CreepsMcPasta Creepypasta Radio - "Something in this cave is hunting me" Creepypasta

Episode Date: August 2, 2023

CREEPYPASTA STORY►by ChristianWallis: https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comm...Creepypastas are the campfire tales of the internet. Horror stories spread through Reddit r/nosleep, forums and blogs, rather than word of mouth. Whether you believe these scary stories to be true or not is left to your own discretion and imagination. LISTEN TO CREEPYPASTAS ON THE GO-SPOTIFY► https://open.spotify.com/show/7l0iRPd...iTUNES► https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast...SUGGESTED CREEPYPASTA PLAYLISTS-►"Good Places to Start"- • "I wasn't careful... ►"Personal Favourites"- • "I sold my soul f... ►"Written by me"- • "I've been Blind ... ►"Long Stories"- • Long Stories FOLLOW ME ON-►Twitter: https://twitter.com/Creeps_McPasta►Instagram: https://instagram.com/creepsmcpasta/►Twitch: http://www.twitch.tv/creepsmcpasta►Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CreepsMcPastaCREEPYPASTA MUSIC/ SFX- ►http://bit.ly/Audionic ♪►http://bit.ly/Myuusic ♪►http://bit.ly/incompt ♪►http://bit.ly/EpidemicM ♪This creepypasta is for entertainment purposes only

This weekend, I'm I'm not mad when I'm not when I'm not too much as I'm not on think. Oh, that dossier that morning off must, I'm all mooh as I'm not too much as I'm on think. Oh, from the night at a pedal tournoe I'm a moose if I're not too much as I'm

on think. Have you it mollick on to come? Give yourself then a boost with BioCure Macshot Liquid. Three upheppending plants magnesium, iceer.

An energy booster to make then get in to come out of BioCure Macshot Liquid. Fooding Supplement forcrag by the apotheker. Fish-hawks, a penny from 1971. Something bent and warped, too light to be valuable.

A bit of old jewellery, perhaps, smashed against the rocks. Why am I doing this? I must like standing in the rain. I must like the heady smell of seaweed and salt. A crisp sound of wet sand beneath my feet. The inevitable feel of it between my toes. Despite the sturdy shoes and thick woolly socks that I wear, This beach is littered with cheap tat and nothing else.

I've been coming here for years, drawn by the excitement of a silver coin found in 2008. Since then, I found the odd musket ball, but nothing of any real value. Most of the time when I get down on one knee, I anticipate disappointment. And yet, here I am, still. Scanning the sand and rocks looking for another one in a million find with my detector But there's nothing here. This place has been combed thoroughly Not by competing hobbyists, but by myself Slowly and painfully over a process of years. This is hardly a place for sunbatheers

The sloping cliffs rise overhead as I pick my way along what little sand lies between the rocks in the ocean. Seagulls coast lazily in the sky. But down here on the ground, the wind is fierce, and so is the sea. White horses race furiously towards the land, breaking not far to my right, folding themselves to pour lazily at old clumps of rotting seaweed and stubborn rocks. I am alone, standing at the feet of giants. For a moment, I take my headphones off and look around. My senses battered by the wind. Eyes stinging, I scanned the way back.

When I began, there was an old man going for a walk, but is nowhere to be seen now. Not long and the tide will erase the way back. This isn't a popular beach, not with families. Nudis sometimes come here during the winter to go racing into the waters, screeching and giggling, titillated and thrilled.

Those nude retirees visit this place for much the same reason, I do. It's not good for bathers, swimmers, surfers, or much else. The rocks are dangerous. Riptides, funneled by powerful geography,

have claimed more than a few lives. It does well to do your research before going for a dip. But if you're prepared, you can be safe and the tall cliffs make for an attractive privacy barrier. Only those who know the area can find the rocky path that leads down to the sand. Most don't even know it exists. One of the world's forgotten little corners. I wonder why I'm still here when I've wasted the afternoon looking for nothing so far from comfort and warmth.

