THE MYSTERIOUS CAVES (PART 2):
THE CAVE OF FEAR.
End of the day! She had been tough! Elara came home exhausted, dirty from having handled hundreds of logs, hungry, despite the midday picnic. She had worked all day in the forest to help her dad. She had only one desire: a deep bath, a good meal, and to go to sleep.
When she came within sight of her house, she was surprised
to see an all-terrain vehicle parked near the shed where her father stores his
wood. She entered the living room. A man she didn't know was sitting
at the table, sipping coffee.
The stranger observed him in silence then turned to the parents. Our
friend's father had just come home.
-Do you really think that this little girl will be able to guide my team?
-She's only ten years old, answered Elara's dad, but you can
trust her. She knows perfectly the forest and in particular the region
where you want to go.
At that moment, our friend saw someone else get up and come towards
her. The father of his friend Mathieu. She ran to kiss him.
-I confirm what the father of this young girl tells you, dear friend. She
was efficient and fearless during my expedition to the high rock region where
you want to go. We were looking for a cave containing gems. She led
us there without hesitation, overcoming all difficulties with
bravery. (Read or reread The Gemstone Cave. Elara n°10).
The man turned to Elara.
-I teach paleontology at the university. Do you know what that means,
little girl?
Our friend, impressed, answered no with a nod.
- This means that I am interested in men and animals that once lived on the earth. Prehistoric
animals, dinosaurs among others, and the families who inhabited our lands long
before us. I am looking for a cave where there are dinosaur
bones. She would be in that area beyond the forest, precisely the region
of the high rocks, as you call it. Alas, no road, no path leads
there. They tell me you could take me there.
- Yes, answered Elara in a hesitant voice.
Our friend didn't really want to lead this stern, intimidating gentleman
through hills and canyons. But when she learned that her friend's father
and Mathieu himself were taking part in the expedition, a big smile lit up her
face and she gladly accepted.
A few days later, it was the departure. The sun had just risen. Two
all-terrain vehicles were waiting on the road near Elara's house. In the
first were the famous teacher, Mathieu's father and our friend's
boyfriend. She greeted them, kissed her friend, then sat at the front to
guide them.
In the second car, three students who were accompanying their master in his
research watched our friend with a smile. They looked nice and gave him a
big hello.
They drove for an hour on the bad track which leads to the crossroads of the
three roads. There, we had to continue on foot. Impossible to go
further, even with all-terrain vehicles.
The two professors (Mathieu's father teaches geology at the university) and the
three students took on heavy backpacks. They had planned food for a week,
tents, sleeping bags, cameras, measuring instruments, boxes, notebooks, and
much more. Elara and Mathieu were carrying a heavy bag too.
They followed a dry valley cluttered with rocks and dead
tree trunks to the place our friend calls paradise.
A dry, sun-baked path led to a deep valley through which flowed a large
torrent. They stopped near a magnificent pink sand dune, in which our two
friends played for a while at rolling before plunging into the refreshing water
of the torrent. The students pitched the tents and gathered dead wood for
the evening fire.
During the meal, around the fire lit by the three students, the professor of
paleontology explained that he was looking for a valley with pink rock walls.
Elara replied that this place existed further downstream. The escarpments would become more and more vertical and the valley more and more narrow as one progresses tomorrow. Then they might go into a tight, dark canyon on the right side. She promised they would get there in the afternoon.
That evening, the two children shared the same tent. They took each other's hand before falling asleep.
The next day, they discovered the valley of pink stones, after a long walk,
wading through cold water. It came up to their waists several times and in
some places they even had to swim. They had to climb and cross two
waterfalls and found themselves soaked from head to toe for most of the day.
In the afternoon, they entered a deeper valley. The rock walls on the left
and on the right were more than a hundred meters high. This canyon was so
narrow that in some places, you could touch both walls at the same time, by
placing your arms in a cross.
An hour later, they saw a cave located eight meters high. Unfortunately,
she seemed unreachable. In addition, the deep water there and the fast
current prevented any prolonged observation. You had to hold on to the
rock wall to avoid being swept away.
