Work Text:
I.
June 1, 1981
I visited the project site on Ash Tree Lane for the first time today. Mrs. Thorne was detached from the proceedings; however, Mr. Thorne had very firm and strong opinions on irrelevant matters (the paint colors for the detailing) and little to say on the most critical decisions (whether to bring the basement stairs up to code). I spent some time explaining the relevant regulations about basement refurbishment and stair safety and hopefully finally convinced Mr. Thorne that, no, we can’t “just redo the basement” but leave the stairs as-is. It also took quite a while before Mr. Thorne seemed to fully understand the timeframe needed for a project of this size. He seemed much less concerned about the budget. Apparently, Mrs. Thorne wants to have a party in late September, although she seemed uninterested even when we brought this topic up. I explained that end of September wasn’t feasible given all the work that needed to be done, especially with the electricals and plumbing. Mr. Thorne seems to have reluctantly agreed (for now). I got a signature on the proposed timeframe, just in case.
The house itself is in need of numerous repairs. Colonial revival, two-story with unfinished attic space, unfinished basement, 2-bedroom/3-bath. Proposed plan:
1) Add an ell that will increase upstairs to 4 bedrooms and add a dining room plus rec room to the ground level.
2) Double the garage.
3) Finish basement and rebuild stairs to code – includes extending foundation through new ell and change to existing foundation along the east wall.
4) Bring electrics up to code, including adding outlets to basement and existing garage.
5) Add more windows, both floors, to improve interior lighting.
6) Replace hardwood floors, 1st and 2nd floors.
7) Add back porch.
8) Repair both chimneys.
9) Replace roof.
10) Repaint, interior and exterior.
11) Relandscaping.
II.
June 12, 1981
Using Bob as the architect for this one: I can already tell it’s going to be a doozy, and I need someone who knows his shit. Bob and I were in today to draw up blueprints of the existing house, since I couldn’t find any on file. Fortunately, the Thornes will be offsite for the majority of construction, so we were able to get down to work without distraction. Suspect something may be off in the house’s existing foundation – measurements along the north face and south face differ by almost a foot. East and west align along the exterior, but along the interior the east measures 2 inches longer. Bob attributes this to warping, likely due to a shift in foundation, which would also account for the difference between the north and south faces. Attic floor likewise is not level.
Bob discovered a further anomaly in the basement. Stairs were even more treacherous than I initially feared, and we had to scoot down them around one sharp turn. The stairs seem to be wrapped around a central column at the center of the basement. I’d never seen anything like it, and neither had Bob. Based on measurements once we’d made it safely down into the basement, the central column has a dead space at its center: 3' by 3'. I asked Bob to assess whether it was load-bearing, just in case, but I can’t see how it can be, given the relative positions of the walls upstairs. Damned if I know what it’s doing there. Bob assured me that he agreed with my assessment, which is a relief because I’ve had enough of a hard time trying to convince Mr. Thorne to fix those stairs already – I know it would be a hard-sell if we had to put in steel beams to shore up the ceiling once we knock down that existing death-trap.
Despite all this, we drew up an adequate blueprint for initial planning purposes. Tomorrow, Bob and I will go back in to record the rest of the details.
III.
June 13, 1981
If it isn’t the damnest thing!
Yesterday, Bob and I both would’ve sworn that the north face measured 36' 10 ½" and the south face measured 36' ¼", but today we remeasured, and it’s actually the north face that’s 36’ ¼” and the south face that’s 36' 10 ½". Bob jokes that we’re losing our minds, and this is the downhill path to senility. Lack of sleep at the very least: I know mine has been troubled for the last week!
At least we caught our mistake in time. We remeasured again, just to make sure we hadn’t mis-notated anything else, but all else was good (including the warping along the 2nd floor east). The rework took up the entire morning.
Over lunch, we talked about plans for the ell. Bob thinks we’ll need to take out the kitchen wall to run the new wing along Succoth Ave. That’ll mean I’ll have to go back to Mr. Thorne to discuss what he wants to do with the lost cabinet space: extend the kitchen around the new bend in the ell, or shift the plumbing and lose part of the space along that wall for the door into the new dining room? Bob and I discussed the pros and cons and then went to measure where the new construction would be.
Assuming 22' for the outer dimension, the ell will take out the entire kitchen wall on the ground floor, and three sets of windows on the second floor. However, when we went to measure on the inside, the ground floor matched up, but the second floor only took out two sets of windows. This doesn’t seem possible: we know there’s some shifting and warping on the second floor, but 4' worth?