It is a long way back to the car I picture the feel of a cup of tea held in both hands the sound of wind buffeting my house and wheels and I'm ready to finally call it a day and go home when something catches my eye it glitters on the sand

not far from me and I approach it expecting a piece of litter a foil wrapper perhaps I pick it up and trace its shape with my fingers My mind moves at a glacial pace It is a gold coin It is cold to the touch Handmade pre-Saxon

The ancient head stamped into its metal Is strange, warped with time It resembles a man with the mouth of an anglerfish It is beautiful It is everything I've ever wanted Solid gold And thicker than a smartphone Six months rent in the palm of my hand

Didn't even have to use my metal detector It was right there on top of the sand It must have come from the water Placed here by those rapid waves My mind conjures the image of a sunken shipwreck a mile or two off the coast. Its waterlog coffers filled with coins just like these.

Clusters of jewels gilded with silver and gold. An ancient treasure that has finally broke loose after centuries of tidal warfare. That might mean there's more. I look around, but there's only shale and sand. Hundreds of meters away, where the rocks become hard to navigate. Something else shimmers in the sun, but that could easily be a rock pool catching the sun.

I should go back, I tell myself, as I scan the beach once more. The sea is coming. Behind me, the sand has narrowed to just ten metres. I know from experience it will disappear faster than seems possible. Then there will just be water and cliffs. If I get caught, the best case scenario is that I'll be able to scamper up to safety somewhere and get rescued by a helicopter. My humiliation paraded for all to see on local papers. Happens at least once a year.

But the stakes are higher than you might think. Another coin would make a year's rent. Again, that image of a sunken chest full of treasures flashes into my mind. I'm absurd, I tell myself, a child's fantasy. But I'm holding the evidence of it in my hand. A gold coin. How often in my life has a fantasy come true? I dig my fingers into the gold as hard as I can.

I want to make sure it's real. How often does a fantasy need to come true? Just once I'm just once I'm just to make sure. Once, I mutter, my words lost to the wind. It isn't easy. The rocks here are sharp and treacherous. As a child, when my mother first brought me to this beach, I imagined myself walking across a giant's fingerprint. Back then, I glided across stone ridges, pivoting the arches of my feet like a spinning top, moving effortlessly across the strange landscape. Some of the gaps are three. four feet deep. Falling would have hurt, but I didn't fall. I was young, nigh invincible.

It isn't like that now. It might be my knees, it might be the fear, it might be the nerves, but I wobble each time I lift my foot, my body struggling to balance ridges as thin as a pencil. I fall twice, and the second time it hurts like hell. Ripped jeans, ripped skin, blood, a gash that takes 30 seconds for the pain to reach consciousness. I grip my teeth, determination floods me. I look back and realise that the sand is no longer there. Turning back now means wet socks and shoes, angle high water. I'd be humiliated.

I look down at the car. cut in my leg, watching the blood flow thinly into salt water until it turns a pinkish yellow. There's another gold coin. All thoughts of turning back dissolve as I fumble for it in my fingers. I want more. I want the coffer. I want to run my fingers through gold like it's liquid. I want to submerge my arms elbow deep into the treasure. I can't stop picturing. But the tide is coming. The tide is here.

Furious waves falling just a few feet short of my position. This will have to do. Two coins, a year's worth of rent. I accept this compromise and begin to turn back. A wave hits me. It is worse than any punch. No boxer has ever hit this hard. Here is a force that shapes continents.

and it has me firmly in its grip. I can't tell you how long this next part lasts. There is salt, spray, foam. I'm tossed about in a way that I've never been before, like a roller coaster without the tracks. A rock smashes my ribs, another my ankle. Something breaks. There is darkness.

There is light. I'm dying. I'm sure of it. When I awake, it is to the feeling of my lungs fighting for air while I lie on my back. For a second, I'm just an animal and loving it. Then the rest comes flooding back. The tide, the beaches, the coins. I lurch upwards and stare at my palm, clutched so tightly I have to will the muscles to open.