Elara suggested walking another quarter of an hour to put
the backpacks on a small beach she remembered. We would be less loaded on
the way back, which would facilitate the eventual escalation.
They set up camp on the sand. The students erected the tents and then
prepared the necessary equipment for photographing.
Mathieu's father, Elara and his friend, the other teacher and the three
students returned to the foot of the cave they had just discovered. But,
how to achieve it?
Luckily, Mathieu practices rock climbing, a sport he loves. He immediately
offered himself as a volunteer. His father tied a rope around his
stomach. The boy began to climb the eight vertical meters by hanging on
with his hands and putting his feet on the slightest asperity. Elara
followed him with her eyes, mute with admiration.
Here is a fearless and courageous boy, thought the little girl. I am proud
to be his friend.
Mathieu arrived, after some trial and error, at the entrance to the
cave. His father yelled at him not to venture too far inside to avoid any
danger.
The boy saw a stalagmite and tied the rope to it, which he was tying around his stomach. The others were then able to climb in turn by putting their feet against the wall and pulling with their arms.
They all reached the entrance to the cave.
The professor of paleontology was full of praise. He was dumbfounded by
this discovery. He had just spotted the bones of huge fossils. He
even observed dinosaur egg scales. He recalled that prehistoric animals,
reptiles, were all born in eggs. One of the walls of the cave was covered
with strange drawings, probably more recent, but quite impressive. Kinds
of birds or pterodactiles with oversized membranous wings.
Evening was falling, the small team returned to the camp very tired.
As the professor was about to enter the canvas of the tent
assigned to him, he cried out and stepped back. A lynx was there.
The lynx is a feline. It looks like a tiger or a cat but of an
intermediate size. A special feature: he has a tuft of long hair erect
above his ears.
The animal, surprised, growled, ready to pounce with all claws out.
Elara asked Mathieu and the others to sit down some distance
away, to stop moving and to be quiet. Then she walked towards the
professor's tent and stopped two meters from the entrance. She knelt down
and then sat back on her heels.
You know, you who read me, that she has the extraordinary gift of
communicating with animals.
She let out little cries that only the beast could understand. She asked him
not to be aggressive. We did not come to hunt on his territory. We
weren't going to hurt him or his little ones. We wouldn't stay long in his
hunting space. In a few days, everyone would leave.
-Come on, don't be afraid. Get out of this tent, she added, still in
animal language. Come towards me. Trust me.
Gradually the growls of the lynx turned into a kind of very soft
mewing. The animal's head appeared at the entrance of the tent.
Elara put saliva on one of her palms and held it out to the feline. He
approached, sniffled, then licked his hand. The little girl quickly
slipped her other hand around the lynx's neck and hugged it tenderly. She
was caressing him now. He let himself be.
-Here, she said, here are my friends. They won't hurt you. Once again,
fear not.
Elara petted the lynx for a few moments, then, opening her arms, she let it go.
The three students applauded. Mathieu remained silent with
admiration. He had tears in his eyes. The teacher approached our
friend.
-Little girl, he said with emotion, I have never seen anything so beautiful, so
brave. I underestimated you at first. Should I live another hundred
years, I will never forget what I have just seen. I just had a wonderful
time. I will never forget the little girl in overalls who talked to the
lynx, coaxed it and then hugged it. Fabulous. I congratulate you.
Elara got up, moved.
The students prepared the evening meal. They cooked potatoes in the embers and sausages over the flames. The moon appeared in the sky. Then everyone retired to the tents.
The two friends still wanted to spend the night under the
same roof. They lay down in their sleeping bags next to each other.
-You are the most brilliant girl that exists in the world, murmured Mathieu
still very touched.
-And you, I will never forget your audacious
climbing. I admire you.
They exchanged a kiss before falling asleep.
The next day, they devoted the morning to excavating the cave discovered
yesterday. In the early afternoon, the paleontologist said that everything
that interested him had been taken or photographed.
Didn't there exist, by any chance, another cave, another
cemetery of dinosaurs? Elara promised that she would ask the lynx sometime
when we got back to camp. The animal roamed the area constantly, watching
the comings and goings of the team.