No matter how may times Bob and I measured it, we still came up with the same thing, though. Eventually we settled on Bob measuring the outside while I did the inside. We both measured 22' from the southeast corner. Bob rapped on the siding on the outside; I rapped on the wall on the inside. Accounting for the width of the walls, as I’d done, our knocks sounded almost directly opposite each other: good measurements on either side! But Bob insisted there were three windows on the outside, and I’d only passed two on the inside.
I went back and stuck my head out the first window, nearest to the corner, looked right, and saw Bob’s thumbs up. Then I went to the second window and looked out: Bob was still to the right of me. So then I went to the third window – past the point where I’d knocked on the wall that matched to Bob’s position – looked out, to my right and: nope, that was no good. Then Bob called out, and I looked left, and there he was. Even though I’d passed the 22' point on the wall where our two measurements aligned.
Obviously, I’m still not getting enough sleep.
IV.
June 17, 1981
Today, the demolition crew came in. First up: those treacherous basement stairs!
The crew sawed out an opening in the ground-level floor for a proper staircase first. I can’t help but think that this alone will help with the light levels in the house. I get what the Thornes were saying now, about the excessive gloominess of this house. Even though there are plenty of south-, west-, and east-facing windows, something about the angle of the roof seems to lay shadows over them at most times of day, so that the sun rarely reaches inside. Whoever originally built this place didn’t take sun angle properly into consideration, that’s for sure!
The floor ripped out smoothly; no more of those annoying mis-measurements that have been haunting us. This exposed the entire top of that column that the old basement stairs surrounded. We were all curious to see if the central column was hollow or partially filled with bric-a-brac or whatever. We knew it wasn’t solid because Bob and I had banged on it and could hear echoes within.
“Adam, maybe you’d better take a look at this,” Bob said, after he’d taken a look.
I climbed the temporary ladder up to the ground floor – already safer than that damned staircase! – and saw immediately what Bob meant.
I guess we’d gotten our answer why that column was closed in, because the column was indeed hollow and stretched down far into the darkness, farther than any of us could see. It looked like some kind of old well. But even though one question was answered, it immediately begged a second question: why would anyone build atop an old well to begin with? It couldn’t be structurally sound.
“Here, let me,” Dave from the demolition crew said, and he dropped a chunk of broken plaster down into the well hole.
We listened for a long time, but didn’t hear a splash. Or a clatter when it hit the bottom, for that matter.
“Something harder?” Bob suggested.
One of the workmen got a stone from one of the old garden beds, and he chucked that in. We all strained our ears but couldn’t hear a thing.
“Too much time around power tools,” Dave chuckled.
I lit a match and threw that. The flame went down and down, a tiny pinprick of light growing ever smaller, and then suddenly out.
“Match didn’t burn long enough, I guess,” Bob said.
“Yeah,” I agreed.
But is it crazy of me that I’m not quite convinced?
In any case, it’s clear that we’ll need to go back to the drawing board. If the house’s foundations are this unstable, we’ll need to bring in a specialist.
V.
June 22, 1981
If Sandy knows one thing, it’s wells.
In the meantime, we’d very carefully removed the basement stairs. By the time Sandy had a chance to come in, there was a 3-by-3-foot hole in the floor of the basement where the old closed-in column had once been.
“Looks old,” Sandy said, when she first saw the well shaft. “Maybe even natural. Hard to tell this early. You do a geologic survey?”
“Just your standard check for underground electricals and plumbing,” I told her. “A house this old, who’d’ve thought it would have this under its foundation?”
“How old is the house?” she asked.
“Realtor says 1912.”
She eyed the well and then the basement walls, which even I had doubted. “Looks older than that. Way older.”
Sandy’s always had a way with words.
“This one will take a while,” Sandy said, which was my cue to hit up the Thornes for more money. Also more time: construction has ground to a standstill in the meantime.
While we were waiting, I talked about it with Bob, and he agreed with me that that basement had always looked suspect. “Rough walls like that? 1910s, those would’ve been smoothed and cemented, at least around these parts.”
“Figured it was amateurs,” I said.
“Me too,” he agreed.
The basement had been bugging me so much that, in fact, I’d been looking more into the history of the property. The realtor who’d sold the house to the Thornes had advertised it as having been built in 1912, but I couldn’t find any record of it having been constructed in that year. The Virginia assessor’s office had a map that showed the property in that year, but there was no evidence that the property was new.
I spent several days in the state office and then, when that proved fruitless, the county office. The county office had one surveyor’s map that showed no house on the site in 1833, but I happened to have a map out from 1720 which did include a house – with the same external dimensions as the current one (minus the lop-sided north and south walls, which both showed on the survey map as 36' 5").