Sure enough, the gold coins are still there. I laugh, but the movement hurts. And even worse, it starts something. In just a few short seconds, I am forced to reckon with three terrible facts. First, my ribs are broken. Second, my ankle is broken. Third, I'm going to be sick. The salt burns, but it is nothing compared to my ribs and ankle as I struggle to roll over.

I cannot help but cry as I vomit. I've never known pain like this. I managed four pitiful heaves of seawater and bile before collapsing in a breathless fit. My chest feels full of gravel. After a few long breaths, I sit up, secure the coins in a pocket with a zipper. and look around. I realize how strange the world has become. I am lying on a flat rock at the mouth of a cave.

I must have been deposited here like one of those coins, and I count myself lucky. I want to look outside. I want to take register of how far I am along the coast and how low the sun has fallen. But I cannot stand, and movement is beyond difficult. The best I can manage is a crawl, and I soon realize I'm going to need all my energy.

A gentle lapping up water reaches my feet and soaks my legs and ass. I haven't even managed to catch my breath to contemplate the jagged ruin of my ankle, and already the tide is catching up with me. It makes sense, I suppose. The sea put me here, so of course. course, it isn't far behind. Damn, I hiss out loud. For the first time since finding the coins, my mind snaps back into what feels like a normal speed.

I am in incredible danger, and it's still not too late for that look to run out. I pat my pockets. My phone is broken and unresponsive. My only light is a waterproof torch I keep in my keychain. a Christmas gift from my mother. She likes that I have a hobby. She says it makes it easier to shop presents for me. I turn the torch on

and almost cry at the serendipity of it all. Until now, I've never used it. The cave ahead is roughly waist height and it goes deeper than my torch can reach. The ocean is rising behind me, furious. at losing its catch. Thankfully, the cave slopes upward a few metres in.

So, I begin to crawl seeking higher ground. I drag myself off the flat rock and further into the cave. I make slow progress across the collection of eroded gravel and random crap the water is deposited here over the years. Fish and tackle, old knits, driftwood, a cat skull. I cannot help but stop at the rest. the last one. Hollow eyes glare back at me like a warning. I shake the feeling off and move onwards. I am losing the chase I realize as the water catches up to my belly. Damn it, damn it,

I drag myself elbow over elbow like they do on those army adverts. Be the best, I think over and over as my ankle catches on the stones and my ribs grind in my chest. I haven't cried like this since I was a child, but I don't stop. The water is at my chest now. The cat skull is floating somewhere behind me, buoyed by the rising sea. I don't want to join it. At last, I make it to where the ground begins to rise. The darkness makes for an ominous savior.

but here is my only chance of survival and I cling to it. I ignore the caveman inside me. He is terrified of this place and is banging every warning drum in my mind that he can reach, but I forge my way ahead regardless. Arm over arm, my progress is slow, maybe a metre for every ten minutes. I cannot say for sure. I'm no athlete. When the rising tunnel becomes too steep for my elbows that offer much traction,

I dig my fingers into cracks in the stone and pull myself along that way. Meanwhile, the water climbs still. I feel its icy touch reach my collarbones and let out an audible cry. I don't want to die. It terrifies me, the thought of it. The pain most of all. How painless is drowning, I wonder, less painful than this. I want to weigh up the pros and cons of letting go and sliding back into the water,

but my brain won't let me. It's all or nothing. Instincts older than the continents propel me. Fighting to hold my chin up as the water reaches my bottom lip, I failed to notice the ground changing direction. A sudden downward tilt That leaves my hands flailing I want to pause

And gauge the way ahead But it's far too late I am carried over the top By a mix of gravity And the water's currents For a moment And then There is total darkness

For the second time that day I pass out When I awake I am on my stomach and in so much pain that I am actually able to register a glimmer of anger at the world around me. This is starting to feel personal

and that spark of frustration is what gives me the strength to lift my head up and try to gauge where I am. Luckily, my torch stays strapped to my wrist and I use it now to see that I am in a head-height cavern. Nearby is a crack in the rock

and from there the water drains. Lucky for me, or else I would have surely drowned. Behind me lies the way I came. It is a nearly vertical wall of rock, 10 metres high and slick with algae and eroded smooth by millennia of waves. I have no more chance of climbing it than I do the Empire State Building.

