An Endless Dark Cave

An Endless Dark Cave

by Oluwatobi Akangbe

It was one night when her father came into her and her sister’s room and told them a bedtime story as he did every night.

“When I was a young boy there was this tale your grandpa told me one night about a girl the same age as you around the time, that he went into the cave . . . ” and he proceeded with the rest of the story.

She was so happy because she loved it when her father would tell rumors and stories. That’s why her father told them the most. Matilda Dixion lived in a place where there was this rumor about the Titan that lured the children to eat them and if they ate them, they’ll become a Titan. After their father finished the story he left the room. When he left, one of her siblings dared her to go into the cave the next morning, so she took the dare and went into the cave because she wasn’t scared of anything, or at least she thought. The minute she took a step in with the flashlight, it shut off. She was prepared for this moment, so she took extra batteries out from her bag to see, but those didn’t work either. Matilda was always prepared no matter what situation or scenario; she thought of what could happen. That was something that her father taught her. She looked up to him so much. She questioned whether she should turn back or keep moving. She was so curious yet so naive. Took another step into the cave and kept moving. It was so cold she was shivering under her coat and jacket. Every step she took sounded like a creaking sound but she was walking on mud.

“Strange,” she wondered.

For every step she took, her courage lowered and so did her curiosity. She was so close to the cave that she could hear the Titan voices. *errrrrr*

She looked back at the entrance and it was gone, her heart dropped. She wanted to run, but it was too late. All she could think about was if her dad had noticed she was gone. She thought, “What if they forgot about me? What if they thought I turned into a Titan already?” Her flashlight finally turned on.

“So now you wanna turn on,” she said while rolling her eyes. As

she points it to the cave she sees two entryways she can go. “Which one do I choose?”

She points out her finger pointing at the caves.

As my finger lays

Upon these decisions

Let the universe guide me through.

I’ll take the left one.

A smile appeared on her face. When she said the rhyme it reminded her of her and her sisters. Anytime they didn’t know what to decide, they would say the rhyme and go with whatever decision the rhyme landed on. They thought of it as a sign of fate.

As she was walking in the cave she saw these strange signs on the wall as if it was some kind of language. With the language, there were also pictures there.

“What do they mean?” she wondered.

There were pictures of not just one Titan, but a bunch. They were building a whole life for themselves, building buildings and objects, but in the next picture, it showed the Titans collecting children to put in their city so the Titans can eat them. And they duplicate and turn into a Titan so the population would never end. And if the adults got in their way, they would get killed and sent into their cave.

Matilda backed away slowly, her heart in uneasiness, shaking. She felt someone who took the oxygen right out of her mouth

“So—so—where are the bodies?”

“I haven’t seen them yet, I have been in here for who knows how long”.

“Inhale, exhale, until you get rid of all the stress. Then the problem won’t seem like a big mess. You pick up each piece, one by one, of the problem until it is long gone,” her father used to tell her when she used to get stressed out.

Her heart rate dropped slower and slower. She exhaled a breath of relief and kept on walking. In a weird way, she felt happy when she remembered what her father used to say. It made her feel as if her father was right next to her.

“I miss you, Dad, I hope you know I’m gone and looking for me.”

A tear fell down her cheek. This gave her a little courage, to know as long as she knew her family was out there looking for her she would be able to get out of this cave to hug her family once more.

As she kept walking she heard loud echoes snoring from the cave.

“I guess I’m getting close.”

“What was that?”

She moved her shoe to see what she could step on.

“A bone?”

“Where did this come from?”

She pointed the flashlight at the ground of the rest of the cave and she saw bodies and bones; when she pointed at the walls it was a bunch of blood, scattered. She was so shocked that she fainted.

When she got back into consciousness she tried to move her hands, but she couldn’t. She woke up and saw the Titan. Her mouth wide-open, as big as the size of the cave. She couldn’t believe that.

“How could this be true?”

The Titan’s teeth were as big as a shark’s teeth. She looked in its eyes. It’s like she saw the devil. As the Titan proceeded to open its mouth and eat her, Matilda never got to see her family or say her last words.

A day later her family found out what happened and built a grave with no body underneath. Leaving the family wondering: what went wrong?