It seemed unlikely that the 1720 map was wrong, but then why was there no house on the 1833 map? The most likely explanation was the surveyors from 1833 had not fully surveyed that area, perhaps due to being denied access to the surrounding parcels. Strange, though, that they’d marked the spot empty rather than marking the area as unsurveyed. Although frustrated, long-working surveyors from 150 years ago might be forgiven for cutting a few corners.
The alternative was that there had been a house on the site in 1720, it had been torn down by 1833, and then rebuilt again before 1912. But there was no evidence I could find for this theory.
VI.
June 30, 1981
It’s a natural fissure, according to Sandy. Whether it’s actually a well or merely a subterranean cave is up for debate.
“Can we fill it?”
“Depends how deep it is,” Sandy said, “but unlikely. Especially if there’s flowing water.”
None of us have heard flowing water, although there is a strange sound that you can hear throughout the house from time to time. It doesn’t sound like water, more like a long, low growl. The foundation shifting, Bob thinks.
Sandy’s never been on site when the growling noise occurs, although she said it could be echoes in the cave below. We’ll have to put in structural steel beams over the opening, put in concrete over that, and then lay the new basement floor on top, Sandy says. She’s the expert, so she’s bringing in a team, but they can’t start until mid-July. More bad news for me to deliver to the Thornes. They’re definitely not getting their house-warming party in September now.
With work on hold for the afternoon, I went back to the county surveyor’s office instead. Brigette who works there has been a big help in my research, and when I came in, her face lit up in a smile.
“I found something for you in the archives,” she said.
Most of the archives aren’t kept in the office, I’ve learned from Brigette. The old stuff gets boxed up and sent to a climate-controlled sealed sub-basement room at the university, where lots of different places put their long-term historical documents in cold storage. Brigette says she doesn’t get much chance to visit the archives, so she was excited by my particular quest.
Brigette took me to one of the back reading rooms. Theoretically, it was supposed to be an office, but the county hasn’t had enough money for assistants in a couple decades now. Brigette’s the only full-time employee. Once upon a time, though, Brigette told me drafters worked in that room redrawing the county maps, like the ones I’ve been looking at so far.
There was a folio on the table with yellow, frayed edges and a completely disintegrated spine. A sun-bleached old ribbon tied the two covers together, and it looks a pale pink now, but my guess is that it was originally red given the stain line I saw along the top cover of the folio.
Brigette carefully untied the ribbon and lifted the cover off the folio. It was completely detached, but the pages inside still adhered along the spine. One by one, Brigette slowly turned each folio page. It made me nervous. Each page looked like it could rip with the slightest breeze. I thought about asking whether Brigette should be using gloves, but I figured she knew what she was doing better than I do.
Finally, she stopped on page 23. “Here,” she said. “This is the passage I wanted you to read.”
The folio was in hand-scratched writing that I could barely make out. Whoever it was had terrible handwriting.
“Those are S’s,” Brigette explained, pointing to what look like tall F’s throughout the document, or maybe treble clefs.
It took me a moment to begin to decipher it.
Auguſt, the Twelfh, 1720:
Weſt to parcel 3029. Along the ſtream run threw the foreſt is unſullied land, ſave only for one farmhouſe. When aſked of the houſe owner, he named hiſself one Adamant Corwen and proclaimed that the houſe was in his poſseſsion that had been eſtabliſhed that ſpring upon the ſite of this parcel.
I know Brigette said more at that point: something about the original notes of such-and-such surveyor, but I was too distracted to pay much attention.
After all, what are the odds that the owner of the house, over 250 years ago, had the exact same name as mine?
VII.
July 3, 1981
“Adamant’s an old family name,” my father always told me. Back from those days when Puritans or whoever named their kids after biblical virtues. Prudent and Mercy and Grace and Constipation and all that nonsense. I’ve always hated it, and only people who have seen official paperwork know my full name isn’t just Adam.
What kind of virtue is Adamant, anyway? They might as well have named me Stubborn-As-A-Mule Corwen. Or, I suppose, my great-grandfather or great-great-grandfather or whoever.
I don’t actually know how long my family has lived in the area, other than ‘farther back than my grandfather’, and it’s not like I have any living relatives on my dad’s side to ask. My mom says she doesn’t know. But Adamant Corwens aren’t running around everywhere that I can have any doubt that this Adamant Corwen must be one of my ancestors. So, apparently, our family goes back here to at least 1720.
Sandy called and said she could start in on the basement well next week, ahead of schedule. That should be good news, but ever since I’ve heard it, I can’t help this feeling of dread in the pit of my stomach.
VIII.