I watch as another way. wave crests the top and strikes me like a thrown bucket. Nearby, that crack has begun to fill, backwash lapping eagerly at my feet. If I stay here, I will likely drown in less than an hour. But this isn't a death trap. Not yet, anyway. The cave carries on, another tunnel, chest height, big enough to crawl through. It bends gently out of sight, and something about the darkness beyond makes my stomach curdle.

For all I know, it terminates after a metre. But I have no choice except to try. I persist, crawling onwards around the corner. It seems safe at first, but then the tunnel begins to narrow. I try not to let it worry me. I'm on my stomach, and there is room to stop. spare as the ceiling gradually lowers from six to five to four feet. When it starts to grace my shoulder blades, I have to suppress the need to hyperventilate.

Then it's not just the ceiling that's getting closer. The walls on either side encroach my arms and the panic becomes very real. I keep hoping they'll widen any second. But they don't. They just keep pressing close. and closer. I want to turn back already. I can feel water reaching my knees.

I tried to turn back and find I can't. This realization seems to drain the world of all color, but I try not to dwell on what it means. I keep going. Without realizing what I'm doing, I leave my arms out in front until the walls narrow so tightly I can no longer bend them at the elizabeth.

elbow. I'm forced to move entirely on the motion of two wrists and one functioning ankle. If I thought progress before was slow, this was a thousand times worse. Time crawls to a halt as I struggle against my own entombment, and I spend what could be 10 seconds or 10 hours staring at a single bit of rock, the fingers of my right hand working furiously or my left foot tries to push me forward. I move no more than a centimeter at a time. Without warning, the panic hits me like a hammer blow. I can't move. I tried to thrash an anger, but it's more like a seizure. My wrists and ankles flicker left and right, looking for leverage. But there's nothing. I should try to think clearly, but most of my mental

energy has to go to fighting panic. My emotions reach breaking point, and I begin to sob out loud and curse. Soon I become hyper-aware that I cannot breathe in fully because the tunnel is compressing my ribs. There's no budge in the stone. It is so unyielding. Every breath is limited, and so they start to come faster and faster in a desperate bit to chase away. the ever-growing sense of suffocation. I just want one deep breath.

One deep breath. But I can't. The more I struggle, the more desperate the knee for oxygen becomes. I'm trapped in a downward spiral that feels like it is killing me. This is the worst-case scenario I realize. I was better off drowning. Nothing can possibly be worse. worse than this.

I want to pass out. I want to die. Neither happens. The world goes a bit woozy. I'm overcome briefly by dizziness. But there's no changing this. Instead, I am forced to face my fear, and while I cannot beat it, I can at least observe it.

I don't really have much of a choice. Neither the cave nor I are going anywhere. So I pay attention to the light-headedness. The pain in my chest, the weight of the earth above and below me. My heart races so quickly, it feels like it might just seize up and stop. I focus on its rhythm. I count each beat in the tattoo. Slowly, without meaning to, this heightened awareness

causes some of the panic to ease up. I can describe it only as a sort of out-of-body experience, except I never leave my body. I'm inside it, painfully aware of every constraint and bondage and every ache and pain. At last, I noticed something new. If I breathe out, the rock is no longer squeezing me to death.

