Verdesoto Contreras Martín, The Cavern

THE CAVERN

Written By Martín Verdesoto Contreras

Your grandmother always told me, “Son, you must work to find a job with these two characteristics, first that you will be doing something you like to do, and second, that it won’t make you starve, of course, something that will allow you to have a decent life”, and I believed that thanks to the long studies I did, I accomplished those words.

My name is Rick Dawson, and I’m a Subaquatic Archaeologist from the Archaeological Institute of America, on the Honolulu (Hawaii) society. I’m a historian for the hobby as well. Doesn’t sounds bad at all, right? well, this expedition I’m going to explain to you, about my book, totally turned the tables of my life. It all started in 2023, when my superiors had received a notification of a possible location of a big cavern underneath the sea not very far from Hawaii after some fishers were using their electronic fishing equipment to follow a suspiciously big fish, that disappeared in an interesting location, were later on sonar electronics detected a cavern, that looked like it had been revealed after some recent underwater earthquakes.

First of all, I should introduce to you the people that worked along my side through all this mad experience. Kalev Alver is the big guy of the team. He is an Estonian, 2 meters tall, expert, on Geology, physics. He is very reserved, doesn’t talk much, and only laughs in very particular situations. And recently showed us as well his trowing abilities with his favorite tool, a hiking ax that he named Tara. He has also demonstrated in our previous expeditions that he is a tough nut to crack. Then we have Jessica Morris, she is a very talented doctor from Atlanta, who also has a master’s in advanced biology. She loves animals, math, and dad jokes. she has been working with us for the past 4 years now and looks like she has decided to stay with us.

Lastly, there’s Charlie Wilson. He is a great friend of mine,

cause we have been working together even before we formed this team. Char is recognized for being an excellent biologist and scuba diver. If you ask me, you could say that he is the kind of person that doesn’t matter which activity you are doing with him, he will make it enjoyable for sure. We can go for hours and hours talking about our past adventures, and he was, the one who taught me and gave me my official diving certificate, and for a weird but interesting fact, when we were young, Char needed a blood transfer, and we are the same blood type, so I gave the doctors some of my blood for him to be fine. And as for me, I’m the leader of the team, but also known as the guy with the map. So here I was, on my expedition boat, the Forseti, Which is the Norse god of Justice. It was named by my dad, who used to love Norse Mythology.

At that moment, I remember I was on the main deck, talking with Jessica after dining with my team when we got the news from a companion boat that the first reconnaissance team of Divers lost contact with their boat for a while now. We were all very worried because we knew that these scuba divers weren’t any fools, these were highly experienced divers, and if they are having trouble coming back, it means something critical must have happened.

We all waited to get some news about the topic, some good news, but the boat didn’t talk to us until the next day, however, none of us slept well that night, because this man, this mysterious native Hawaiian guider came up with the bright idea of shocking us with some intriguing traditional local legends concerning the incident of the divers, that talked about some kind of wandering ghosts that attacked the sailors “after the mud and rocks of the island have spoken” and a mythological underwater beast that is told to hunt in some areas of the sea close to Hawaii.

The next day, in the morning I was notified by the other

boat that the scuba divers have not returned last night and that, due to this very possibly meaning that these good men had perished under the waves, we must abort the expedition after an intensive search on their bodies in the area. So, that was “partially”, what we all did.

The second boat needed a refuel in the mid-afternoon, so we all went to the place where they disappeared and began the third search on that day.

“Hey pal, I don’t want to be pessimistic but, I doubt that we will find any of those ducks alive you know? the weather wasn’t nice at all last night, and if there was someone left, we would have noticed them by now.” I remember Char said.

“Man, remember not to lose hope. These people knew what they were doing, we must continue searching” I told him.

Then, I saw Kalev, coming from the main deck yelling; “ Hey, Rick we got one!”

Then we saw the body. It indeed was one of the divers, and it showed evidence of drowning. His name was Robert Jackson. I hope he will now rest in peace. We continued to search, but this last time, we went with proper scuba diving suits and equipment. We tied a rope to the ship, so there was no way we were going to have the same fate as the last group. I told the team to go fully equipped just in case, but, the only “small” detail to mention here, is that Char suggested we used the old rope instead of the new one we bought in Hawaii, and I accepted, only because it was still in a very good state, and was bought by him, for the team. But accepting this was my big mistake.

Everything was going according to the plan. We were watching as the fish swimming around us, and we were getting close to a big reef, as I saw an eel pecking up from a rock. Whoever, we all started to notice that suddenly, there was no fish around us, and we were alone with the corals and

the rocks, as we were getting closer to the site where the boat lost contact with the group.