July 4, 1981
There is something in a well that does not want to be covered, that does not want to be contained.
Various work crews have surrounded the basement hole with orange traffic cones, sawhorses, and warning tape. There is no way someone could stumble upon the pit by happenstance and fall in. In the morning, Sandy’s crew will begin putting in support beams, bolts, and stabilizers to solidify the foundation.
I don’t know what possesses me to visit the house that night. I know that no one will be there, due to the holiday. Even if work had not been halted otherwise, it would be for Independence Day. It is dark when I arrive. Occasionally, in the distance, I can hear the sounds of explosions. The county fireworks show, over by the high-school football field. The flashes of bright color are barely visible from the house, however, surrounded as it is by old oaks whose roots sink as deep into the earth as their branches stretch up into the sky. Do the oak roots bury themselves deep enough, I wonder, to know what lies at the bottom of the well?
I do not fall into the well. I do not go into the well of my own cognizance.
However, Bob and I had observed before that the house shifts and warps and moves on its foundation. It feels like that is what happens. I don’t move into the hole; the hole moves onto me.
I did not experience this change as an event, but more as a slow, creeping realization. It seemed to grow darker and darker where I sat in the basement looking down into the pit, until eventually it was so dark that I looked around, then looked up and saw there the faintest pinprick of light at the surface.
I should have been terrified. I should have screamed for help. Instead, I opened the bag I brought with me and turned on one of the flashlights inside. I brought three, plus extra batteries. Also candles.
I came prepared, as if I knew this would happen.
And rather than frantically trying to find the exit, I shone the flashlight around me and found two corridors etched into what appears to be pitch-black stone: one heading east and one heading west. I should stay where I am so that Sandy’s crew finds me in the morning; surely, they can rig a harness to pull me out. Decided, I use an hour’s flashlight battery power to write this entry. When I am done, I will turn off the light and sit alone in the dark and wait for day to come.
IX.
July 5, 1981
I’ve checked my watch, and it must now be morning. But somehow in the night and the dark, the house’s foundations have shifted again. I no longer see the opening of the hole directly above me. Did I sleepwalk or wander around in the night? I cannot remember doing so.
Panic is beginning to take hold.
I still see the corridor heading in both directions. I keep a compass in my toolbelt. If I can determine which way I’ve come from, perhaps I can return. I face one way down the corridor. North, reads the compass. Wherever I’ve moved to, I must’ve rounded a bend because I’m no longer on an east-west axis. I turn around and check the other direction. North, reads the compass when I face that way, too.
This is impossible.
Both ways cannot be the same. I spend the next thirty minutes of battery trying to determine if I have a strong magnet on me somewhere that is affecting the compass. However, when I face the wall on either side of me, the compass needle begins spinning uncontrollably. Some kind of magnetite in the rocks? I wish I’d asked Sandy more about the subterranean composition of the bedrock when I’d had the chance.
I sit as quietly as I can and try to listen down both corridors. I should be able to hear one of them echo with the sounds of workmen. All I hear is deathly silence.
And then, after a minute, something even worse: that low growl that seems to emanate from the rocks all around me.
I have no way of orienting myself. I cannot stay here or I’ll die. All I can do is pick one direction and pray that it’s correct.
X.
July 6, 1981
It’s startling how quickly one loses track of time. I’m confident it’s still July 6, though. I spare a bit of flashlight on my watch every tenth ballad. That’s how I time myself in the dark. I press one hand to the wall to my right and walk carefully against it and hum in my head the old ballads that my mother sang to me when I was a child. If each tale runs six minutes, then ten ballads gets me an hour. Time to check my watch.
Still no signs of the surface.
I brought food in my bag, in the form of beef jerky, chips, granola bars, and things of that nature. I have three cans of Coke. I know full well that if I can’t find a way out soon, I will die.
And yet the thought of running out of light is what terrifies me the most. With all the light sources and back-ups I’ve brought with me, this is the least of the dangers. Still, I conserve my light as if my life depends on that, rather than anything else.
XI.
July 8, 1981
I think it’s the 8th. I’ve slept twice now, and neither of those ‘nights’ can have been more than 12 hours, right? So that any extra days can’t have rotated by without my noticing?
I should feel hungrier and thirstier than I do. I’ve been conserving what little I have, but it also doesn’t seem that great a hardship to do so. If my calculations are right, I’ve been down here for three whole days.
It occurs to me that Sandy’s crew must’ve sealed off the opening by now. Even if I walked directly beneath it, I might not be able to see it. Given that, is there any point in my continued trek down this endless tunnel?
I suppose the point is that it’s all I have.
XII.