If I exhale and keep the air out, the feeling of constraint becomes almost tolerable. It is the only physical sensation of relief I have felt since this began. And just like that, I'm back in the driver's seat. It is so obvious in hindsight I want to laugh. I exhale and keep the air out of my lungs and wiggle my foot. My body moves. I try it again And this time I inch forward

I do it maybe 50 100 times All in all I travel a metre I think And then The rock gives way I weep like a baby I can breathe

A full breath And the tunnel keeps widening Before I know it I have my arms back at my side and I'm using my elbows to drag myself forward. Soon there is no tunnel scraping my shoulder blades at all, no rock to bang my head against. I emerge head first and drag myself out of the tunnel

and drop a few feet onto a rocky floor below. I roll onto my back and let rip a laughter. It is howling and mad and like nothing I've known before, weeping with utter joy I look to my left and right ready for the next step in this nightmare there is a man smiling at me jeez I squeal

scrambling upwards and away without meaning to I kick him in the face and his head loves backwards like he's trying to laugh I see his mouth in a bloody ruin his eyes and teeth are gone he isn't smiling at all He's dead. Something has torn his jaws open and removed his teeth.

The result merely looks like a joker-esque grin. Terrified, I shuffled over and briefly flick a hand out to touch him. A quick shove to the shoulder. He does not react. It takes another three or four pokes before I finally convince myself he's a nerd. Reality asserts itself with a kind of numb dread. This really is a dead body, I tell myself. His face is pale in the glare of my torch,

but a quick hand to the forehead tells me he's still warm, and that windbreaker is awfully familiar. I rack my mind and summon an image of that old man on the beach. He'd been wearing a jacket. it much like this one. But it can't be him, I decide. It simply cannot be him. This place is a nightmare, I think, a real-life underworld. I look around and try to imagine how this body came to be here. There are strange things bundled against the far wall. I approach and go through them, but their effect is similar to the gold coin.

My thoughts become frozen and sluggish. I inventory them like some idiot, unable and unwilling to see the bigger picture. Six coats, 15 shoes, countless hats and gloves. All of them torn or ripped in some fashion. Three backpacks, exercise books from a school, paper turned to mulch long ago. A pencil case stuffed with soft pencils. and broken pens. I drop the last item to the floor

and swivel my light across the room behind me. I don't like this. My mind races with possibilities. Suddenly, I'm scanning this small chamber like my life depends on it, desperate to answer a question that supplants all others. Maybe I should have listened to my caveman thoughts, I think.

I may not be alone down here. There is writing on the wall. I cannot recognise language, but it frightens me. Paragraphs of it scrawled in neat blocks, one after the other. Occasionally, it is broken up with simple pictograms of ships and spearwielding men. If it tells a story, I cannot make heads or tales of it. Something about the scene is getting to me nonetheless. The body, the pile of forgotten things, an ancient language.

I stop myself sinking into another full-blown panic by remembering that these are all irrelevant details. I need to leave this place no matter what. There are several tunnels leading out of this cavern, all much larger than the last one. I pick one at random. Hopefully, it is more reliable than the last I crawled through. Fighting the pain, I rise onto my knees and hands.

It hurts like hell, but it lets me leave swiftly and quietly. I scamper along, offering only one last sad glimpse of the body. The old man is looking at me. He is still grinning, and I am glad to take the light. away and put distance between us. Whether or not this path leads out, I appreciate that it at least stays wide open. At points, it is even large enough for two or three people to walk abreast. I've never been thankful of this kind of room before. Just a day ago, this would have felt like a crowded elevator. Now, it's like an empty stadium. It lets me stop and

and catch my breath, lets me raise ahead and make progress. Either can happen on my terms. Minutes slide away in the dark where time has no meaning. For long periods I turn the torch off and navigate by sound and touch, relying on my echoes to tell me when the tunnel takes a sudden change in direction. This is something that if you had asked me this morning, I would have told you I could never imagine. But it is surprisingly easy. More than once I detect the change in what is otherwise uniform soundscape and stop, lighting up my torch and seeing a sharp bend right or left.

I am acquiring a competency that gives rise to a flickering hope. This confidence fades when I come into a fork in the tunnel. For a moment, I'm caught by indecision. But then, something familiar catches my eyes. There is a gold coin. Another, pristine, just like the one on the beach. This time, it does not exhilarate me. No images of sunken chests come to mind.

