1
ETHAN
"Dude, come on. Get up."
I groaned and cracked open an eyelid. Sunlight streamed through the window of my bedroom, and even just the split-second of light was enough to send my head pounding.
"Ugh," I moaned.
I heard Andy round my bed and throw aside the curtains, then open the window. The smell of salt and sand gusted inside with the cool ocean air. I rolled over to face the opposite direction, but then Andy was stomping around to do the same on that side of the room.
Christ, couldn't he let me sleep?
"Get up!" he repeated, peeling off my sheets. I curled into a ball and wedged my eyes shut against the growing light of day.
"I'm good here."
"We're gunna be late," Andy insisted. "Orlando booked the cave tour days ago. He's gunna be pissed if people bail out."
"You're gunna be pissed," I corrected.
"Everyone's going. We can't stay in bed all day."
I considered fighting longer, but Andy wasn't the kind of guy to give up unless I was dead. So I surrendered and grabbed my glasses from the side table.
"I'm going," I croaked, mouth feeling like it was made of a lizard's scales. Andy shoved something at my face which ended up being a glass of water.
"Meet you out front in fifteen."
And then, blessedly, he left.
I wasn't the drinker I used to be. None of us were, but that hadn't stopped us from emptying two bottles of rum between the five of us on the Belize beach. It wasn't often you celebrated your ten year college reunion with your best friends.
Less alcohol tonight, I decided, head so cloudy that even those three words came with difficulty. It was our final night in the small Central American country, and I sure as hell didn't want to feel like this when I jumped on a plane in the morning. Maybe some beers instead of hard liquor, a drink I could sip on and take my time.
Yeah. That sounded nice.
I lurched my body into the shower and stood under the hot water until I felt vaguely human, threw on some shorts and a T-shirt, and left my room.
The villa we'd rented had five bedrooms around a shared living space. The kitchen was filthy with upended shot glasses and cups that still held half an inch of alcohol in the bottom. The scent of alcohol was so strong I could smell it from the hallway, and I felt my gag reflex crawling up the back of my throat.
I rushed outside to meet the others.
The sun punched me in the brain like it'd been waiting in ambush, bright and hot and bright, did I mention bright? For a second I considered going back inside to put in my contact lenses, which would then allow me to wear sunglasses, but I didn't want to delay things further.
I was the last one ready, I saw with muted annoyance. Andy stood chipper and cheery in a baggy white shirt, gesturing with his hand while he explained something only Andy could care about. Sam nodded along, his dirty blond hair bouncing gently with each movement.
Roland stood next to them and stared off at nothing. He removed his sunglasses and rubbed at his bloodshot eyes, then scratched at his mop of Irish auburn hair.
The Belfast-born man saw me and gave a nod of mutual agony.
Andy clapped his hands together, finally noticing that I was there. "Good! We're all here. It was so quiet this morning I thought I'd find dead bodies in your beds."
"Would that you did," Roland muttered, his Irish accent thick in the morning sun.
Orlando spoke with the driver next to the jeep in Spanish, then turned to us. "We're all set. Ten minute drive out to the caves."
I play-punched him on his dark-skinned arm in greeting as I passed, and he gave me a smirk in return. "If you get sick on the ride, hombre, speak up so we can pull over."
"Why would I get sick?"
It turns out the reason I might get sick was because the road to the caves was more of a game trail than an actual road. For fifteen minutes we bounced over rocks and jutting tree roots, and for half the trip I did think I was going to be sick. Somehow I held my nausea in check. Andy stood in the back of the jeep like a World War Two tank commander, gazing around like he was leading the way instead of an American simply along for the ride.
The low-hanging jungle trees finally cave way to a small clearing, with enough room for three or four cars to park. The land sloped away in a trail, leading toward a small black crack in the slate mountain face.
"These are the incredible caves you've been going on about?" Roland said, voice thick with disdain. "I got out bed for this?"
Disappointment flashed on Andy's face, but only for an instant. "Don't judge a book by it's cover. It's bigger on the inside, right Orlando?"
"That is how caves work," Sam mumbled.
Orlando translated the question to the guide, who nodded vigorously. I shrugged and climbed out the jeep, already counting down the time until we were done and could return to our beds for a nap.
The guide handed out helmets and gear, which ended up being thin harnesses with some sort of tracking device and a small LED flashlight. Our group of hungover thirty-somethings strapped the harnesses on in silence.
