The Cavern

Not all treasure glitters...

A chill wind urged you forward, as if you were caught in the inhale of some terrible thing. Your hand slid across slick stone walls that seemed to sweat with anticipation. This was no simple dungeon. It felt alive with memory and a hunger that beckoned you to come in. You didn’t yet know its true purpose, but somehow you knew it wasn’t to hide treasure.

Soon, the narrow stone passage opened into a broad antechamber that seemed to swallow the torchlight. In here, the air felt colder and heavier. You turned back towards your men. “Stay alert,” you told them, words hanging still in thick puffs of breath. Ahead, torchlight danced across a pool of water seeping down from the cracks and crevices above. Moving closer, the heaviness in the air seemed to press down on you even harder. Every step further drained you more than the last.

What is this place, you wondered?

Your hands, always steady, now trembled as you inched forward through the dark. You tried to hide your unease from the others as best you could. As you grew closer, you saw the outlines of demons circling the pool. Obsidian statues reaching towards the ceiling, faces carved into some awful shape frozen between hunger and glee.

And then you came to it, a pool stinking of putrefied meat and entrails. The wretched remains of any who’d dare come this far. Apprehension whispered across the back of your neck. Tears began to leak from your eyes. Pausing to wipe them, you turned back to see the rest of your men sobbing too. You turned to speak out to them and say something, anything, but sadness choked the words. It was the grief of a thousand fading dreams spilled in blood right here in this living tomb. The grief was so overwhelming you barely heard the heavy thud of the beast lumbering toward you through the dark.

You. Its latest treasure.

This Flash fiction story was inspired by a post by Xapur. He wanted to know what was in the pool. I decided to make a story out of it.

About Liminal Space Creative

As a Métis writer of short stories, flash fiction, and poems, I explore the grey areas of the human condition where love and sorrow pool together. My stories often blend genres, opening as one thing and shifting quietly into another, because the moments that change us forever rarely announce themselves.

Cover photo by Iswanto Arif on Unsplash