Only the leering grin of the palletive. corpse I left behind and the grim words etched into stone. The world is heavy, weighing down from above, and I am so small and alone down here. The darkness so complete as to suffocate. I stare at the coin and is positioning in a tunnel that takes a hard left turn out of sight. I don't like it. I don't like its placement. Taking it would place me right at the threshold of the unseen.

I'm certain of nothing in this underworld, possessing only the risk-averse instincts of a prey animal. But I decide that coin is a trap based only on those instincts. It is almost arrogant, unsubtle. I'm wide-eyed with a smell of blood still fresh in my nose. a twitching hair ears raised

I have a feeling that whatever set that trap is near enough to hear my every breath I am separated from death only by the gossamer thin limits of my perception it's right there and it expects me

to take the bait I realize with some disappointment I already have. I'm two coins deep into this nightmare. This whole thing, a carefully laid trap from the start. My only hope is that I'm no Highland heir. I can think beyond action and reaction. But I have to be quick.

I weigh up my options. If something is there, do I really want to let it know I'm aware of it? I suppose every ambush sooner or later has to release itself. Better to be in control, I decide. I find a rock. There are plenty of them. Slowly, quietly, I back away from the fork and find a ridge in the stone walls that I can hide behind.

It is small and offers little shelter, but it's the best I have, and I hope that I hope it'll work anyway. I thumb the switch and my light goes out. I throw the stone in my fist and squeeze myself back into my hiding space and hold my breath. Just in time, the stone smashes into the wall of the right-hand tunnel. This is the one without the coin. There is silence for what might be five, ten seconds. And then there is only the gentlest of sounds, the touch of something soft against the stone.

What a far cry from the synthetic world of engines and buzzing motors I am used to. I have spent my life training myself to ignore those kinds of sounds. Barely perceptible scuffles. A cat's footfall, a bird's wings, a scurrying rat. But down here, the sound is like thunder. It makes my blood run cold, and the hair in my scalp stand on edge. A part of me had thrown the stone, convinced I would only prove myself wrong. But now, the terror is so real that I can almost reach out and touch it.

It is as tangible as the wall I am trying desperately to dissolve into. as real as my own flesh and blood. I am being hunted. Whatever was in hiding has seemingly taken the bait. The sound of its movements disappears down the right-hand tunnel. Thank God for that caveman. He remembers the plan. Acting on instinct and painfully aware of the ticking clock,

I force myself to peek around the rocky outwe. crop and turn on my torch. There lies the fork again, and if I had any doubt about the trap before, it is thoroughly beaten down when I see the gold coin has disappeared. I waste no more time and scramble on all fours down that turning, pausing only briefly to consider if my hunter has employed a double bluff. Oh well, I think It's too late now

Around the corner I go And find nothing but darkness I could try and perform some mental gymnastics convince myself There was never anything there in the first place But on one of the walls I spot a streak of something reddish-brown There was just enough time in passing

To be sure That it is blood and then I'm gone, desperately crawling further into darkness. Occasionally, I stop and check over my shoulder for signs of something giving chase. If it took the bait and followed the wrong tunnel, who's to say it didn't quickly realize and is now barreling down on me, or that the tunnels don't intersect down the line? If something lives here, it must be incredibly familiar with a layout,

of these sprawling caverns. I am merely a tourist in the shadows, hopelessly lost and ill-equipped for this kind of survivalist nightmare. But each time I look, there is only empty space, a frighteningly sterile landscape, brutal and haunting, looming over me on my hands and knees. Rock walls, curved and jagged, ribbed and rippling,

a concrete colon where light can only reach so far. Each time I look, I have to force myself to break eye contact with the darkness and resume my journey. I do this 16 times. I do not know how long elapses between each glance. I only count the number until, at last, the everlasting tunnel takes a break, and I am deposited in yet another cavernous room. This time, I am almost blinded by the light it emanates.