Our friend, back at the camp, crossed the torrent then uttered little cries to
call the feline. Again, she took him in her arms, and hugging him, spoke
to him and listened to him for several minutes.
When their dialogue ended, Elara turned to her boyfriend.
-Come pet him.
"I would never dare," said Mathieu.
- Come on, courage boy, laughed the little
girl. Guts. Come show me you're a real tough guy.
Mathieu, stung, took up the challenge and approached. With trembling
hands, he touched the lynx with his fingertips. Then they returned to the
fire the students were lighting for the evening meal.
Our friend explained to the team that there was a second
cave, a little downstream, but that it contained something deadly. She
couldn't specify what.
-I don't quite understand what the lynx is telling me. This is the first
time I speak with this kind of animal. It evokes a real danger. It's
about a terrifying monster and screams in the night, but mostly of fear, an
excruciating, paralyzing fear. The animals that enter there do not come
out. Suffering and then death await them there.
Our friend did not want to enter this frightening lair, the cave of
fear. Since it wasn't quite dark yet and she was acting as a guide, she
nevertheless agreed to lead the team to the entrance.
They walked along a steep, barely marked path to the foot of a waterfall about
fifty meters high. A steep path, a small steep path, was born on the side
of the basin dug by the waterfall. It led to the entrance of the cave. We
had to cross the pond to reach it.
They all swam in the cold water and then, their clothes soaked, they climbed up
a narrow track. She stopped at the entrance to a dark tunnel. The
cave of fear...
Immediately they felt a strange current of nauseating air, sometimes hot and
sometimes cold, which was blowing, coming from inside this passage. It was
like the fetid, stinking smell of some dead animal rotting in the cave.
The two scientists thought rather of the presence of volcanic gases, still proving, after millions of years, a residual activity of this once very productive area.
Risking three or four cautious steps inside, they quickly
stopped in front of an iron gate. The bars were rusty. The gate was
ajar but blocked. It couldn't be closed or opened any further. She
seemed very old.
Who had installed it there and why? Men who came to this place, probably a
very long time ago, would have wanted to lock something inside this cave of
fear? An abomination that, however, should have been dead for a long time...
Night was falling, they decided to return to the camp.
The student Yvan, originally from Peru, prepared them bananas flambéed with
peppers, the recipe of which he got from his grandmother. The adults found
it good, but Mathieu and Elara ate almost nothing.
Provisions were counted. They didn't get much else and
they went to bed hungry and not very happy.
Mathieu woke up in the middle of the night. He turned to Elara. She
was sleeping peacefully. The boy was hungry. He came out of the tent
barefoot, shirtless, wearing only his blue jeans. He walked towards the
fire whose embers were still glowing. He opened a backpack and found an
apple inside. He decided to go and bite into it at the water's edge.
Raising his eyes, he observed the stars, the Milky Way, a space of silence, peace, and gentleness.
He suddenly saw lights at the entrance to the cave of fear that could be guessed in the distance. These lights moved and Mathieu counted two beams of flashlights.
As the lights approached the camp, he hid behind a
rock. He heard voices and recognized his father's and the
teacher's. So they had returned to the cave despite the late hour and were
coming back now. The boy caught glimpses of their conversation for a
moment.
-She is scared. She will not enter the cave.
"Too bad," replied the paleontologist. Maybe we could force him?
"We can't," said Mathieu's dad. First of all, she's not my daughter. I have no order to give him. And then visibly the revelations of his lynx frighten him.
-Yes, but imagine, dear friend, that a living descendant of
the dinosaurs exists in there. What a prodigious discovery! With her
gift, she might be able to communicate with the monster. Listen to my
idea. She and your son are always close to each other. I watch them
often. So here's what I suggest...
Mathieu didn't hear the rest of the conversation, but he knew enough. He
returned to his tent noiselessly and swore to warn Elara that the
paleontologist was going to set a trap for her the next day to get her into the
cave.
Before slipping into his sleeping bag, he looked at his friend. She slept barefoot, in overalls. One of her pretty braids was half undone. He admired her long hair, her fine and soft face. Then, leaning towards her, he gave her a little kiss on the cheek.
