The Cave

                I still have no idea how it happened. All I know is that I went to sleep, all warm and cozy in my bed at my house, and when I woke up… I was in a cave. At night. Alone. Even worse, I have a huge fear of being alone at night. Unless I'm asleep of course. I had no idea where this cave was or how I had got there. It reminded me at the time of one of those poorly written science fiction movies. But it turned out to be so much more than that. This was real. The first thing that happened was that my brain seemed to just go numb. I couldn't think, I couldn't move, I was so afraid, and I had no idea what to do. All I could feel was the racing of my heart in my throat. I could hear water swishing somewhere near, and I could see no light or anything to suggest there was an exit anywhere. I immediately sat down, not because I particularly wanted to, but I felt that if I remained standing a second longer, my legs would give out on me. I tried to calm myself by taking deep breaths (a suggestion I remembered from some Japanese guy in middle school) but obviously, that didn't work. It never does. But I did realize that I couldn't just sit there forever, I had to figure something out. I hesitated for a moment, and then called out in a voice braver than I felt, "Hello? Is anyone here?"
         I heard nothing in response. However, I could have sworn I saw something out of the corners of my eyes. The reason I say that plural is because I saw two things. They were both just a brief, bright flash of white light, but one was about thirty feet to my left, the other thirty feet to my right. Here was my dilemma. I waited a few minutes to see if they would flash again, but they didn't. I decided I couldn't do anything more than guesswork at this point, so I just walked in the direction of the flash on the right. I'm right-handed, so it was a natural instinct. It was also the biggest mistake of my life.
         Right when I got to the point where I saw the light, I suddenly felt the ground drop out from beneath my feet. I let out a blood-curdling scream as I felt myself falling down, like a nightmare. It seemed like an eternity, when it was actually only a few seconds, before I heard a huge splash. At that same instant, I suddenly felt like my lungs were on fire and my throat was closing up. Again, it was really only a few seconds but felt like another eternity (if that's possible), and my head broke the water. I was gasping and coughing and "throwing up" water. I never knew it was possible to do so much of that. I almost went under several more times, but I somehow managed to keep my head above. There must have been rocks, or maybe some kind of animal with sharp teeth under the water, because I could feel something seeming to tear painfully at my arms. Then, like a shot to the temple, I felt a searing, sharp pain on the side of my head. Then everything went black.
         The next thing I knew, I was lying on my side on the rocky ground right next to the underground river that had almost killed me. I had no idea how much time had passed. I reached up and lightly brushed the side of my head, and as I did so, my teeth clenched and a scream/growl escaped my lips. It hurt that bad. I looked at my fingers; they were covered with blood. Before he left, my sociopath of a father had at least taught me one thing- so I tore off the bottom part of my shirt, no easy feat in itself, and wrapped it around my head to slow the blood flow. Then I looked at my arms. The cuts hurt, but they weren't anything serious. They just made me look extremely self-mutilating. So I slowly stood up.
         That's when I saw those lights again, in opposite directions still, but this time the one on the left was brighter. The thought popped into my mind that either I had a brain tumor, or the knock to the head had got me hallucinating. But I still decided to follow the brighter light to the left. But after a few steps, I realized the water stood between me and where I had seen the flash. This was way too frustrating. I cautiously put my foot in the water, and discovered that it only went up to my ankles, with virtually no current. So I took cautious steps like this until I reached the other side safely. This is when I got a chill up my spine; for when I turned back to look the way I came from, I also looked to the left (when I was on the other side it was the right) where the other, dimmer light had been, and I saw a raging waterfall, leading undoubtedly into some dark abyss where I would have met my tragic fate. Shivering from fear and the cold (after all, I was soaking wet), I turned back around and faced solid rock. I looked down and groaned. There was a small tunnel there, probably just barely big enough to fit my body through. So I crawled in, even though I'm extremely claustrophobic. But right then, all I wanted was to get out of that cave.
         About twenty feet into the tunnel, it felt as though someone suddenly grabbed my ankle, hindering me from crawling forward. Obviously startled, I tried to whip around, but my forehead made painful contact with the hard, bumpy wall of the tunnel. Swearing, I turned around more slowly and realized that my foot had got caught on a small protrusion of rock. I tried in vain to unhook myself, but it was a futile attempt. I realized that the only way I was going to get out was to turn partially around, push my foot back, then lift it up and turn back around. So I set to work, and it must have taken close to an hour. At the point where I was turned around, I got stuck for several minutes, and I had to exhale all the air in my body to be able to get myself small enough to turn back around again. That wasn't fun. So after this feat was accomplished, I continued down the tunnel. I had plenty of time to think and nothing else to do, so that's what I did. I reflected back on all the things that had happened and what they might mean. I came to no conclusions, but the one thing I did know was that if someone was trying to teach me a lesson, I had certainly learned it. It seemed like a third eternity later (funny how that kept happening) when I finally saw the end of the tunnel. When I crawled out and looked around, I saw that I was in a huge chamber. But there was more than that. The instant I stepped into that room, I was overwhelmed with a sense of power, even magic, seeming to radiate from the walls. And as soon as I noticed that, I also noticed that certain parts of the rock walls seemed to be glowing. Staring in wonder, I walked slowly over to the nearest one of those glowing spots. As I got nearer, I realized that it was some kind of symbol. Squinting to try to see better, I slowly ran my fingers over it, and then pulled back my hand. It didn't hurt or anything, but I just got a strange feeling that I didn't deserve to touch this mysterious symbol. It looked like a sideways eight, like the symbol for infinite, with four dots over the middle of the top and bottom, kind of like this:
    (Well I can't draw it in on the computer)
         Strangely, there seemed to be some very deep, very powerful meaning behind it. That was just the feeling I got. I turned to the other glowing spots and realized that they were all the same. This is when I experienced the most powerful emotion I have ever felt, but it's impossible to explain it so I'm not even going to try. All I can say is that it was like joy, misery, enlightenment, confusion, love, and every other word you could ever think of, all rolled into one huge ball inside of me that was begging to be released. And right at that moment, I reappeared in my bed at home. Just like that. I knew my experience hadn't been a dream because I was dirty, wet, and bloody, with my clothes all tattered and torn. I've never been the same since that night, and it's been both a blessing and a curse.