For a moment, I turn my head upwards, expecting to see a bulb. Instead, there is a hole in the roof, and only the faintest glimmer of sunlight makes its way down. But after hours in pitch-black darkness, it felt like staring right at the sun. It is too far to see the way out. or to get any real hint of the sky beyond. I can't say if it's night or day up there,

but I know the sky must be close. So close. The hole itself isn't far above me, and using my light, I can spot a kind of ancient rusted ladder embedded in the rock. It won't be easy climbing it, so injured, but given my limited choices, I'll have to manage.

For the first time in hours, I stand on my two feet. Reaching upwards hurts everything from my chest to my toes. Broken ribs grind. A swollen ankle pulses pain through deaden nerves that, seconds ago, reported nothing but hissing static. I swear it is so bad my heart stops, or at the very least, it misses a beat. This must be the kind of stress that can kill healthy men, and I'm not even healthy.

My elbow doesn't even get past my shoulder when I'm forced to gasp for breath, and the whole house of cards comes tumbling down. I fall back, and even that hurts more than I can imagine. Suddenly, I find myself questioning if I really have it in me to climb that pitied. Rusty ladder, something screams. It isn't far away. This room, like the others before, has many ways in and out. It is writing on the walls too.

Pigtograms of something strange, with a head of angler being worshipped by men the size of ants. My torch flashes across them all and makes nightmares of the shadows. But nothing yet leaps out. out at me. I realized this is it, the only chance I'm getting. How many chances do I need? I asked myself. Only one, I mutter. I force myself upright, and before my nerves have time to register the landslide of pain ready to collapse me, I hop on one foot. It is all I need to reach the ladder with one swinging arm, then the other, so that I'm there,

clinging on for dear life, feet barely an inch off the floor, with tears streaming down my face. This already feels like too much, but before I have time to give up and fold into myself, there comes another scream. This one is so close, I cannot help but imagine

that whatever lies in the dark is excited to finally catch up with me. That last thought tempts fate, it seems. Still swinging, eyes darting to and fro from the several tunnel holes, I catch a glimpse of something. It is racing towards me. It is human, vaguely,

in the way that the monsters in our nightmares often are. I let out my own scream or something like it. It's a staccato sort of yelp because, whether I realize it or not, my muscles have kicked into gear and I'm somehow doing a pull-up. My legs kicking furiously, I drag my way up until the first rung is at chest height and I am able to grab another overhead. The pain in my chest retreats to a dull throb.

I try foolishly to use my bad ankle to climb and realize there aren't enough endorsement. orphans in the world to let me put weight on a broken bone. I let out another cry and switch tactics. I have to use my arms to lift myself and rely on one good foot as a stabilizer. This would be difficult, but manageable, if I had all the time in the world. But with the memory of that thing bearing down on me, it is akin to torture. I am flooded with a sense of futility, of pain and needless suffering. But if I've learned anything in the last few hours, it is that the human body runs on its own firmware, and it is enslaved to your brain.

My arms move of their own accord. My body rises one rung at a time, too fast for common sense. injuries abound, grazed skin, a bumped head. Each step up has me clumsily bashing or banging some sensitive part of me into the barely visible rocks. Instinct may be in the driver's seat, but it's happy to leave me with the consequences of its recklessness. I feel every ache and pain, every stinging wound embedded with grit, every ligament stretched to breaking point. Oddly, I don't mind this arrangement.

I want to live. I am glad there is a caveman inside me to take care of moments like this, especially when I glanced down between my legs and see pitch black eyes glaring up at me with thoughtless glee. I cannot get over how human that face is. I expected something in the same.

insectile, maybe even arachnid. Whatever is below me, whether it's some hybrid or mutant, it is vile and fast approaching. The vibrating in the ladder tells me it is climbing too. I try to climb faster, but I really am operating on all cylinders right now. There's nothing left to spare. I don't want to, but I look down again and there it is. even closer. It is smiling with a rubbery mouth full of glassy teeth. I hate it. I lash out with my bad foot without meaning to and hurt only myself.