Then he turned and fell asleep.
Later, Elara also woke up. She was also hungry. She left the
tent. She approached the bags of food. She saw a few apples there,
but didn't dare take any.
She walked on the sand to the edge of the river. The silver moonlight illuminated the night. She listened to the sound of the wind in the trees and the lapping of the water.
Suddenly, a horrible scream tore the silence, a kind of sinister and terrifying howl. A hiss that chills your blood in your veins. This cry came from the cave of fear.
The girl shivered and turned around. She returned to
the tent.
Before getting into her sleeping bag, she looked at Mathieu. Yes, a great
boy, she thought. Courageous and kind. She gave him a kiss while he
slept. She slipped into her warm bag and fell back to sleep.
When she woke up the next morning, she found herself alone in the
tent. Surprised, she went out and approached the fire. Nobody in the
teacher's tent and in that of Mathieu's father. The three students were
still sleeping.
Elara made a little noise, on purpose, to wake them up. They came out of their shelter. She explained to them that she was surprised by the disappearance of Mathieu, his dad and their teacher.
The young people assumed that they had already gone up to
the cave, eager to discover it. We would join them in a moment. The
little girl thought it odd that her friend hadn't waited for her.
After a quick meal, the four of them went to the Cave of Fear. The
students passed through the gate and Elara accompanied them, despite her fears,
so as not to be left alone.
The cavern extended into a dark, almost black
corridor. The ground, strewn with bones, creaked underfoot. The smell
of rot was widespread. A real mass grave. The horror !
Suddenly they distinguished something coming towards them in the beam of their
flashlights.
Looking better, they saw a sort of giant spider. She stood on eight long hairy legs, each of them measuring at least fifty centimeters. Its spiked body had a monstrous maw, a round mouth ending in two rows of sharp teeth.
A hybrid monster. It was neither a spider nor a crocodile, but a hideous phenomenon descended from two possibly extinct lines.
Horrified, the three students and Elara ran as fast as they could for the
exit. Alas, our friend stumbled against a stone and fell to the
ground. The advancing beast leapt up to his level.
Elara rolled against the black rock wall. She was shaking with fear. His heart was pounding. The horrible animal passed by her, a few centimeters from her body, without however stopping.
The little girl understood that the monster was blind but perceived the slightest noise. Otherwise unable to communicate with him, she only speaks with the four legs, the two legs and the snakes.
The three students managed to escape. Once outside,
they called our friend.
-I'm here, she said.
But she shouldn't have screamed. The deformed monster turned and came back
to her, bounding again. Our friend got up and ran towards the depth of the
cave to try to escape her.
She discovered a second gate closed by a large iron lock. She slid it open, opened the door, then slammed it behind her. She pushed back the lock.
The hybrid beast jumped up against the bars and held out its paws towards Elara, who immediately backed away a good yard and thus remained out of reach.
Our friend was safe. She was recovering little by little from her
fears. She had had a narrow escape. But to get out of the cave, you
would have to pass through the two gates and especially the territory of the
monster that was between them.
She decided to explore the rest of the cave first, looking for another exit.
The corridor widened and then divided into two tunnels, one
descending from which the warm air rose, and the other quite steep, from which
the cold air came.
The descent did not last. The little girl emerged, after a few meters,
into a huge cave which contained a lake of boiling water. Bubbles rose
from the bottom and constantly burst to the surface. Vapors constantly
escaped. The show was amazing. It was hellishly hot. Impossible
to go further.
Elara turned around and headed for the upper cave. Access to it seemed
much longer. After a hundred meters and several turns, still in
semi-darkness and total silence, she discovered an icy lake.
The show was absolutely beautiful. Frozen stalactites reflected
the light coming from who knows where and by diffraction illuminated the vault
with multicolored rainbows. Huge blocks of ice stood here and there,
menacing.
Elara shivered. She was not dressed for the freezing cold that prevailed
here. However, she took a few steps on the frozen lake.
There she heard a call.
-Help, help!
Barefoot in her gymnastic sandals, she was shivering with cold now, having only
her t-shirt and overalls. Despite everything, she approached the place
where the call was coming from and saw a crevasse closed by a large block of
ice. There were the paleontologist, Mathieu's father and Mathieu
himself. They were shivering with cold too.