"No picks or climbing equipment?" Sam asked, a frown falling across his blue eyes.
Orlando laughed and said, "Dude, no. It's not that tough of a cave."
"At least, not the part we're exploring," Andy cut in. "There are some expert tunnels, but that'd be a death sentence for anyone in your current state."
"Amen," I said, which drew a few laughs.
The guide addressed us, speaking in broken--but understandable--English. Follow him, taking care where we stepped. Always keep the person in front of you in view. Never leave the path unless he says it's okay.
We nodded along, barely hearing.
And then we were descending toward the cave entrance itself, an unimpressive black gash in the grey rock.
The entrance tunnel was just wide enough to pass through without ducking, though my shoulders brushed against both walls. I wondered if any of my buddies were claustrophobic. That probably would have been a good thing for them to announce before coming out here, but there was rarely logic in a hungover mind. I was the fourth one in line, following behind our guide and Orlando and then Andy, and I kept the sight of Andy's white shirt within my view as I shuffled along the uneven ground. The tunnel extended maybe fifty feet, it was tough to tell--
And then Andy disappeared.
I felt a brief moment of panic before realizing our tunnel was opening into a larger area, and Andy had stepped to the side. I sighed with relief as I passed through the final squeeze of rock.
I gasped.
We were in an enormous subterranean chamber. The cone of Orlando's flashlight arced across the air above us, revealing a rocky ceiling so far above it almost didn't seem real. The air smelled faintly musty, and a rush of air stirred the hair on my legs. My brain struggled to make sense of the huge space and failed.
"It's like being inside a sports arena," Sam said, words thick with wonder. Even Roland couldn't make a sarcastic comment now, and stared around with wide eyes.
"Eh?" Andy said, smug as all hell. "Didn't I say it'd be worth waking up for?"
The guide led us across the enormous cave, which was interspersed with small pools of still water. There were no markings anywhere I could see, but he seemed to know the way by heart, and we came to another crack in the far wall.
Then we were scraping along another narrow corridor like the entrance. This one occasionally was marred by a jutting piece of rock from the ceiling, requiring us to duck down in several places. The tunnel curved to the left, then split, and our guide took us along the left-most path.
"Everyone doing okay?" Orlando called from the front.
"Is it too late to tell you I have to piss?" Roland said.
"Wherever you go," Andy said, "don't do it in a place we have to walk back through!"
But Roland remained right behind me without stopping. I couldn't blame him; I didn't want to get left behind in a place like this. The idea of pausing for even a few seconds while the group moved out of sight filled me with a primal terror.
I moved a little faster at the thought, keeping Andy's shirt safely within view.
We walked for the better part of fifteen minutes, our path slowly descending deeper into the ground. The air became more stale with each step, and I imagined the centuries and millennia and eons of time that must have passed before a place like this was ever discovered by humans.
Eventually we came to another open room. It was significantly smaller than the previous one, though still roughly the size of a warehouse in volume. Our guide waited until we were all inside, then spoke with a silly grin on his face.
"Eyes adjust," the guide commanded.
"Okay. Everyone's lights. Turn them off."
"Do what now?" Roland sputtered.
"He's gunna show us how dark it is down here," Orlando explained.
"I know what the dark is like, thank you very much," Roland said.
"Not like this!" Andy snapped off his flashlight, then waved at the rest of us. "Come on guys! Don't be poor sports."
One by one our lights flickered out. Roland's was the last one, until finally he shrugged and did the same. Darkness rushed into the vacuum left by the light, and my eyes tried to adjust, that moment when your pupils dilate and drink in as much light as they can... but they failed. The moment where objects materialized from the darkness never came. There was no light at all this far into the cave. The darkness was absolute.
I'd never known what true darkness was until this moment. It was awe-inspiring.
I reached out and grabbed Andy's arm, just to feel someone around me.
"This is the kind of shit deprivation tanks are made for," Sam said. "Take away all light, and sound, and the brain starts hallucinating. If we had some noise-canceling headphones..."
"This is much cooler than a sensory deprivation tank."
"Well yeah..."
I blinked. There was something pulling my head, like a twinge of gravity only I could feel. I turned in the darkness--at least, I thought I turned, it was impossible to tell beyond the way my feet moved on the ground--and followed the sensation to my left.
There was nothing there. It was playing a trick with my brain. My aching, hungover brain.
"Pretty neat, huh?" Orlando said.
