Caves by Meghna Sonkar (chrome ebook reader .TXT) 📕

The Butterfly Hunt that turned nasty

I woke up deliriously. My mom had packed my lunch. I was to work on a school project with friends. I scampered out of home looking slightly prickly in my wet hair and freshly ironed blue cotton shirt and sky blue jeans. What's more, my friends were all waiting for me at the end of the street.

"C'mon" said Kylie. "Let's go!"

We all sped down the hill on our ultracool sports bikes. I had grown up in the rough terrain of Australia and had learnt sports skills to an alarmingly pleasing degree, much to the envy of my friends. They were still learners, but, I respected them for the sheer virtue of it.

Once down the bristle and hedge of the hill, we turned into a slightly mountainous area with curvy roads and almost yellow grass. It was serene in a way I cannot describe without being disloyal to the very subject I am writing on.

One by one, we rolled our bicycles into the wilderness and stepped into the swampy lands of Scotland. We even found an elk down in the swamps. Our mission was to catch butterflies for our school's biology project and store them in jars, so we could do more research on them and prepare a well-informed original presentation on butterflies. We were also looking for fun facts about the environments where butterflies grew profusely, hence our curiosity for the landscape.

There were four of us, Bob, Richard, Kylie and I. We parked our bicycles near some shrubs and went up an eerie-looking hill. There wasn't a soul there and we were growing quite homesick already. Richard was wildly stretching his net on all sides trying to catch the pink and purple butterflies, while I spent time observing the village way ahead. I could see the crooked houses through spaces in the trees.

Suddenly, Richard disappeared. We ran when we heard his shrill cries coming from somewhere beneath our feet. On reaching where Richard had been butterfly-hunting earlier we found a hole in the ground.

"Oh no!" said Bob" Richard fell down this hole."

We kept hearing echoing voices from underneath. We couldn't really see Richard. Only a gaping hole. Then we decided to go down the hole to pull Richard back up again. Bob and I were to go down the rope and Kylie was to pull us up afterwards.

Slowly and steadily we climbed down the crazy-looking hole down the strange mountain. We gasped for air and Richard's voice could be heard more clearly now.

"Don't! Don't come down here. It looks like a whole weird place. Just stay up and pull me up."
"We don't have enough rope!"said I "We have to jump down to you and then all three of us have to find a way out.

Down the wicked cave we went. Then, we jumped. Kylie's voice from above was almost impossible to hear now.

"Argh!" I groaned in pain. Bob was hurt from the jump too.

"Oh my God!" he shouted on examining Richard's wounds. "You're sore all over. Richard could hardly get up. His right leg was probably broken.

"Now what!" said I "How are we to get out of here?"said I

"I don't know. You guys should have stayed above and called someone for help. Some bravado"

"We can do it now too" said Bob

"No , silly.My cellphone isnt working from here. Why the hell did you get down here"

"We thought we'd just come down and help you up the rope and then come up ourselves"said I.

"Okay." said Bob"Now WHAT in the name of God do we do? We can't even yell at Kylie. She can barely hear us!"

We tried shouting again, but all we could hear in reply was Kylie's rather muffled voice.
On both sides of this place were two tunnels, one on the left and the other on the right. No, there was a third one too, behind us. But, that was watery and had a small stream of water gushing in. The tunnel on the left was dark and uninviting with giant cobwebs hanging from the ceiling. The one on the right looked clearer and had a higher ceiling. All these tunnels were really difficult to crawl through in any case.

"I vote, we go through this one on the right. But, we don't have light" said I

Bob interrupted "No, I've got a flashlight". And he pulled it out from his pocket.

"Sure as hell you do ." Richard and I grinned at each other as we always joked about how Bob was so resourceful.

So, we started walking into the caves. Dust crumbled into our hair and our faces were smeared with spidery cobwebs. The side walls were scratching our skins and our feet were getting sore with all the crawling and snooping around.It was the scariest thing in the world!