July 10(?), 1981
It might be the 11th. I’m starting to lose track. I think maybe I shifted AM to PM at some point. I fell asleep at one “8 o’clock” and then woke up at a “3 o’clock,” but it felt like a very long sleep. I might’ve gone from 8PM straight through to 3PM the next day, in which case this is actually the 11th. I have no way of confirming either way.
I reached the end of the tunnel today. The wall parted beneath the palm of my right hand so suddenly that I froze in terror as if perched at the edge of a precipice. However, when I allowed myself a minute’s flashlight, I found not a second pit in front of me but a giant, spacious cavern ahead. So wide and tall, in fact, that I couldn’t see any of the far walls nor the ceiling overhead in the beam cast by my flashlight.
This must be some underground cavern system.
I don’t know how to navigate under these circumstances. It occurs to me that maybe I should try to go back. I can’t possibly have encountered this cavern that first night, so I must have picked the wrong direction on the first day. However, if I go back, by now it will be too late, and with the well cemented over, I’ll have no means of escape. If this is a cave system, maybe it leads up to the ground somewhere else, and I can escape that way. It’s the only hope I have.
In the meantime, I’ve set up a sort of basecamp at the place where the corridor exits out into the main cavern. I need to sleep and plan, and hopefully make the right choice.
XIII.
July 12 or 13, 1981
I’ve made my plan.
First, I marked the tunnel entrance with my name in chalk. That way I’ll know if I come back this way.
Next, I plan to circle the cavern keeping my right side to the cave wall at all times. That way I’ll know I’m not wandering in circles. Or, actually, I will be walking in one very large, planned circle. Hopefully, I’ll come to another exit before I reach my mark on the wall again.
If not, I’ll go back down the tunnel the other way and see if there’s an out that way.
It is so horribly silent down here that I think I’m beginning to have auditory hallucinations. My breathing sounds impossibly loud in the dark, but every so often I hear what sounds like a sharp, loud snort in the blackness, almost like the snuffling of a horse or other large beast. The first time I heard it, I turned my flashlight on immediately, but there was nothing there.
I still hear it periodically, irregularly. Sometimes two ballads apart, sometimes nine.
The low growling seems to have stopped, though. Does that mean that I’ve wandered far from the house? Or was the growling not connected to the house in the first place?
XIV.
July still? 1981
It’s impossible that I’m still alive. I haven’t had anything to drink in days, and didn’t they teach me in scouts or something that you die after 3 days with no water?
I think I must have overestimated the number of days I’ve been down here by a lot. I think it’s been 12 days now, but maybe I’ve just gotten confused and it’s only 4 or 5? I still don’t feel hungry or thirsty enough for it to have been more than that.
But, if that’s the case, how has my watch gone around the hours so many times? Maybe I’m misremembering or misreading it in the flashlight.
In any case, I seem to be endlessly circling this cavern. The funny thing about this cave is that it doesn’t look like a cave. The caves I’ve seen in books or on National Geographic or what-have-you all have irregular walls and maybe those thin stone columns that go up and down, whatever those are called. But this cave wall is just smooth and solid and dark, like maybe cooled lava. Or like something manmade, even though that’s impossible. Whatever this cave is, it must be huge. I’ve been circling it for what seems like forever now, but I still haven’t come back to my original mark.
I’m going to start recording my watch times in this notebook, just to see how much I’m losing it. I don’t think I can rely on my memory anyone. One watch check every ten ballads, from now on. That should mean a watch check roughly once every hour.
XV.
1:15
4:40
2:00
7:05
11:10
1:55
9:30
3:20
What the fuck?
XVI.
???, 1981
Time is not passing correctly. That’s crazy, right? I’m crazy, right?
I thought that, if you went crazy, you weren’t supposed to realize it.
XVII.
Which way is down?
|
Which way is right?
|
Which way is left?
|
Which way is up?
XVIII.
Which way is forward?
Which way is backward?
XIX.
|
|
? |
XX.