The pain is so severe, I enforce the stop climbing and sob. And it is in that moment, I feel claws sink into the hot, swollen flesh of my calf. I let out a hell of my half. of a noise. It empties my lungs and burns a mark deep into my being. I will remember the way this scream feels until the day I die. It is the moment in time where I give into despair, where I lose all hope as my nervous system gives into a pain-induced seizure that sees my fingers go numb and my limbs go limp. The last thing I remember as I fall is the sight of an unrescise of an iron grate overhead, only 10, 20 meters away.

A man, I think, is standing there and shining a torch straight down. He says something I cannot hear. I tell myself, this is a hallucination, nothing more. I enter free fall, my head hits a rocky outcrop. Beneath me, something crunches, darkness. I come too in a hospital bed with a feeling in my chest that makes me think of war. I lash left to right, grab a hold of a table and jerk it across the floor, ready to wield it like a club. The nurse in the corner is afraid.

She doesn't realize it, but I'm fighting for my life. Or at least, I think I am. Slowly, I blink the halogen glare away and take in my surroundings. The battleground fades. I realize where I am. I try to hold back tears. It doesn't work. Within seconds, I am bawling.

Arms embrace me. I don't know who they are and I don't care. I embrace them back. I seize them and cling. under their unfamiliar body with such severity, they mutter words to someone nearby along the effects of

Ah geez, it's hurting me. More rust movement. A needle. I'm asleep again. Hours, maybe days later. I awakened to find my mother and a policeman nearby. This time, my senses return

in time to stop panic. I am finally given the story of my rescue. They were looking for me the entire time. And by chance, they heard me near the old storm drain. They came rappling down no more than a few minutes after I hit the ground and found me lying there, bleeding and broken. Strangely, they say, I had no real injuries from the fall itself. A bumped head and a broken wrist on the way down.

But from that height, I should have broken my neck. Something cushioned my fall, I think, and laugh uproarously. My mother looks worried. She must think I've gone insane. Who can blame her? I was down there for over 24 hours, although it didn't seem like it to me. I explained this to them, the elasticity of time in the dark,

and they nod like they understand. But of course they don't. Somehow, it takes me another hour to realize I'm missing a leg. This perplexes them as much as me. In discrepancies in the nature of the wound. An expert stands to the side and explains as much to me, but the words are a distant drone.

I'm taken aback by the sight of the stump, all neatly bandaged. Apparently, it took a lot of surgery to neaten up. Despite everything, I am angry. I thought I was dead. This should be a small price to pay, and yet the knowledge that a part of me went to feeding that monster makes my stomach churn. I want to be sick. A piece of me is down there somewhere, dissolving in stomach acid, waiting to be excreted

in some foated corner of the monster's lair. When I start to cry and shout in impotent rage, they have to sedate me once more. They assume it is simple shock, but there is more to it than that. I am consumed by a deep hatred that is hard to explain. Months later, I find myself recounting this story to try and purge that hateful feeling. All this time, I cannot escape the sense of unfinished business. Every time I mess up with my prosthetic, slip, stumble, momentarily forget it is there. I feel the anger burning inside me.

Every night I spend hours in agony from phantom pains. trying to soothe a wounded brain using a mirror of all things. Sometimes I think I would have rather died if it meant killing that thing. All my weight, such a steep drop. I picture myself crushing it and leaving it a gory broken mess. I've never felt this kind of enmity, evidently. I'm not alone. One morning, a knock on the caravan door.

It takes me far too long to get ready. I am not yet practised with the limb, pointing it on, taking it off. Takes me nearly 20 minutes to get myself together. My mood has darkened since my rescue, and I practically kick my door open with a roar, ready to curse out anyone who disturbs me. I find... No one there, only silence, and another gold coin.