CAVE ENTRANCE

You retrieve your lantern from your backback and light it. As you enter the cave, its light trembling against the stone. The ground slopes downward, rough and uneven beneath your feet. The cave mouth descends sharply into darkness. Cold air flows outward, carrying the stale scent of dust and ancient rock.

The lantern’s glow reaches only a few feet inside before the shadows close in, swallowing the light. The cave is silent, the kind of silence that feels deliberate, as if sound itself has learned to stay away.