Thanks to Todger 65 for the edit.
*****
Splat! The sound of water hitting the surface woke the young woman. "Huuuurgh!" The rush of air into her lungs followed. "Cough! Cough!" Air and water expectorated again through her abused throat; the tight, painful clench of her chest as her body adjusted to the breath of air.
She lay on the floor, sinuses and throat burning, lungs heaving, coughing water and saliva.
"What the fuck?!"
she thought.
"I'm not dead?!"
A faint sense, just before she awoke, of something thick and fleshy, like a cock in her mouth, floated briefly to the surface but sank so quickly, she was unsure whether it was a dream or hallucination.
Charlotte stood on wobbly legs and looked around.
"Where am I? A cave?"
It could explain the whirlpool. A hidden cave, perhaps, had opened and caused the whirlpool, and she got caught in the vortex. She heard something similar happened in Florida.
"A salt mine, I think." The question was, "Where did the water go? And how am I going to get out of here?"
The cave was more a tunnel; tall enough to stand with plenty of room. It was dim but Charlotte could see, albeit she knew not the light source. It seemed to come from all directions but she couldn't detect any bio-luminescence.
The tunnel was warm and humid, almost like a sauna. The walls were black and shiny, rising from the floor in arcing patterns with ridges. Charlotte was uncomfortably reminded of the ribs of a skeleton.
The floor itself was a light gray. It continued away from her for some distance before curving off to the right. The surface was warm and damp beneath her feet. It felt like a wet carpet or moss.
The structure of the tunnel made Charlotte apprehensive. It looked unnatural, like something not created by geological forces but manufactured. The walls curved in too regular a pattern. The floor looked too flat and even to be a natural carving.
"Maybe I found a hidden temple,"
she thought.
It seemed silly; visions of herself as Indiana Jones or Lara Croft were fleeting and dismissed.
"Those college students thought I looked like Lara Croft,"
she thought again, smiling.
The milf walked down the corridor towards the curve.
"Naked, wet, and half-drowned," she chuckled. "Wonder what those kids would think now?"
Charlotte knew she had to find a way out of the cave.
"I hope it isn't too far from the lake,"
she thought.
"And please don't let there be bears."
Charlotte continued down the path. The luminescence seemed to increase as she crept through the tunnel. The corridor seemed to lighten though she couldn't be sure. She thought the light source might be at the end of the tunnel.
"Is that a glow" she asked. If so, it meant the possible entrance.
Charlotte began to run, ignoring the soft squelch of her feet on the wet floor. Hope turned to disappointment when she came to a large circular arc.
It opened into a wide chamber. The floor was the same light gray as the passageway. The chamber was the size of a small garage with a low ceiling.
"Darn!" Charlotte said.
The walls and roof were smooth, flat, and shiny, like obsidian. She stepped into the chamber and noticed circular patterns, of varying sizes and barely noticeable, dotting the floor like so many pockmarks. Charlotte walked across the chamber to the opposite wall where her reflection appeared, faint and pale against the black glass. She noticed circular patterns dotting the wall as well. She glanced upward; the same patterns decorated the roof.
"This is not a cave," Charlotte realized. The chamber looked too . . . ordered, too built. "What is this place? A temple?"
She looked at her reflection. Her light tan skin glowed shiny and wet in the faint light. Her dark hair was slick and plastered to her skin. Charlotte's expression betrayed no fear, just curiosity. The room was warm, damp, humid, with a faint odor, almost a musk.
Charlotte examined the room and found no exit, so she turned and, "What?!" The entrance was gone. The arch way through which she'd entered was now a solid black wall. A cold chill raced up and down the milf's spine. A cave in she could understand, not a doorway that simply goes missing.
"Oh shit! Oh shit!" she cursed, backing up fearfully. "This place is seriously strange."
She cursed herself for forgetting that Lara Croft and Indiana Jones had to deal with deadly traps, "And I just probably stepped into one."
She backed up until her back bumped against the wall, which turned out to be surprisingly warm . . . and very sticky.
<Specimen acquired. Preparing immobilization procedure.>
The command raced soundlessly through the ship. Charlotte, unknowing, became aware of a light, warm breeze wafting through the chamber.
"Where's it coming from?" she asked. "Maybe there's a way out after all."
However, when she started to search, she encountered a problem. "What the . . .? My feet are stuck?!"
Charlotte's feet were adhered to two of the circles in the floor.