Good morning all and welcome to mid week. It has been a busy one for me let me tell you. But at least it has been a good sort of buys. I could have done with a few more hours of sleep last night, but that is sort of the way these things go. At least I did have one morning thus far that I woke up refreshed and ready to face the day. But despite sleep, it is time to be ready to face the day. So let’s start with the morning writing prompt.
Not exactly where I thought I would go when I looked at the sentence, but I have to say interesting, at least to me. Definitely a keeper to work on later.
Wednesday, March 10th: The sound seemed magnified by the darkness.
The sound seemed magnified by the darkness. It sounded like a flutter of wings, ‘But there are no birds down here,’ I thought.
The image was laughable. I was underground. So far underground that I could open my eyes wide and not see a single thing other than the sharp pin prick flashes that let me know I was trying to see into absolute darkness.
I wasn’t entirely certain where I was as this was certainly not the way I came. I followed along with my school group. I listened to the tour guide. I marveled at the feats of nature deep underground. I looked at the land scape sculpted by water and time and felt myself to be insignificant.
Then in order to show us just how deep underground we were, our guide turned out all of the lights. The darkness was absolute. I heard a couple of nervous giggles from those in front of me. Then there was some sort of disturbance up ahead. At first I thought there was someone horsing around and I rolled by eyes. I was certain it would be Gregory, I doubted he would pass up the opportunity to cause trouble in the dark. My heart still ached when I thought of Gregory so I shifted my thoughts away, hoping the disturbance would be settled soon. There was something oddly peaceful and comforting about the darkness in the caves.
Then the tour guide was yelling. Her words were garbled and I couldn’t make them out. Suddenly all around me was movement as those in front suddenly tried to move backwards. I was shoved. I lost my balance and then I hit my head , hard. I
I saw flashes of light and I think I might have even blacked out for a minute or two. When I was next aware, the cave was quiet. There were no called shouts, no yells and no horsing around. The disturbance was over, but no one switched the lights back on.
I thought that was why they hadn’t missed me yet and felt certain that once they did, I would hear my name being called. I was rolled onto my side and I sat up. My ribs hurt and so did my hip where it connected with a rock of some sort in my tumble. My head was pounding. I rubbed my forehead and came away with sticky blood. It was drying so I thought it wasn’t very likely that I would bleed to death. Moving slowly, I dusted myself off, finding as I did that I must have rolled when I fell as the back of my clothes were all covered in the same gritty dust as the front.
Once I brushed myself off I sat, waiting to hear my name. All I heard were the slow steady plinks of water as they dripped. No one called. I counted to one hundred adding a Mississippi in between each number so I wouldn’t rush through my count. By the time I finished counting, they still had not called for me. That was when I heard the rustling of wings, magnified as it fluttered in the darkness.
‘Bats,’ I thought. ‘It has to be.’
Ten til Midnight 