"You can't just keep going like that. There's nothing here but dust and other fearful commodities that Meg likes" joked Richard. It was torture for him as he was already badly bruised.
"Let's keep walking, idiot"said I.

We soon came to a dead end. It was disastrous and it was scary enough to walk through ONE such cave.

"Let's go back and catch the other one" said Bob.

"Okay. We have no choice" said I

"Look out! That's a crazy spider on your shoulder!" said Richard.

I grabbed my collar, and of course there was a brown, wriggly spider crawling intimidatingly.
"Awww" I shreiked and jumped only to hit my head very badly on the roof!

"Let's get the hell outta here" cried Bob.

All of us ran out of that cave and came to the center, where we had landed. We could still hear Kylie yelling. Of course we couldn't understand what she was trying to say.

"Why doesn't she go get help or call someone?" said I

"I bet she can't imagine how much we're in real trouble here" said Richard

"Or maybe she thinks we're catching more butterflies in here" replied Bob.

It was getting dark. The sun was about to set. We tugged at the rope, so Kylie would get some sort of signal. But, instead Kylie pulled up the entire rope and then, seeing there was nothing on it, dropped it down back again.

"Damn it" I said and started crying.

"Don't lose hope"said Richard"If we take too long, then Kylie's definitely going to call the police or our parents"

"So let's not take too long"said Bob.

The second cave was actually even more dangerous. We just couldn't keep our heads straight up and the dirt and the cobweb was super-exhausting. The air was so thin we were getting suffocated and my heart was beating much too fast.

But, things were getting better. This tunnel was winding and after going straight down for a while, it led upward. What a relief!

"Yeah, that means this cave will lead us out onto real ground." Bob thought aloud.

But, the tunnel started becoming narrower and narrower and we couldn't squeeze ourselves through it anymore.

So, yet again, we had to go back. This dull, dreary day was never going to come to an end!

We came back the same way to the center. The fear that we would never see people again and die in this hole was making way into my mind.

"Oh come on! You can't hear Kylie anymore. She must have gone to get help."said Bob

"Then why didnt she just call someone?"said Richard

"Oh"I joined in" I remember now...She was complaining about her cellphone going all wrong. Maybe it's not working!"

"What the-"said Richard. Then, all of a sudden, water from the third cave started gaining speed and gushing into the the center of tha cave. We tried to hold on to the rocks and frantically threw our hands and legs in all directions.

The whole cave was soon filled with water. We couldn't swim. We couldn't breathe and lying there with our heads immersed in the water was not the most pleasing thing in the world.

There was no way we were getting out of this mess. Kylie's voice wasn't to be heard. We were stuck in this watery mess of a cave. All I could see were the faded bodies of Richard and Bob, both trying frantically to swim out of the all-encompassing water.

I was living my biggest fear. I was drowning in water, and we were going to die there. I loved adventure, but, I had never thought that I would be lost like this forever and ever in a cave just because I wanted to go butterfly-hunting. Animal rights activists- This is sheer Karma.

Then, suddenly, the water started streaming into the cave back again. It sucked us all out of the center and into the third cave in a loud bang and gush. We were whirled and churned like vegetable in a food processor! We kept moving with the water like a whole tornado. Then, all of a sudden there was bright light. We fell on the green field outside...Plop plop plop...With three little thuds we sat on the grass and looked back to find a small opening at the foot of a little hill...
"We must be at the other end of the hill. Let's walk around it and we'll find where we were before" said Richard.

"Be careful not to fall down a hole this time" winked Bob.

Soon we were on the other side of the hill. There was police there and , of course, Kylie was there too pointing down the hole we had fallen into. The media was there to report our living of the biggest and the most dreadful fear ever to the public. Our parents hugged us as if they'd met us after twenty years. What a sight it was!

Text: Meghna Sonkar
Publication Date: 08-06-2012

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