Groping in the Darkness

Rishi's back and side felt as if he had just climbed out of a molten lava pit. He ignored the pain, that was easy at this moment because the adrenalin still coursed through his blood.

"How big is this room?" He asked out loud. The echoes of his words had a noticeable delay. And unless his lessons from previous sojourns had failed to teach him, he sensed that he was on a stone precipice with wall to his right and a sheer drop off on his left.

"God I hope not," he thought to himself.

He reached to his right and felt around. Indeed the rock lead upward.

He felt to his left and there was very clearly a steep drop off.

No light. No flashlight. Nothing to see. No way to get back up to the crevasse at the top of the cave. There would be no going back today. Just like two years ago, he would have to find a new route home.

Rishi carefully sat up and crawled on his hands and knees, seeking to understand his predicament.
He approached the wall, crawling over large and small pieces of sharp rock. The rock cut into his hands and knees, and where it failed to draw blood it wore away his skin.

"I wonder?" Rishi thought and then caught himself and realized, "No. Even if he did come looking using his insight, there was no way Bob could help me."

Proceeding to his perceived precipice, Rishi carefully felt the stone. He was careful to not put too much weight on his arms, lying flat and slowly moving forward. This turned out to be a good strategy because the slight overhang that had caught him, peeled off and fell.

Rishi recoiled and sighed a relief that he hadn't been on the stone.

He paused for a fraction of a second and listened to the silence. "Something," whispered his intuition, "isn't right."

A huge splash sound rang up from beneath him. The rather large piece of rock that separated had fallen all that time and landed in water at the bottom of this cave.

Rishi explored his little area for a half hour or so. He stood up feeling along the walls. He moved stones around looking for exits. But he knew in his heart of hearts that he was trapped on a ledge, part way down this tall thin chamber.

Only one way out had been provided, and that was to swim in the dark down a cold stream which would likely carry him so deep as to make it impossible for him to ever get out.

He sat and leaned against the wall. Pain from his open wounds shot from his back out to his finger tips, down to his feet and straight up into his neck and head.

That pain hit him like a wall of fear. He instinctively knew he would go into shock if he didn't keep alert and moving. But likely that cold water and his old phobia would have the same effect.

"There's no point in waiting," he thought and he jumped off the precipice where the stone had fallen from.

He fell for much longer than he expected. Several seconds. That means he fell almost a hundred meters. "I'll know soon enough," was all he had time to think.

His body splashed into the icy cold water and the pain in his skin fired so high as to feel like numbness to him.

Relaxing, he closed his eyes and waited for his body to gently float to the surface. That was the only way to be sure which way was up.

He had not touched bottom, so the river was deep here. He was lucky and thankful.

Rishi tasted the water and listened and felt for currents. The water did not contain algae and there didn't seem to be any fast currents.

"Eenie, meenie..." Rishi thought as he swam up stream knowing that to be the safest way to travel in a subterranean river.

He swam right toward the wall that he'd jumped from and found it to be sheer and unclimbable. The stone hadn't been worn long but it had been worn enough to be too slippery to climb when wet.

He swam toward the left wall and found it to be similar to its right hand sister. A "Slippery when wet" sign flashed through his mind.

He swam up stream for several minutes along the left edge of the river. The water was gentle, calm and not so cold now that he was used to it. "I would have enjoyed learning to swim in this water," he thought, "although I'd like a rather large flash light to learn anything."

The wall was sheer its entire length and ended at a wall where there was evidence of a water fall. This chamber was fed by water from upper chambers and there was no way to go up it.

"But I can feel a current," said his geologist self.

Carefully he dove down into the water, repressing his pain, ignoring his fear. He found small openings in the stone where water flowed in but there was nothing big enough for him to swim through. Back at the surface of the water he thought, "I'm glad I don't have to decide to swim with a risk of not finding air, but honestly upstream was the preferred direction."

He allowed himself to float down stream while he thought.

Then kicking himself toward the right wall, the wall from whence he fell, he felt along it to see if there was even the slightest place to grab on.

He found one and then another and pulled himself out of the water. He methodically climbed upward and up stream. He used his fingers to find and plan every hold. He could not assess his grip with his eyes and soon he found that to be an advantage. It was slow going and in an hour or so he'd gotten to twenty feet off the water, but found there were no more hand holds. Nothing to take him any farther. Back and forth along his path he traveled for another hour. He memorized everything he used, knew where all the grips were. He sought new hand holds, new places to jam his feet. But to no avail. Ultimately he jumped and splashed back into the water.

The current had grown a bit, he could feel it. The snows were melting above him. Soon this river would be a torrent of runoff.

He floated gingerly down stream, checking the wall for hand holds or for places he could grip. He wasted countless hours climbing, only to fail and fall or have to return to the water.

The cavern he swam was long and seemed endless. "Its more like a lava tube," he mused, "than a limestone cave."

About a mile down stream he bumped his feet on some stone. It surprised him and he let out a little yelp of surprise. He summarily laughed at himself and felt another stone.

The floor came up under him and soon he was walking on broken rock, feeling the cave's edge, looking for something.

"I used to hate the green glow of that algae," he thought, "now I'd give anything to have it back."