ṯ̷̛̼̟͙̖̇̐̄̀́́̏̄̏͝͝i̷͉̼̗̬̠͕͚̤̰͇̰͙̱̳̬̽͐m̷̧̢̡͍̤̤̤̯̻͕̰̣͗͑̓̍͋̔̽̂̓͌͝ȇ̷̛̜͎̼͓̠̰́̆́̄͌̀͊̂̓̀́͝ͅ ̶̙̻͕̩̰̱̰̳͖̞̻͕͙̒͜ţ̶̰̠̪̤͔̦̝̼̪̠̠̩̏̾͌̃̐̈͋̓̈́͗̐̂͛͘̕ͅį̶͈̹̇̉͂͂̔̚̕ͅḿ̶̨̱͇̻̜̣͎̖̙̞̪͗̐ē̴͓̖̥̟͇͑̆̍̐̇ ̴̧̜͈̮̘̬̖̬͐̓́̏̈́̓̔̐̆̿̀̋̇͜͝͠t̴̡̳̤̥̄̓̂̇̍̚͝i̶̮͙̫̦̖̠̝̹̫̙͖̹̿͋͋̌͆͌̍̎́͗̏̽͝͝ͅm̶̡̠͇̰̂͒͐̄̍͛͊͌̄͋͋͘̕͜e̴͇̗̹̣̗̹͘͜ ̵͇̜̦̱͘ṣ̶̥͙̞̅̾̇̔̍̑̅̈́̎͗͝͝e̸̻̠̪͇̹͖̝̗͉̫͇̓̿͐̌̌͆̎̎̔͐̈́̾̌̃̚e̵̛̞͇͍̻̺͈͋̐́͌̔̏͜ ̷̡̤̲͙̖͚̗͈̟̖̰͉̃̿̋͗̚͠͝ͅw̵̢͊̈́͛̅̃͠h̶̗̹̩͉̯͑̆̏̉̍̇̂͑͒͘ͅa̶̢̡̯͙̤̮̗̺̐͒̆̈́͋͋t̸̨͙͈̭̯̯̿́̽̔͊'̸̱͖͓̭̻͔̝̈́̄̆̑̒͗̑̒̔͆̏̽̊̕͜s̷̰͋̈̊͂̀͗ ̸̨̛͓̮͈̳͙̺̄͐̊͆̂̅͐̚͜b̴̧̢͈̖͍̺̳̯̞̰̓̅́͐̊̇͗͆̑̆e̴͎͈̪̟̣̙̙͇̭͈͐̊̾́͆̀́̃͗̉ͅç̵̡̢̹̭̭͕͍̞̼̱̎́̐o̸̯͈̹̙̗͕̖͎͎͐̐͂́̿͗̇̌͛̕͠m̸̢̢̛̯͓͕̳͔͖̦̠̥͍͇̞̍͂͆͘ȇ̵̦̙̪̳̯͖̞͕̩̻̞̮̅̄̔̋͒̈́̌̈̅̉̈́̓̕ ̵̨̳̘̦͇̯̤͍͓̥͗͋̀ơ̷̡̧̹̭̥̥͚̻̟̥̻̪̯͈͋͗͑̐̀̒̿̈́f̶̢͔̾͒͆͋̈̿͛̉̌̀͠ ̶̡͈̲̗̰̬͔̟̣̜̱̩̐̽̑̂̾̓̀̐̑̽͜ͅm̸̢̼͈̤̈́̾̎̉́̄̿̈́e̸̛̘͖͈͇̔̅̈̒͊́̾̈́͑̅́̓̚
XXI.
???
I think I see something. Far off, red in the dark, glowing. It looks like an eye, bloodred. The snorting sounds more regularly now. It seems to be coming from the direction of that eye.
I should run.
XXII.
???
I did not run.
I don’t know what possessed me to walk toward the eye instead. It seems to be moving away from me as quickly as I’m moving towards it. In any case, it always seems the same distance away.
I’m probably hallucinating.
I have nowhere else to go.
XXIII.
t̵̨̛̛̪̯͚͖̲̖͇̲̯̤́̅̀̆̿́̓̑͑̊͘̕͜ĩ̸̜̣̼͕̹͍̙̞̝̪̹̂̏̽̍̅͆̔̌̂ͅm̵̧̨͖̜̭͍͖͖̭̼̌ͅȩ̷͇̞̯̔͑͌̂̑̆̏̌̿̓̿̓̑͐ ̷̳͖̙͋̅͝i̸̢̳̝̻̹̘̻̮̦̰̼̲̾̈́͝s̷̤͚̥͈̫̘̲͍͕̑͌̌́͝ ̶̼̭̠̋̀͑̂̈́̋̓͑ò̸̧̧̭͚̹̹̟̖̮̙̜͒͂̓̊͂̑͒̿͗̏͝͝ṉ̶͉̯̻͕̜̫̣̓̿͌̽͂̅̍͐̇̕͘͠ ̸̤̣͉̰̹̰̻̠̤̿͋̆̑m̶̢̹̝̭̫̪̹̫̞͗͆͗̊ỷ̶͖̉̀͑͐͂̒͛͐̀̚͝͠͠ ̸̢̢̡̝̭̩̖̯̦̟̣̝̆̈́͛̂̏̽͜͜š̵̹̯̼̣̼͕̫͔̈́͆̍̊̉̄͐͊͝i̸̢͎̭̟͎̘͈̩̤͙̰̘͛d̶͆̎̈̅ͅe̷̢̟̦̱͕̤̝̺̒̋̆͗̊̅ ̵̢͕̗̦̲̫̫̝͚̩̏̃͘͜ẙ̴̰̦̼̻̭͍̜̠̫͐̓̇é̵͎̤̪̠̯̮̫̱͚̭̰̲̈͐s̷̼̼̭̳̯̬̉͂̈ ̴̼̩͆̽̋ỉ̵͙͚̮͈̬̻̟͙̇͜t̵̹̮͚͇̎̔̅͋͒ͅͅ ̸̨̦̞̯͎̱̄̈́́͛̚ì̸̢̟s̴̢̪̖̺͙̼̬̹͇̻͇̿̍̌̍́̆̐̓̽͠
The light is no longer red.
