The Tail Tales - Chapter 2 - The Cave of Flames

Andy nodded off again. When he woke up, it was almost dusk, the sky an orange yellow hue with ink blackness spreading from the other side. The yellow berries had taken on a golden orange colour and now looked even more attractive. He realised with a start that he was very hungry. A loud rumble from his stomach supported his point of view. He remembered his dad telling him about berries and their colours. He decided that the berries did not look poisonous after all. As he moved to stand up, he suddenly noticed that the girl was not there. He realised that he still did not know her name and had no clue how to call for her. He decided to play it safe and yelled ‘Heeeyyyyy’. The cry echoed back in waves and he realised that shouting like that was not a safe thing to do when you are running away from a creature that resembled a dragon.

But the cry had its effect. Over the crop of a hill some distance away he saw a metallic shape topped up with a red shock of hair. It was her. For some reason Andy felt a little relieved not to be alone out here. She came closer and he saw that she was carrying some tender green shoots like onion stalks. She dropped them on the grass and then proceeded to separate out the stalks from the roots. He asked her what they were and she replied that they were some kind of a juicy stem but a little pungent. He took one up and smelt it. The smell was slightly tangy and somehow earthy. A little bit of dust got into Andy’s nose and he sneezed, a loud noise that startled her. After that, he went into a long sneezing fit, bad enough for tears to start streaming down his cheeks. He simply could not stop himself. Suddenly, he was grabbed from behind and his nostrils and mouth tightly clamped by arms encased in metallic skin. She was trying to kill him!

Andy struggled to free himself but it was to no end. Finally, he gave up and subsided and she then released him. He immediately scooted away to the other side of the tree, ready to run if she attacked him once again. But he stopped short when he saw her laughing silently. He asked ‘Was killing me that funny?’ She shook her head and said ‘Look what has happened to your sneezes now!’ He realised that in all his struggling, the hold that she had applied had somehow stopped his sneezing completely. He muttered ‘Thanks’ and went to help her with the stalks. They made a meal of the stalks and some of the berries. They had no water but the juice from the berries helped.

When they finished, the sky was almost completely dark and visibility had dropped to a very low level. Beyond some distance, they could only make out hazy shapes. Andy suggested that they look for some cover for the night. The girl agreed and suggested that they make for the hills where they might find some caves. They walked quickly in the direction of the hills. As they reached the foot of the hills, Andy saw some distance away, higher up on the hill, a dark opening. He pointed it out and they both ran for it. As they reached the entrance however, Andy felt a slight tremor – the hill appeared to be trembling. This was accompanied by a rumbling noise that seemed to come from the opening. The noise appeared to be coming from something very deep inside the hill.

Andy stopped short and put his hand out for the girl to stop. They advanced cautiously towards the entrance. The rumbling suddenly stopped as did the tremors. Andy felt that they should probably find another place to hide out. But it was already very dark and the chances of being caught out in the open in the darkness appeared high. So he decided to enter the cave. The girl followed close behind. The entrance to the cave was tall enough for about 10 full grown men. After the entrance, the cave seemed to grow larger. The floor seemed to slope down into the heart of the hill while the roof rose upwards along the hill’s slope. Curiously, the inside of the cave seemed to be made of a dark rock with streaks of white.

Suddenly Andy realised that he could see inside the cave when in fact he should not have been able to. There seemed to be a curious bluish coloured light coming off the walls with the dark rocks. The light was strong enough to light up the inside of the cave very well. The deeper they went however, the light seemed to fade. After wandering some distance into the cave, Andy saw a curious set of marks – like paw marks – only these were big enough for him to stand in and then have some space to move around in. One set of these were about 10 feet apart and another larger set were about 20 feet apart. He would have missed the second set except that at one point the cave curved towards the right and he came across one of these larger paw marks closer to the wall. In between these two sets of paw marks, there was a wavy mark of something having dragged on the floor – like a snake – only much larger.

Alarm bells went off in Andy’s head. He searched for a place to hide inside the cave. The girl first caught sight of the small alcove next to the turn in the cave. It had been formed by a partial rock fall and now offered a small cubby hole walled off by the rocks. The entrance and exit was through  a small opening near the base of the rock fall. The rocks inside did not glow and so were dark, giving the advantage of shadow. Both of them squeezed inside. It was a slightly narrow space and they were both squeezed up. But this seemed infinitely better than the deeper portion of the cave or the plains outside.

