Chapter 39: The Blurry Haze
Clep… Clep… Clep…
Whipping around toward the sound of footsteps growing closer, Forest quickly stands up as Falcon takes a step back, readying themselves to fight.
“I’m back! What are you two up doing in this cave?” says Hunter, walking into view.
As Forest sighs in relief and sits down again, he opens the notebook back up.
“Hunter, come check this out. Falc found this a few minutes ago. I think all this correlates to the markings on the trees."
Hunter walks up beside the two, looking at the cave wall, “Damn, you might be right about that.”
Handing the notebook to Hunter, Forest explains, “Earlier, I jotted down all of the markings we saw on the trees. And with the information gathered here, I assume that each group or bunch of dots and dashes translates to a singular letter. Here’s what I got so far.”
Hunter takes the notebook and looks at what Forest has written.
C A _ _
N I _ _
P A _ _
D O _ _
F O _ _
P A _ _
L E _ _
P U _ _
“I don’t really understand. What am I looking at?”
Forest gets up and walks toward the entrance of the cave and points to the trees, “Each tree has its own column of dots and dashes. Working across, we’ve already finished translating the first two trees, starting from the very left. Some of the markings are identical, so we already have a few letters filled in from the last two columns.”
Holding a ripped notebook paper, Falcon exclaims, “The first letter for column three is ‘V’!”
Hunter hands the notebook back to Forest, and Forest writes the capital letter ‘V’ in the correct blank.
Hunter asks, “Once we translate the rest, do you think it’ll give us a code like before? Because I’m not seeing anything quite yet.”
“Okay, the next one is the letter ‘N’!”
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Forest writes an ‘N’ into the next blank, “That’s what we’re hoping for.”
Hunter slowly nods his head before he makes his way over to Falcon, peering over Falcon’s shoulder at the scrap of paper. Dots and dashes are written all over it, and at first glance, Hunter narrows his eyes in confusion. However, after recalling what Forest said earlier, Hunter recognizes the four separate columns and nods at the rather genius and efficient translation method, “I’ll do the last column, Falc. It’ll speed things up.”
The three worked together to translate the rest and then double-checked their work to ensure everything was correct. Upon confirmation, they all gaze at the newly found code they created.
C A V E
N I N E
P A C E
D O W N
F O U R
P A C E
L E F T
P U S H
Hunter stands astonished as Forest nudges him with his elbow, “Looks like it wasn’t just nonsense after all.”
Grinning from ear to ear, Falcon cheers as he points at the page, “Woo-hoo! Now, all we have to do is figure out what this means.”
Hunter interjects, “Cave, Nine, Pace, Down, Four, Pace, Left, Push…. yeah, we managed to translate everything into words, but I still don’t understand.”
“We haven’t decoded a literate sentence or anything coherent enough to give us anything at first examination,” says Forest. “However, this isn’t like the other code we deciphered back at camp, as upon completion, it read out: ‘Only One Can Remain’. This is different. This is more like another clue.”
“Yeah, and by the looks of it, we don’t have to travel too far to figure this out,” says Falcon.
Hunter looks at Falcon as he asks, “What do you mean?”
“You both are thinking about it too much. Just take a step back and read it at face value. Cave, nine, pace, down, four, pace, left, push. It's instructing us on what we have to do next.”
As if a lightbulb went off in Forest’s head, he snaps his fingers and points, following his sudden realization, “Yeah, you’re right. The first word is cave, and we’re already in one. After that, it reads nine pace down, then four pace left.”
Starting at the cave entrance, Forest proclaims, “I want to try something out.”
Turning around and lining his feet at the very center of the entrance, Forest starts to walk deeper into the cave, counting aloud, “One… two…”
Falcon grinned as he grabbed the torch perched against the cave wall, “I see what he’s doing.”
“Mind filling me in?”
“It won't take long.”
“Seven… eight… nine…”
Stopping there, Forest rotates roughly ninety degrees to the left and resumes walking forward, looking down at his feet as he continues counting, “One… two… three… four…”
Looking back up, Forest realizes that he’s stopped, this time, just a foot or so away from the cave wall. He then holds his hands out in front of him.
“Nine paces down, four paces left. And then the final word was…”
Placing his hands against the cold, smooth wall, he pushes, “Push.”
GRRRRRRR.
A blaring grumble resonates as the cave wall begins to slide apart, a bright light spearing its way through the enlarging crack. The three guys immediately put up their arms to shield themselves from the light, closing their eyes as they turned away.
GRRM. GRUMBLE. GRRM. GRUMBLE.
After a few more seconds, the roaring noise and movement cease as the dust settles.
After a few seconds, Forest’s eyes adjusted, and he lowered his arm, the blurry sight before him beginning to clear. Falcon and Hunter’s eyes adjust just after his, and they all stare at the newly opened mystery lying before them.
“What have we just done…?”