I started to answer, but then something happened.
Something that didn't make sense.
Across the space, a green light began to glow. Except it wasn't in the room we currently occupied: it was too far away to be in here. It was like a single pixel of green, an ember that had been ignited and was slowly growing brighter.
I frowned in the darkness, and blinked rapidly, but the glowing light remained.
My other senses leaped into the moment; I felt air on my skin rushing toward the light, and it pulled on me as if I were tied to a rope. Gently, just enough to make me lean forward. Stepping toward it.
"Do you guys see that?" I said out loud.
"What, the whole bunch of nothing?" Roland said.
"No. The green light."
"Green light?" Sam said in a scared voice.
"Dude, your senses are all out of whack," Andy said. "Like the deprivation tank."
The light intensified, growing to a quickly-nearing climax.
"Deprivation tanks only work if you block out sight and sound," Sam whispered.
"Well if Ethan's seeing something..."
"More likely Ethel is fucken with us," Roland insisted.
I barely heard them. All I could do was focus on the intense green light, somewhere deeper within the cave. My jaw hung open, and I began to move toward it...
...and then, as if someone had snapped their fingers, it was gone.
Light returned in that same moment, Roland shining his flashlight all around. "There. Back to normal. Still see anything, Ethel?"
I winced at the light and shielded my eyes, then said, "No." But I knew what I'd seen. It was so intense! That felt far more real than just some hallucination.
And I could almost still feel it pulling on me...
"Break," the guide said, pulling an electric lantern from his pack. Its glow created a large sphere of light to combat the black. "Ten minutes. Rest. Enjoy!" He waved a hand around him and plopped his butt down on a rock.
Orlando spoke with him in Spanish, then turned to us. "He says this room is safe to explore; all the main off-shoots are beginner-level. Just don't go anywhere you have to crawl to get to."
Roland looked around and said, "Which way are we going next?"
The guide pointed to the right.
"Then I'm gunna go take a piss over here," Roland decided, walking in the opposite direction.
Toward where I'd seen the green light.
"I'll come with you!"
Roland turned to me. "I don't need a buddy, though thanks for the thought, mate."
"I, uhh, have to piss too."
He shrugged, and turned away.
"Orlando, wanna go check out this tunnel?" Andy asked, pointing in another direction.
"Ehh..."
I tuned them out as Roland and I picked our way along the uneven rocks across the room, taking care to watch for any places that were slick with moisture. Each footstep let out a strange echo in the room, my ears struggling to discern what it was hearing. And the low conversation of our friends seemed weirdly clear even though they were fifty feet away. Sound traveled strangely down here.
Roland reached the end of the room, where the rock curved upward in a smooth wall. "I can take it from here," he sneered, stepping up to the rock and unzipping his pants.
I stared at the wall to the right and frowned.
The glow I'd seen had come from this direction, about another thirty feet past the wall. As illogical as it sounded, I'd expected there to be a passage or something here.
I shook me head. I was going crazy. Or at least, my hungover brain was. That's what I get for rushing out without getting some food in my stomach first.
I turned away... and stopped.
Down on the ground was an opening between two rocks, about two feet wide and one foot high. I went down on my hands and knees and aimed my flashlight inside: the tunnel extended about ten feet before opening into another chamber.
"Ahh, that's the stuff," was the last thing I heard Roland groan before I pushed into the tunnel.
It was barely wide enough for my broad shoulders, and I felt my brown hair brush against the ceiling, but I squirmed through eagerly. It was like I was pulled along against my will. Several times I wondered what I was doing, tried telling myself not to go off the beginner paths, but I continued crawling along.
Soon it became difficult to take a deep breath with the rock pressing all around. A wave of claustrophobia struck me, the thought of being pinned there forever with an entire goddamn mountain of rock above me, all of its weight crushing me as easily as a shoe stepping on an ant. And just before such thoughts could overwhelm me, the tunnel gave way.
I scrambled up into the darkness, swinging the cone of my flashlight forward.
The tiny chamber would have been crowded if anyone joined me; with my back pressed against one wall I could almost touch the opposite side. I had plenty of head-room though. I shone my flashlight above me and gave a start: there was no ceiling. It was like being at the bottom of a well, one so deep I couldn't see the sky.
I wondered what sort of geological phenomenon could create such a vertical shaft, but then my eyes were pulled downward.
