Chapter 1: Leaving Just Your Picture Behind
It was long believed that deep beneath the surface of the earth was extremely hot. Every time a fissure in the earth was deep enough, there was molten rock and other unfathomable heat bursting out from within. Somewhere along the way, it was concluded that the center of the earth was also filled with the unfortunate souls who had not found themselves worthy of the paradise they saw in the skies above.
As time progressed, scientists determined that the center of the earth was indeed hot... hotter than any life could withstand. The hairless apes on the surface could slay and transgress against one another with unshakable confidence that the scorekeeper had left the game long ago. Belief in this form of perdition dwindled and became the territory of the credulous and the slow-witted.
As it turns out, they were right the first time. It was more dangerous than either the tallest mountains or the deepest oceans, a place man feared to tread... lest they never see the sun again. Many men through history had entered a cave only to never emerge, held tight in the jagged jaws of the earth. It was a death close enough to damnation that made most wonder why anyone would make the descent on purpose.
The path from the pit to the surface was a narrow, winding, damp crevice with mostly straight edges and no footholds. Thankfully, it was entirely impassable for anyone trying to escape their sentence. The path from the surface down into the pit... was unthinkable. What could possibly go through someone's mind to make them travel so far down, unless they were literally trying to reach the center of the Earth? It was the last part of the globe where monsters may yet roam.
She rappelled down hundreds of feet, squeezing through tight passages and trying to find purchase on crumbling wet surfaces, all with her flashlight held in her mouth. She occasionally had the confidence in her rope to remove one hand from it to shine the light around her. She quickly learned there was nothing surrounding her but more slick rock. The bats that swarmed her closer to the entrance didn't flutter down this far. Even the insects were nowhere to be seen... not even to escape the bats.
Her boot slipped off the slippery rock surface. She began what a professional climber might call a 'rapid unintended descent.' She was still attached to her rope by her harness and her gloved hands, but her boots slid against the rock like a pencil eraser. Her gloves heated up from the friction of clutching the rope so tight. They stubbornly didn't burst into flames as they were quite wet, but they were worn away to basically nothing by the time she came to a stop on the relatively soft diabase ground.
She pulled her head up and rose to a sitting position. The palms of her gloves were shredded, but the flesh beneath wasn't damaged. She threw the useless remnants of her gloves into the gullet of the cavern near her. Surely, nobody would complain about her littering... maybe there was some subterranean hermit crab down there that could now join their local biker gang.
With her feet finally back on the uneven floor, she reached into her bag and pulled out the remaining fragment of the ancient vase that had broken in some other misadventure on her way down. The map painted on the shard was intact... except for the very last bit. Based on the loose sense of scale this map possessed, this unmapped area could be another hundred miles... but luckily, there was only one way to go, through another narrow crack in a subterranean boulder larger than an iceberg.
From the rocky floor, she whipped her arm, sending a wave up the rope, freeing it from the outcropping to which it was tied. No going back now... at least not this way. She might need this rope to get further down anyway. She wound the rope back up and tucked it into her backpack.
With nowhere left to go, she pressed herself through the narrow crevice, so narrow that she had to remove her backpack and push it in front of her to make it through. The stiff rock scratched at her flesh like the sharp edges of broken seashells. The flashlight was back in her mouth, trying to hold it with her lips rather than chip her teeth on the metal cylinder. Her shirt ripped and her backpack tore open. She forced herself through until the entrance widened, then closed the tear in her backpack with her last safety pin. She stumbled on... hoping it wouldn't be much further.
She only slowed her progress down this cavern when she realized the light was not coming from her flashlight... but from somewhere within. A warm orange light that nevertheless felt harsh and threatening, maybe the light thrown off a river of magma. Then there was the increasing wind... maybe it wasn't called wind so far down beneath the surface. But all the subterranean water and mud that stuck to her from her journey started to dry up as a wave of warm air hit her. It felt like standing in the path of a gentle hair dryer. It would be pleasant... if she didn't know just how much hotter it would soon get.
The narrow cavern opened up into a large chamber, the entrance to this room was adorned with two torches the size of trees, burning eternally yet smokelessly with an unknown fuel. There was no door, no archway, nothing that looked deliberately constructed or designed. It was just another rock fissure just wide enough for two to pass through shoulder-to-shoulder.
And yet, she knew this was the entrance she was looking for.
It was guarded by an enormous three-headed dog.
