before. As we looked around, we realized there were candles everywhere - one in the wall to our left, one to our right, and even one in the ceiling. Footprints were everywhere in the mud floor, and none of them were from normal sneakers or boots. Just about then the wind picked up, and it made the cave sound with one of the spookiest howls I’ve ever heard - it really does sound like some sort of person, just like the fantasy books say. To our right was an absolutely enormous boulder. It was suspended about two to three feet off of the ground, creating a lovely little passage beneath it. Entering this passage, we noticed that the floor was sopping wet, with gray-green mud. Looking up, we saw that the underside of the boulder was mutilated by millions of small cracks, all of them dripping water. This water had condensed, and had thus formed stalactites, and stalagmites. Most of these connected straight to the floor, making an eerie stone forest. We squatted in the mud for a second, resting - only our hushed breathing and the fall of water droplets breaking the deafening silence of the cave. The floor began to slant upwards into the ceiling after about forty feet, so we looked for new passages. Jay saw another ridiculously small hole on our left, winding upwards, and up we went.

Squeezing ourselves up this hole was insanity. Jeremy’s chest is a lot thicker than mine, and once we were through the hole, he pulled up his shirt - his chest was covered with blood from the rocks. The room that we were in was a rough cube - about ten feet wide by six feet tall. There was a pool of water in the corner, and I helped wash a bit of Jeremy’s blood off with one of my socks. Once he stopped bleeding, we went back. There was a huge smear of blood on one side all the way up the hole. I stared at it for awhile, then sat down. Jeremy tried his cell...but no signal came through the rock. Though my flashlight was getting dim, I absentmindedly flicked it around the room. I froze - there was a sizable hole on the wall right next to us, and I quickly jumped over to investigate. By crouching slightly, we could practically walk upright in this hole. It lead straight to the ceiling of the first room, then ended at a hole - we could jump down, but the only way back to the rock pool was by the blood hole, as we called it. I turned around to go back, and immediately knocked over Jeremy’s flashlight - standing behind me, he had set it down temporarily while he took a few pictures. I fell down on my right knee, with the flashlight falling down through the hole onto the floor below, smashing into the rock with a painful crash. As I leaned against a rock to stand up, both of us realized that we were down to a single, dying flashlight, and both of us were injured in some way. The cave continued going in the opposite direction, but we had to get out. We jumped down (I landing quite painfully) from the opening onto the rock below, gathered up the pieces of the flashlight, and made to get out of the cave - past the stalactites, and past the candles. 

I still don’t know how either of us did it - there were only fingertip handholds, and the opening was far harder to access than before. I believe it had something to do with a base necessity that we had to get out, or we’d die. It was as simple as that. We struggled out, and, leaning against each other, stumbled up to the car. People stared at us like we were aliens or something - and I guess we must’ve looked pretty out of this world, streaked with mud and blood. I couldn’t help but smile at the irony of the situation - us with our matted hair, blood-spattered clothes, and exhausted bodies, compared to the tourists with their abercrombie shirts, digital cameras, and overhanging potbellies. We left then, drove back with a mix of euphoria and claustrophobia sweeping its way through our blood, and sure as heck never told mom about it. That’s the cave adventure with my brother, Jeremy.