A rock the size of a soccer ball occupied the space, and green light glowed underneath it. The light spread as it had before, increasing with intensity, to the point that I almost thought I could hear it in the air like a high-pitched vibration. I put the flashlight down and rolled the rock to the side with both hands.
The rock had hidden a hole the size of my fist, and inside was a stone figurine.
The figurine was some strange animal. It had the body of a lion, but the head and curved beak of a bird. And sprouting from its back were a set of wings, thick with feathers and folded in on themselves like it was waiting to take flight. On the top of the object was the obvious source of the glowing light: a rectangular emerald the size of my thumbnail, set in the back of the animal's neck.
The figurine pulled at me. The high-pitched noise had returned to the air, blocking out all other sound and making it difficult to think. Foreign thoughts invaded my brain: if I didn't pick it up, someone else might. They could snatch it away at any moment, even though that was stupid since I was alone in this tiny room. Do it, my mind insisted in a voice all its own. Take it.
And unable to resist, I did.
The moment I touched it the ringing noise fell away. The statue felt heavy in my fingers, an immense unseen weight that didn't make sense. It was smooth with age, and I turned it over to admire the emerald. It was cartoonishly large, and almost certainly fake. There were no prongs that I could see, but it was somehow set into the stone like it had always been there. Like it belonged.
"Ethan?" someone called from a far away place, voice full of urgency. "Ethan!"
The spell having been shattered, I shoved the figurine in my pocket and crawled back out.
"Where'd he go?"
"He was just right here..."
"He couldn't have just disappeared, could he?"
My friends were frantically calling out and shining their flashlights around the room when I emerged from the tunnel. Roland saw me first, and came darting over, practically sliding down the rocks between us.
"Dude!" He panted in the darkness and grabbed my arm as if I would disappear again. "Where the fuck'd you go?"
"I was right here..." I began, twisting to shine my flashlight at the low tunnel.
Andy appeared a moment later, with Orlando right on his heels. "Ethan, what did we say--"
"I'm fine," I cut him off, annoyed by the sudden attention. "You guys are overreacting."
"What possessed you to go down there?" Orlando asked, squatting down to look at the tunnel. "Good lord. How'd you even fit?"
I moved my hand to my side, where the figurine hung heavily in my pocket. I wanted to show them. It was exciting, and they were my friends, and it would distract them from worrying.
But as my hand went into my pocket, something stopped me.
My brain was inundated with excuses. They'll laugh at you. It's probably fake; then you'll look really stupid. Or they'll want it for themselves. My head still pounded from the hangover, and showing them what I had right then would only increase their frenzied annoyance. Right now I just wanted to be left alone.
"I was just curious," I found myself saying. "Sorry. It won't happen again." And the minute the words were out of my mouth, the insistence in my head disappeared. Like it was satisfied.
Goddamn. I really needed some food.
Before they could question me further, a retching noise drifted from across the cave. Five sets of flashlights whirled to illuminate Sam, who was bent over and vomiting liquid against the far wall.
"Dude..." Roland muttered.
"Sorry guys," Sam said, brushing back his blond hair. "Really. Must be the aftereffects of last night..."
Andy put an arm on his shoulder. "No sweat, buddy. Maybe this was a bad idea."
"No, I think I'm okay!" Sam tried to stand up straight and wobbled a little bit. "I just need a minute..."
But Andy was shaking his head, a strange insistence now in his voice. "Forget about it. This was fun, but I was probably overzealous. Let's get back to town and grab some food."
"We just got here..." Orlando began, but something had gotten Andy and he demanded we leave.
Orlando was the only one who tried protesting further, but with him outnumbered he soon relented. Our guide shrugged and led us back the way we'd come.
I'll tell them later, I decided. Once we all had some food in our bellies, and were somewhere calmer. Yeah, that sounded good.
But as we climbed back out into daylight, a quiet calm had come over our group. Like a secret had passed between us, one none of us could understand.
When we returned to the villa Andy made everyone sandwiches, ever the group mother. We chatted quietly while eating, passing around a big bag of potato chips. Everyone seemed to stare off, lost in thought.
We spent our final day in Belize relaxing on the beach. We went out to dinner at a restaurant, made toasts to one another to the happy lives we'd built since college. We played drinking games in our villa, beer pong and quarters and flip-cup, reliving the idiotic days of college when we were simpler men.
And throughout it all, the only thing I could think about was the weight in my pocket, and the emerald too large to be real.