As they settled in, the rumbling and tremors started once again. The rumbling seemed to be coming from somewhere behind them and the walls were shaking with the noise. The rumble seemed to increase in intensity and loudness. Andy found his hand being grabbed by the girl and squeezed in a painful grip. He looked at her and in the gloom; her green eyes were swimming with panic. He put his hand over hers and they held on like that for what seemed like forever. Finally the rumble died down and so did the echoes. The girl hesitantly removed her grip and whispered something to him. Andy did not understand and said ‘What?’ She repeated the words but he still could not make out. He bent his head to listen closer just as she tried to come closer to him. The result was a loud knock as their heads banged together. Both of them yelled out in pain and their yells got magnified and echoed through the cave.

Andy motioned for the girl to be quiet. They waited to see if someone or something had heard them. Suddenly, there was a whoosh much like air escaping from a large balloon. The gust swept past their alcove. It was warm and almost hot. The air also smelled very foul. The girl started to say something when suddenly a sound like a bellow came from inside the cave and suddenly a great wave of fire shot through the cave lighting up everything around. This was followed by another longer burst which set fire to anything flammable inside the cave. Since they were protected by the rockfall, Andy and the girl escaped the brunt of the flame. But Andy put his hand on the rock in front of him and found that it was hot to touch.

They drew back inside the alcove and waited. Nothing further happened, there was no more noise or fire. Andy looked at the girl and found that she was exhausted. He decided to let her sleep while he watched and told her to make herself as comfortable as she could. As her eyelids drooped, Andy once again remembered that he did not know her name and asked her. She sleepily muttered that her name was Aelia and that she was called Ael for short. With that the conversation died down and she slept. Andy kept watching the cave for any signs of movement. In some time, Andy’s own tiredness caught up with him and he nodded off.

What he had not realised was that the black stone had fallen out of his pocket and lay on the ground at the entrance to the alcove. And with the noise and the gusts of fire, the stone had started glowing, unseen by both Andy and Ael. A reddish orange glow seemed to be coming out of the stone mixed with flashes of yellow. Amidst the flashes could clearly be seen some kind of a tail that whipped around inside the stone. At one stage, a small snout became clearly visible next to the surface but quickly disappeared. As the noise and fire died down, so did the stone. It went back to being the smooth black that it had been and lay there waiting.

Andy woke up with a start suddenly and realised that he must have slept the night away. Ael was still fast asleep, curled into a tight little ball next to him. It was now daylight outside and it had lit up the inside of the cave as well. In the light, Andy suddenly saw that the dark rocks on the walls of the cave were actually crystals of some sort and the white streaks appeared to be some kind of silvery metal. He remembered reading about phosphorescence in school and thought that the crystals were in some way absorbing the light and emitting it slowly. He slowly came out of the alcove. As he started walking, his foot struck the black stone which had fallen out of his pocket and it went bouncing ahead of him deeper into the cave. He decided to follow it, somehow gathering more strength from the daylight than he could find at night. There had been no noise or tremors at all after the flames came and he thought it would be a good time to explore.

He found the black stone ahead on the path, picked it up and put it back in his pocket. It felt warm to his touch but he assumed that it must have got heated up by the flames in the night. He then walked deeper into the cave cautiously. The floor continued to slope to his right and down into the earth. He continued to walk into the cave for the next 10 – 15 minutes. As he walked in, the air inside the cave started smelling stale and musty. The daylight which had helped him get his courage back; started failing with the depth and the curvature of the cave walls. Finally, he came to a point where the floor seemed to almost drop off like the edge of a cliff. He could not make out much in the gloom. He looked as hard as he could but could not make out what was below or see the bottom of the fall.

Andy looked around for a stone and found a small one which he then threw down. He knelt down at the edge of the drop and waited to listen to the sound of the rock hitting the bottom. The sound never came. Instead, after a couple of minutes, a sound of it hitting something soft but solid came. As Andy peered into the blackness below, he suddenly saw a large yellow gold light open up. It was an eye of some sorts and was far below him. But the sheer size of the eye was enough to leave him shaking in fear. He stood up and ran all the way back down the cave. Reaching the alcove, he shook Ael awake and pulled her out. He ran out of the cave and she stumbled behind him still half asleep. As they exited the cave, the tremors and the rumbling of the previous night started. This time, the noise was much louder almost as if whoever was making the noise was somehow angry.

Andy did not stop to look back and ran down the hill with Ael. As they reached the bottom, the noise reached a peak and a bellow sounded. With this, a huge burst of flame came out of the mouth of the cave. The flame shot high in the air and then rolled back into the cave leaving a trail of black smoke behind it. Andy sank to the ground as his legs were trembling with the effort. Ael was now wide awake and stood open mouthed watching the cave in wonder.