-Elara, deliver us. Going through this space, we slipped into this
hole. Impossible to get out without outside help. Call the students
and come back with ropes.
But to get back to camp, she would have to go through the two gates and face
the beast. For the prisoners of the cold, it was a matter of life or
death.
Elara sighed, then turned around and headed for the nearest gate. The
hybrid monster was still clinging to it, its repulsive body sticking to the
bars. One of his paws rested on the lock that closed the barrier.
The little girl approached close to the beast. Trembling with fear, she
rested her thumb against the lock. She hesitated to open the door. We
understand it. She thought of her boyfriend, trapped in the ice, with his
father and the other teacher. In a few hours they would freeze to death if
she did not act.
Gathering her courage, she began to slowly slide the lock that closed this
gate. The beast did not move. His idea was to open it and wedge the
animal between the wall and the bars and then walk quietly to the other
barrier, at the entrance to this horrible place, near the waterfall.
So she moved the lock to the right.
As she slipped it, the spider abruptly withdrew its leg. Elara seized, stepped back. Then she returned to the gate. She nudged it with her fingertip. The door opened and turned, thankfully without creaking.
At that moment, our friend changed her plan. She took just three steps
down the dark hallway, then bent down and picked up two large stones. She
threw one between her and the exit of the tunnel. The beast jumped without
hesitation to the place where the stone had fallen.
Elara then launched a second towards the interior of the
caves, at the beginning of the hot and cold corridor. The monstrous animal
jumped again on the stone, thus passing in front of our friend, but without
noticing her silent and motionless presence.
The brave little girl bent down again and chose two new stones. She threw
a first one far away, towards the warm hallway. Then another and yet
another. The terrifying but stupid animal progressed by leaps towards the
edge of the lake of boiling water.
Gathering her strength, Elara threw a last piece of rock,
into the water of the lake this time. The "splash" attracted the
monster to what he heard and took for prey no doubt. He jumped into the
burning lake.
The beast struggled for a moment.
Our friend, livid, heart pounding, saw the monster change color as it died,
like a lobster that turns red when cooked in boiling water. He uttered a
long cry, similar to the terrible howl that the little girl had heard in the
night, and which had made him shiver.
The body, inert now, turned over, floated upside down on its back, its eight legs in the air, and came to die on the shore, near our victorious friend.
The dead hybrid no longer moved. Elara retraced her steps and crossed the
space separating the two gates without fear and without difficulty. The
three students came from the camp, armed with knives. She called out to
them to bring pickaxes and ropes.
Then all together, crossing the mass grave where the animal had lived, they
headed, led by our friend, towards the ice cave. They attacked the frozen
snow with their tools and freed the professor, Mathieu and his dad.
All then went to warm themselves at the edge of the
underground lake with burning vapors. Our friend showed them the dead
monster whose red body, still hideous, was floating against a rock.
And the dawn trap? The paleontologist had convinced Mathieu's father to
awaken and take his son to the cave of fear, convinced that the girl would
follow the boy. But none of them knew, at that moment, that a terrible
beast lurked there, locked in this cesspool by visitors who had come long ago
before disappearing without a trace.
All three had therefore entered the cave. The monstrous animal was no
doubt sleeping at the bottom of its den. He hadn't woken up.
When they reached the frozen lake, they had slipped and were locked in there.
They would have died of cold there if our friend had not discovered them just in time and above all, if the incredible little girl had not had the courage to face the monster to seek help from the students.
All returned safe and sound to the camp.
Two days later, Elara found her parents and her house. The paleontologist
spoke.
-Forgive me, Elara, he said before continuing on the road. Forgive this
trap, which incidentally turned against us. I'll never forget your
mind-blowing act of courage that saved our lives. I will never forget the
fabulous moment when you tamed the lynx either. I congratulate you, young
lady. THANKS.
Our friend smiles. She watched them leave.
She never returned to the Cave of Fear, but she had other exciting adventures with her friend Mathieu. It's up to you to discover them on the site...
