He crawled through his cave with hunched back and pale eye, always wondering of the world above, of the place with all the light. He went along, catching every crack in the wall by remembrance, knowing exactly where to go with no sight before. This fell-over being was a man, a human, he had all the right parts to be called homo-sapian, but there was a kind of sway in his walk, a kind of scratchy felt in his throat when he opened his mouth to speak in the guttural tones of the underworld, the tunnel people.

The wise ones warned him not to go past a particular checkpoint; listen to them and not think of the possibility of never seeing, never knowing what was out there.

So, this man went along in his rags that barely covered a person of past-time comfortably. Only loin and bits of chest with torn and tattered blanket. Dirt was in the air, in his lungs, in his soul. There was a kind of magic in the darkness, in the world of unknowing and the world of under-everything. These were his people, down here was his life but he was too curious, too ready for what was waiting for him beyond this crevice.

He was afraid no more of a glorious light that glistered faintly through the cracks, into a world so cold and lonesome and secluded. He was pale and blinded by the scape of underground caverns; some organic, some made with the old mechanics, the reliable sources of a drilling life.

Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

But he was going, he was ready for what awaited him up there; he came to the steps that were built to never be ascended thereafter. He stepped up and began crawling ever onward in a weird weary silence where his nails, both hand and foot, scraped the wood of the staircase built so long ago.

He was compelled by long years in the mines, long time in the place with no thing called sun; there was no definition for the thing in the language they spoke blindly to one another. It was sad; if one were to see him smile and notice the yellow crescent that was his teeth glow as bright as the warm earth then one might know his pain. He grew with power, going quicker, his sharp teeth gnashing at the thought and his slender nails clawing away as dirt was again under heel. He found the touch of door and it was metal. With no key or great word, he turned the big nob of the thing and it swung outward, letting him gander upon some dream, letting him see what he had only imagined for the time it had taken him to grow from what was an adolescent to what he was then and there.

He was happy and then the blue fire ball's rays in the sky swept his skin and melted his flesh, peeling back everything, exposing him for the purest thing he was, muscle, vein, lovely blood. The crimson boiled so quickly that it dissipated straight from his body without ever falling.

His smile faded in ash before he realized what happened. In moments, the only thing left was a set of smoking cave-dweller's cloth. He was gone and a pile of dust blew away in the little wind that came over the hell of a globe.

He was with the light and would always be now; he danced in peppered love that marinated the dry cracks of what was left of flecked rock.