All this happened pretty fast. We noticed how all the rocks started to crumble, and a strong current quickly pulled us over inside a big cavern, hidden between the corals and the algae. We all started to pull from the rope to scape the strong current, but the rope started to receive lots of friction and succumbing to the damage and age, the rope finally broke. The last thing I remembered is that I was getting sucked to a water tunnel as dark as the summer sky of New York, and then, lights out.

Jess was the one to wake up first. When I woke up, I saw her trying to wake Kalev, who was still unconscious a few meters away from me.

She then turned to me and said; “Looks like we have been knocked out with the walls of rock in the underwater tunnel, with all that strong current.” my head was still going crazy, but I could still hear her.

“We must stand up quickly because Charlie is nowhere to be seen!” she said.

After a minute of dizziness, I managed to stand up and started picking up my stuff.

“Collect our remaining equipment and let’s explore these caverns. We can’t think about leaving this place without him. Anyway, he can’t be far from here” I replied.

As we all walked, I started to think of how unlikely it is that he simply woke up and walked away without helping us, or waking us. It all was very mysterious to me.

Another issue is that there was little to no sand on those passages, so it was practically impossible to notice any possible footprints.

As we walked, we noticed the big quantity of crystals, and some mosh that I thought somehow managed to lightly

illuminate the surroundings, but it was all still pretty dark, so we had to inevitably use our flashlights;

“The light does not come from neither the mosh, or the crystals. it comes from a very unique species of microbes that feed on the nutrients in the crystals and walls.” Jess explained.

We all three walked for at least 2 hours, and we were starting to worry about the food and how we were going to go back. Thankfully, our bud Kalev told us some crucial information;

“Thanks to the rock formations, and the filtration made by then, at least we don’t have to be worried about the two most important things humans need to survive; water and oxygen”

Here is where things started to get even weirder for us. I started to see if there were some writings on the walls, and all my studies on ancient writing and languages did not help me at all to understand what they all meant. Furthermore, there were some paintings, some drawings illustrating what it looked like some people hunting an animal that resembled an enormous mantis, but I couldn’t recognize it very well. There was another one though, that showed the same people running away from this weird animal.

We were getting tired of walking, and after we all talked about what to do next, we all concluded that it was probably in our best option to take guarding turns while the rest try to rest here, so tomorrow we will have more energy to keep searching. That’s what we did.

When I opened my eyes, I instantly felt a strong headache. I noticed that I was getting myself carried by something, by someone, because I could see his feet. but I couldn’t move at all, just my head. I tried to shout, but they didn’t respond. Only Jess responded;

“Rick! you are finally awake. I thought you got killed. looks like those mad cave people clubbed us on the head last night by surprise” she said. And as I was slowly moving my head in

circles due to the pain, I spoked her back; “Yeah, my head is hurting like hell”

Then she said; “I think they didn’t have it easy with our Estonian friend, because I managed to see him for couple seconds a while ago, and he was being carried unconscious by two of those savages, and his face didn’t look good”.

I remember I replied; “Damn, well, I hope he isn’t that bad. Anyway, We must think of an escape strategy, but first, we should pay attention to our surroundings, perhaps this mad lads caught Char before they caught us. We cant call much attention if we want to get out of here alive”.

So yes, things turned just a bit different from what we thought we were going to do that spring. We were now indeed on a cage, in a huge cavern beneath the sea, with lots of savages around us, a whole human community that learned to live inside these caverns, hunting and gathering what they needed. It seriously amazed me at the moment, such a big finding. But, I was really scared as well, to be honest.

After a while, they gave us some uncooked fish and some water in a bowl. Then, an old man approached our cage with another bowl, however, this bowl had some powder in it, some strange orange powder, that he signaled me to eat it. I thought about it for a while, but taking into account our situation, there was no other option, so I ate the powder, and the old man did as well.

I quickly felt very dizzy, and I went to sleep, but, I had really weird dreams. I saw that old painting on the wall again, but this time I saw it moving, I saw some kind of story that explained how this ancient tribe was now being hunted by the main creatures the used to hunt.

They called these creatures Kuyulaks, and all this was happening because one of the creatures, evolved into having stronger, thicker skin, so the algae and stone weapons these

people were using weren’t working as good as before. And then, I saw Charlie, he was trapped in one of the chambers of the cavern, in an area called by the old man as “the heart of darkness” but he was injured and had already defended himself with his diver’s knifer from two Kuyulaks, and other were coming for him. I heard the old man’s voice in my language, as I saw all this, explaining that what I was watching is an imminent future that only I can prevent. The only option was pretty obvious, we needed to help this tribe by working together in fighting off these creatures.

