Writing The Chasm [PG-L]

[DDG]

[COLOR=Navy]A little something I wrote as a requested writing sample for the Language Arts club at school.

[center][u]The Chasm[/u]
by Kayla a.k.a. DDG[/center]

Complete, impenetrable darkness. I reached my hand out and felt the wet, slimy rock of the wall. Gingerly, I put pressure on my right ankle. ?Only a sprain,? I muttered. The words echoed off the walls before fading away into the darkness.

It was some kind of underground cavern, far beneath the surface. I had been exploring a cave when the floor gave way. The drop seemed endless and I was sure the impact(that was, of course, considering there would eventually be something to land on) would kill me. It had been so dark I never saw the ground coming.

When I came to, I realized I would die down here.


The cavern had a rock floor that covered a little more than half of the cavern?s general area. The remaining part was open to a chasm, at the very bottom of which was a lake. I had almost fallen into the chasm while I was feeling around the walls for a way out?any way out?when my hands had groped at the wall, only to come up with nothing but air.

I leaned against the wall in defeat, sliding down it and wincing as something snapped beneath my buttocks. I reached down and pulled a smooth piece of . . . something from under me. Feeling the splintered end, I tried to identify the familiar substance. The outside was smooth and the inside porous, almost spongy.

My fingers moved across the object, to its other end. It was rounded with a crack through the middle.

?Oh my . . .? I threw the object to the ground in horror.

A bone. It was a bone, a human bone. ?No,? I said in defiance. ?It could be an animal bone.?

That still didn?t change the fact that there was a bone down here, of all places. How could something else have fallen down here? The dirt covering the hole I had fallen through looked as if it had been there for years yet the bone didn?t feel to be decaying at all; it was fresh.

More importantly, who had covered up the hole in the first place(and so shoddily at that)? What had been their method of keeping the thin layer of dirt in place? It was mind boggling, physics defying.

I felt around beside me and came upon more bones. A pile of bones, actually. Crawling forward on my hands and knees, bones, bones, and more bones littered my path. They crunched under knee and hand as I crawled continuously forward.

The entire floor was lined with bones.


My stomach growled angrily. I glared into the never ending blackness as hunger pains shot through my complaining stomach.

I had felt around for my backpack and upon finding it, discovered it was empty.

Someone was playing a dirty trick on me. There was no way the items I had in my backpack could have fallen out. It had been zipped up, each and every pocket. As I felt the sides of the backpack, I could find no holes from which the items could have slipped out during the fall.

Three sandwiches, two canteens of water, a line of rope and a cell phone. All of it was gone.

It was an absolute nightmare.


A game. It had to be. Someone was playing some sick, cruel game on me. Some sadistic bastard . . . but the question still remained: how did he steal everything in my backpack?

?There has to be a way out,? I murmured. If he could get in and out, then I could just as easily do the same.

But where was it? I had searched all three of the walls surrounding the floored part of the cavern . . . unless . . .

?That?s it! There has to be a way in here from the wall on the other side!? That left the question of how he got across the deep chasm and to this side.

I crawled back to the wall I had leaned against earlier and felt my way across the ground until I reached the chasm. My fingers found their way to the bottom of the wall before moving forward along the ground again.

I smiled. A thin ledge, just wide enough for someone to sidle across, ran along the edge of the chasm.

I blinked. Something was on the other side of the chasm. I could feel it, its presence. It was getting closer . . .

I could hear its breathing. Slow and shallow. A pungent smell suddenly wafted through the cavern. I backed away from the chasm as my eyes began to droop. Slumping against the wall, I spotted two bright red orbs moving on the other side of the chasm before consciousness left me.


Its presence was closer now. Much closer than before. It wasn?t a game. It wasn?t someone?s idea of a joke.

It was real. No one was playing a trick on me. No one would eventually come to save me after I had gone stark, raving mad.

No. I wouldn?t make it that far.

It wasn?t a matter of someone. It was a matter of [i]something[/i]. Something was down here and this something was hungry.

The darkness that enveloped the surrounding area somehow seemed lighter. I could make out where the ground dropped off into the chasm. My backpack was visible nearby.

A loud crunch and snap brought my gaze to the far corner.

My eyes made contact with the something that would be my demise.


The blissful land of unconsciousness had greeted me with open arms shortly after I had laid eyes upon the monster currently occupying the space of the cavern with myself.

A hulking beast, it seemed to be. It was hunched over, chomping on bones and wasn?t much more than a dark shape in the steadily lighter darkness that reigned supreme here.

A hazy aura of light surrounded the beast. It outlined its shape which became more defined as the minutes slowly passed. I made out a long muzzle, flashes of teeth and thick, matted fur.

More crunching from the corner as the beast devoured another bone. [i]A pre-dinner snack,[/i] I mused. It hit me then, at that precise moment.

I lifted my left arm up and spotted the metal watch encircling my wrist. If the beast lived in the dark, then light would be its folly. I sought the small button on the side of the watch that would light up the face. Blue light sprang forth from the watch.

I released the button and rubbed my eyes. The light was blinding, even to me, and especially after having seen nothing but darkness for the past few hours.

I looked over at the monster and watched as the aura glowed around it grew another notch brighter. The cave grew lighter in synchrony.

What kind of a monster was this? It was controlling the darkness of the cave, seemingly absorbing said darkness and turning it into the odd aura surrounding it.

But how? Why?

The beast whirled around suddenly, its red eyes blazing.


I scrabbled around nervously, my fingers searching the ground for a weapon. A large bone found my attention. I grasped it and warily watched as the monster began to approach.

It was standing now, at its full height. The thing had to be at least eight feet tall and two feet wide.

The aura around it was growing and the darkness receding at a faster pace than before. The darkness was giving it strength, the strength for the first challenging kill its probably had in ages.

I quickly stood, lifting the bone up with me and holding it as one would hold a baseball bat.

The cave grew lighter and lighter while the beast?s aura grew?

?I braced myself for the swing?

?and then the beast lunged. I swung the bone with all the strength I could muster.


The bone, a femur bone I realized as the cave continued to lighten, made contact with the beast?s skull and snapped in two. The beast stopped mid-lunge and shook its head a few times.

I lifted my left arm and tore off my watch, aiming it toward the beast. I pressed the light button and prayed to God it was still dark enough in the cavern for the watch to have double its usual effects.

The beast gazed at the blue light of the watch and blinked before turning its head and screaming. The scream rang through the cavern, echoing and echoing. I clapped my hands over my ears to block out the shrill sound but to no avail.

My eardrums popped and I was introduced to the world of silence.


The beast was still screaming but I couldn?t hear it. I could hear nothing now and probably would never hear anything ever again.

Even if I survived?

(Something I doubted)

?I?d never get out of here.

It would be my graveyard, my final resting place. I limped around the beast, holding the watch up again and turning the light on to keep it at bay. I needed a weapon, a stronger weapon than a bone. My eyes frantically searched the ground for anything that would be remotely helpful.

A large rock caught my eye. Quickly, I bent down and hefted it into my arms. Turning back to the beast, I moved a little closer and lifted the rock above my head.

?Die you miserable . . .? my voice trailed off as three more sets of red eyes appeared over the edge of the chasm.

The beast hadn?t been screaming because of the light?

(Well, at least not near the end)

?but for help.

There was no way I could take on four of the horrible beasts.

I dropped the rock to the ground and threw myself at the beast, figuring hell, I was going to die anyway . . .

. . . so why not at least get a few punches in?[/COLOR]