It’s white now. I can see it clearly.
And it’s moving closer.
XXIV.
In order to follow the light, I’ve had to step away from the wall. Almost immediately I realized that I could never guarantee that I would find my way back. Nevertheless, the light is all that is down here, I am now quite convinced.
There is nothing else.
XXV.
After walking for 35 ballads, I have arrived at the source of the light. I must’ve crossed through the center of the cave to a far wall, because there is a shaft here along a cliff-face that leads straight up. The light comes from above, and it must be the sun.
Reaching it is another matter. There is a rock wall with some potential crevices and handholds, but the initial climb will not be easy. This ascends maybe 20 feet. Above that, there is a narrow chimney leading up into the light. I think that, if I can make it up the wall and reach the chimney, then I can shimmy my way the rest of the way up relatively easily. This is fortunate, because the chimney itself goes up much higher: maybe 100 feet? It’s difficult to tell; I’ve lost all sense of perspective.
In any case, I have to try. All I need to tell myself is:
DON’T LOOK DOWN
XXVI.
???
The climb was longer than anticipated. As expected, the initial cliff-face was the most harrowing. I’m not a professional rock climber (or even an amateur). I still feel faint when I remember that one time, probably fifteen feet up, that I felt my right foot and left fingers slip at the same time. I don’t know how I held on. Sheer pigheadedness and a refusal to die in a place like that, I suppose. If I’d fallen from that height, there’s no way I could’ve survived.
It was a relief to finally reach the chimney, which I could, indeed, shimmy slowly up by bracing one hand and foot on one side and the other on the far wall. Although that climb was easier, it went on much longer that I’d estimated. I’ve come to completely doubt all my powers of estimation at this point, honestly. Time, distance – all of it. It seemed to go on for hours, and it was too great a risk to check my own watch (if the damned thing is even still working properly).
The light above dimmed and then lit again while I was climbing up. The dark didn’t frighten me anymore, not after where I’ve been, but still I wept when the light returned. After so long surrounded by nothing, I’d actually begun to doubt that the sun rose and set, and I was overjoyed to see evidence that it still did so.
Around the time that the light finally reached close enough that I could tell it was midday, the chimney narrowed. At that point, I could no longer brace myself on either side of the chimney, but had to press my back up against one wall and my hands and feet against the other and slide my back up against the one rock face. Fortunately, it wasn’t too ragged, although I have bruises that I’ll probably feel for weeks.
The chimney grew narrower and narrower as the day faded above me. Eventually, it felt less like I was climbing and more like I was squeezing my way through a narrow crevasse barely wide enough for me to fit through. At that point, I was less worried about falling and more worried about getting stuck. I had to bundle up my bag and toolkit and push it up in front of me after it nearly snagged me in place on more than one occasion.
I had hoped to see daylight when I emerged, but dusk fell before I reached the surface. Nonetheless, I did not stop to sleep. And, by then, I could even see the stars above to guide my way. It must be a very clear night.
It was somewhere near midnight when I finally burst from the earth and fell upon solid ground again. I laughed and I cried and if I never sing a damn ballad in my head again, it will be too soon. I could smell pine and grass and the summer breeze, and I could feel the wind on my face, and I could see the stars circling above.
For the first time in my life, I saw the Milky Way, brighter almost than a full moon, lighting the tree branches above me.
It must be a very clear night.
And I am alive.
XXVII.
Day One
I’ve marked a stake in the ground where I emerged from the cave and set off downhill in the hopes of finding a stream, which will hopefully lead to a river, which will hopefully lead to a road. No such luck today, though – no signs of civilization anywhere.
XXVIII.