When she approached, Cerberus was sleeping. But it didn't take long for one of Cerberus' eyes to open, staring at her like a like the porthole on a submarine. The beast had surely smelled her blood from miles off, but wanted to be sure they weren't merely dreaming of tasty flesh. Cerberus got to their feet and lunged forward until they reached the end of their lead, an enormous adamant chain lashed around all three of their necks. The whole chamber shook as they reached the end of their lead, a shower of loose stones coming from the ceiling.
The interloper stood right at the end of Cerberus' leash, as their three heads roared a storm of damp breath at her. Her hair blew back, but her boots stayed right where they were. She had packed no weapon. That was the original deal, wasn't it?
She steeled herself. Nothing would stop her from getting past this beast.
--
The early summer sun had finally given way to night, to the gentle wind blowing through the coniferous forests and the buzzing of nocturnal insects. The sun would return all too soon, before almost anyone could get a good night's sleep. Soon, the nights would get longer until there was equal sunlight and darkness, but the balance would only last for one day before the imbalance began again.
A two-toned burgundy and white Ford pickup truck bucked and stumbled into the farthest parking spot outside Gerhard's, by far the nicest watering hole within a hundred kilometers of the outskirts of Toronto. The car lurched to a stop, the front wheels bumping the concrete barrier and rocking the car as it came to a stop.
The driver's side door opened suddenly, almost as if the driver would fall out of the cab and to the dirt like a corpse. Somehow, Dave managed to stay on his feet. He was a man a little under six feet, a little burly, dressed in a blue jumpsuit, reflective harness and steel-toed boots with the steel starting to wear through the leather... the only part of him that seemed to shine other than his sweaty skin.
Dave slowly trundled his way into Gerhard's, taking a seat at the bar that was closest to the door. He normally sat with his back to a wall, to stop someone sneaking up on him like Wild Bill Hickock. But right now... all he wanted to do was get a beer.
The bartender, a man inexplicably not named Gerhard, noticed Dave taking a seat with a hefty dad grunt. He walked over to him, precious few other customers needing his attention. "What can I getcha?" He said, pointing a damp glass and rag at him as he polished it.
Dave barely lifted his head up at him. "Any cold beer will be fine, thank you." He said softly, resting his elbows on the bar.
The bartender brought him a Budweiser speckled with water droplets, popping the cap with a handy bottle opener and set it down in front of him on a cork coaster.
"Now that the bottle is open, you can take off those goggles, huh?" The bartender jested.
It took a second for Dave to even process what the bartender had said. "What? I..." Dave brought his hand to his face. He still had his safety goggles on. "Oh, for God's sake..." He pulled them off his face and hung them in the placket of the jumpsuit. It was amazing how he'd forgotten they were on. At least he'd kept them clean and scratch-free...
"Long day?" The bartender asked.
Dave stared into space. "Long couple weeks." He said. "That pipeline explosion out west... we're still dealing with the repercussions of that. I'm on ten days in a row... and we're not done yet."
"Well, think of all the overtime pay you're getting."
"I'm thinking about my crunchy shoulder getting crunchier." He rolled his arm in a circle. He swore he could hear it in his head as much as feel it, like he was trying to break up walnuts under his shoulder blade. It didn't quite have the awful hitch of bone scraping against bone... yet. "It feels like that'll still be there when the money is all gone."
"Well, then, I recommend you lift that beer with your left arm." The bartender walked off.
While the bartender's back was turned, Dave did quickly pass the bottle to his left hand. He held his head down, looking down at the glass ashtray sitting in front of him. He stared at it for a bit without meaning to, a clock without hands that would never change. He pushed the ashtray aside.
Maybe he shouldn't have sat on the stool. Dave was so weary, even the small amount of effort it took to stay upright on a bar stool felt like standing on a tightrope. He should've sat at one of those booths... but then he might slump over and pass out. All he wanted to do was find the nearest horizontal surface and sleep.
Dave's eye wandered around the bar. It was pretty quiet, as it was still the middle of the week. Most blue-collar workers just drank beer in their own homes, but he knew he had run himself out. If he had to be somewhere in his current exhausted and unkempt state, he'd rather it be a dimly lit bar than a bright grocery store. At least the beer was already cold here. In the other seats, there was one other man with his back turned, hunched at a table. He could be asleep, resting on his elbow. Dave wished he could fall asleep that fast.