The next day, when I woke up, I didn’t even need to try and explain my offer to the old man. It looked like he was inside my mind, and I was inside his, thanks to the powder, we could understand each other.

With Kalev’s and Jess’s help, we prepared these people for hours. By using the old man as a language translator, and we taught them the magnificence of fire, and how to use it to create stronger weapons made of bronze and iron, that came from the walls, and in return, the old man shared invaluable medical knowledge to Jess and us. it was an incredible day, but we all were very worried about Char, so after a few moments, we felt everyone was ready, we conducted an expedition to the “heart of darkness”.

I felt as If I was looking at something coming from a movie, a horror movie. These creatures were nightmarish. they were about the size of a teen but were very fast, and on their hands, you could see what can only be described as pincers, strong enough to break bones. Their faces were just like an insect, but similarities with the crabs.

That afternoon was bloodshed. We all were gaining terrain, but not without suffering losses.

Jess, Kalev and I were forming a line, just behind the hunters that had created improvised spears with our equipment.

I didn’t know why, but those beast were afraid of me, they simply chose not to attack me. later on, I found out why. But this didn’t stop me from killing them and helping these people.

There were moments, where I felt we were all gonna die there, and that we weren’t gonna make it, as I saw more and more victims falling from our side. I was engaging with one of those monsters that were attacking a native when I saw how my dear Jess, got her hand-cut off by the Kuyulak that was facing her.

“Jess, Noooo…” were my words, but I couldn’t help her, as I was stabbing one of the creatures on the head.

She managed to finally kill the creature, and bandage up her cut with her cut clothes. I told her I didn’t want her to participate in that madness, but she refused.

“I’m not going to stay here. I’m not going to stay while y’all getting eaten by subaquatic monsters,” she previously said that day.

Kalev, with his casual poker face, struck one by one of the monsters with his small hicking ax.

We finally found a big cavern, and Char was on the corner. I have no idea how but managed to survive with all these creatures around. We helped him recover with some water as we were running away from the place. That’s when the abnormally big Kuyulak appeared from one of the entrances to the cavern. We weren’t going to be able to get back to the camp with that big thing behind us.

That’s when I heard Kalevs voice for once, honorific and sadly last time.

“For science, for my team,” Said Kalev, as he graved Tara, his ax, and threw it right into the animal head. The animal did not die, but Kalev’s action successfully provoked it, so the beast was no longer paying attention to us.

We all run outside the cavern, and I saw how the brave

Estonian fiercely confronted the big Kuyulak with tara on one hand, and his knife on his other hand, slowly getting cut and overcome by the other beasts around.

We were now at the camp, and for the next days, we shared more knowledge, learning from each other’s culture. Moreover, Jess found one terrible fact. With her medical equipment, she notified me that we all were infected with a Retrovirus that lived peacefully in the bodies of these natives, but not on ours. And not only this but that according to her equipment, this virus had pandemic capabilities if we allowed it to spread to the world. Char and I were immune to this, thanks to some special body defenses we shared. The old man finally taught us about a route to what they called the “world of the light”. But, at that point, a long time had passed, and for a reason, I don’t know till this day, Just before the old man was going to start guiding us out of there thanking off for the extremely important knowledge they learned from us, Jess, my comrade, my friend, decided to stay. Her life, her dreams, her private life, I didn’t know much about it, but, she seemed like a happy woman. I still think about it. Thinking about the reason she had, the motivation She had.

We then followed the guidelines to an opening on the rock, where we had to dive, and surprisingly, we came out impressively close to Hawaii, and because the search parties were still looking for us, it didn’t take long for them to notice us, that close to the island.

As for Char, he lived the rest of his life in Hawaii, and never officially scuba dived again.

As for me, well, you know the story.

Thank you, my son, for loving me, taking care of me in my final days. And thanks, for reading this letter.

I wanted to tell you, but when you were ready, and you are, so, yeah, the book, I published that allowed me to pay for

your university, it wasn’t fiction, it was a true story. My real name is not Tomas Jobs, and I wasn’t a reporter or a journalist. However, the real details of it, of all the madness of that story, I didn’t want to share them with the world, because in the end, they would do more harm than good to that ancient tribe, that deserved to live in peace.

I write this letter, for you to open it on your eight-teen birthday because that’s when I wanted you to know the truth. You deserve it, young man. Fight for your dreams, and if your dream is becoming an archeologist like me, then, you are welcome to visit my old friend, Charlie, that hopefully is still living in Hawaii. He has lots of things to tell you, lots of knowledge, and lots of interesting things to show you. I’m sorry for the lies, but, it was the best decision for both of us.

I know you will act responsibly with this information, because I know who you are, you are a good man.

With love, Papa.