Day Two
Today’s trek didn’t succeed in finding any roads, either. Isn’t there some saying that you can’t be more than so-and-so miles from a road anywhere in the US these days? I wish I remembered how many miles that was. Pretty sure it was less than 20?
Whatever was bothering my compass belowground, it seems to be working fine now. North is north, and south is south, and east is east, and west is west. The plan tomorrow is to head east: that’s the most densely populated direction so, unless I’m in the middle of some state park, I’ll hit a road soon enough. I refuse to die of exposure 500 feet from some highway and I somehow didn’t even realize it. Not after everything I’ve been through.
XXIX.
Day Three
There’s nothing to the east, just more forest. I think I must be in some kind of park, given the sheer scale of these woods. With my rotten luck, I was probably 10 feet from the path in the opposite direction, but I went 10 miles the wrong way. Tomorrow, I’ll head back to my starting point and try west instead. Sooner or later I’m bound to hit a road or a ranger station.
XXX.
Day Four
At least I know my orienteering is fine! I arrived back at my original mark, found the drop-off into the cave, and headed west past my starting point today. However, by my measure I’ve now trekked at least 3 mi. west and still no signs of life. I’ll try a little further tomorrow and, if no luck, head back to base.
XXXI.
Day Five
Found a stream today, so at least I have water. I’m starting to feel hungry and thirsty again. Strange that I didn’t for so long. Luckily, I still have plenty of matches, so I was able to light a fire and boil some water in an old Coke can. I’ll need to find food soon.
Nothing to the west, heading back “home”.
XXXII.
Day Six
Nothing to the south, either. Found some raspberries, but a handful of berries isn’t going to keep me alive. I remember when I was very young and we visited my grandpa’s farm, my grandpa would show me how they’d made traps for rabbits and squirrels when he was a boy. On today’s top-ten list of things I thought I’d never do…
XXXIII.
Day Seven
Nothing to the north. Maybe it was further out than 10 miles you had to walk to reach a road? Or maybe that’s just an urban myth and there are actually places in this country that are way further out?
In any case, I need to start worrying about survival first. Finding help obviously isn’t going to be as straightforward as I thought.
Lucky thing I was wearing my toolbelt when all this started. Honestly, it’s felt like a burden more often than not, and all these times I felt silly for lugging it around with me, but looks like I get the last laugh because the saw and hammer sure come in handy now.
XXXIV.
Day Eight
I can now no longer say that I’m the sort of person who hasn’t eaten a squirrel. But, hey, at least I’m not going to die, yet. Is it squirrels that you can’t eat indefinitely without dying, or rabbits? Or maybe both? And is that because of scurvy or something else?
Really wish I’d paid better attention in the scouts now.
On the plus side, shelter is an easy win. Nothing but lumber all around. I’ve got a raised bed of branches already nailed up with a half-assed awning and everything. What I wouldn’t give for a neat stack of 2-by-4s, though.
XXXV.
Day Twenty
Still no people.
May need to build myself a house.
XXXVI.
Day Forty-Two
I do not know where I am.
I had thought I had escaped the labyrinth, but somehow this place is equally impossible.
Slowly but surely, the house continues apace.
XXXVII.
Day Fifty-Three
A basic shack is complete, alongside the entrance to the pit. I never appreciated how difficult it is to craft lumber from trees by hand. It is not a very good shack. But it will get better.
XXXVIII.
Day Sixty-Two
Still alone, me and the stars. The house seems to grow on its own the longer I stay in it.
XXXIX.
Day Seventy-One
It had been so long since I had heard human voices other than my own that I had nearly forgotten the sound. But I heard them on the circuit of my property this morning and rushed through the thicket to find two men, with survey equipment, only forty or so feet from my house.
They spoke with some kind of unfamiliar accent. Australian, maybe? I’ve never known any Australians, but eventually we figured each other’s accents out. I invited them back to the house, which is coming along quite well these days, and offered them some chicory coffee.
They explained that they were working for the government, surveying the area for development, and I asked them which way to the nearest road. It turns out there is a small outpost south-east of here, though a narrow valley between the hills that I’d missed in my attempts to find civilization. They agreed to show me, and we hiked back in the afternoon. It’s a two-day trip, so we’ll camp out at the halfway mark and arrive back tomorrow.
I can’t imagine what’s happened to my projects without me.
XL.
August 12, 1720
We reached the outpost. An outpost is exactly what it is. There isn’t another house around for miles, only mine. The men stationed there want to know how I happened to venture so far from the colonies. I wanted to know what date it is.
Turns out, it wasn’t a coincidence that a man with my name and my great-grandfather’s name and my great-great-grandfather’s name built the house back in 1720.
It was me.