The seventh highly solid plasma magazine was loaded into his Planck’s magnet rifle as Kail covered his body behind the massive three-hundred-metre column inside the Gargantuan Caves of Q’truth.

Once the magazine connected it loaded the internal electrical field and the rifle emitted its characteristic ‘click’. Kail then darted to his right barely escaping the rampaging fire of laser beams which destroyed the floor as he moved. Under his new cover, a seven-metre stalagmite of a brownish colour, Kail tried to control his breathing as his hands were going white under his gloves from gripping his rifle.

A beam laser grazed his left shoulder cauterizing instantly the newly created wound. The pain was instantaneous and Kail almost lost his grip on consciousness. Then training kicked in and he flashed backwards amongst a plethora of lasers.

He ran and ran and did not stop after five minutes since he last heard the deep and lifeless sound of the lasers. Catching his breath, he fumbled to take his night vision goggles off and fell to his knees in what he assumed was a safe position. Fortune had smiled as Kail had fallen into the perfect spot for hiding: around him, stalagmites and stalactites crossed each other forming a great wall that covered his body completely. Unless they came from where he had come, he was safe. As safe as any man was in the battlefield of the Caves of Q’truth, that is.

Under the unforgiving pitch black, Kail unbuttoned his electric armour forgetting the peril of his situation. He felt that his mind had reached the limit, he would no longer worry for his own life, not for a while at least. Inside those Holy Caves, it was impossible to gauge what time it was. His digitals had died so many days ago that hours had mixed with days. He had no idea how long he had been alone since his platoon had ended. He had also forgotten when the last time was that he had eaten something that was not from them. Luckily, he had eaten relatively recently, he could not go looking for food now, not with that general ill-being.

With utmost effort, he finally accepted that he had to cover the injury on his left shoulder. He rummaged through in his backpack’s low pocket until he found one of the torn shirts of the others, he had taken it from them when bandages had run out in his platoon. With no strength to check if the torn shirt was clean or not, he just bandaged his left shoulder, slowly, and painfully. The last knot took him so close to blacking out that he did not end the job. Shacking and suddenly feeling the chill of the floor he buttoned up his armour and curled up trying to fight the sudden chill that ran through his body.

Memories started flowing in as the caves began to dissipate and sleep won the battle that had been raging for the last five days.

It was a good dream, a dream from before he volunteered.

Sitting atop the uneven limestone bench that his father had made overlooking the Marishian Sea; he could see the sea from atop a cliff. The wind cut his partially covered neck as the rays of the Ferindian star graced his skin. He remembered he was waiting, waiting for her. On his right, he saw the delicate wrapping of the sandwiches protruding from the top of the brown picnic basket. He moved his hand to feel the intertwined golden wicker, it was coarse to the touch when two strands came together, but soft when he only grazed one of them.

“Hi,” Came a voice from behind, he knew the voice.

“Hi,” said Kail, as he moved his hand away from the basket and focused his eyes on the distant waves.

“Are you still waiting for her?” The tall redhead sat on his left wearing a seal’s fur coat. Its pattern fit to perfection with her lively red hair and green eyes.

“Yes.”

She nodded and allowed several minutes to pass in silence. He could smell her perfume, her presence was, as always, a bother to him.

“If only the other men had a tenth of your respect and loyalty. A pity it is wasted in a lost cause, she will not come back,” she said in a matter-of-fact way.

“They do not have the values for their causes are not lost. But I tire of speaking of this to you.”

“Then give her up. Please. What is your plan? To wait for a person who forgot you three years ago. To keep coming here, every week, at exactly one thirty with the very same basket? To waste the very few years of your youth on a senseless cause.”

“What am I supposed to do then if I cannot forget her?”

“Try to move on. Come with us one day, we ask for one day to the movies, or to the bar, or even just to hang out on my porch. Just do something, we hate to see you like this.”

He had considered such offers in the past, but they could not compete with this. If he went to the movies, he would not stop thinking about a foreign shuttle lowering down in front of the limestone bench.

Kail retired his tired eyes from the horizon to meet Sarah’s sapphire ones. She looked as beautiful as ever, her heart-shaped face was the epitome of life as it reflected the early spring rays of light, her white teeth forming a heartwarming smile. She moved her perfect and pale hand slowly, he looked at it as it approached his hand. She wore three rings, and her nails were well-polished. Her hand touched his and he raised his eyes as a soft and warm sensation transversed his spine. Her hand gripped softly his own while her thumb massaged gently his coarse and sluggish hand. He felt that unexpected and sudden vacuum of feeling which instantly filled itself with dread and sadness. If only he could forget. If only he could love Sarah a tenth of what he had loved her. But he could not forget, and accepting Sarah’s warmth would only destroy her.

Kail stood up, Sarah’s hand fought for the union, but he slithered his hand fast and walked three steps forward. The wind beat his rough seal coat into an uncanny dance. Sarah stood up and came closer, grabbing his left arm from behind.

“Please-”

“I am going, Sarah,”

“What do you mean? Where are you going?” She inquired, her voice breaking.

“I am going to the caves of Q’truth, please forget me and be happy.”

“No! Why go there-”

The most beautiful face he had ever seen disappeared, the cutting wind of early spring dissipated, and the sweet moisture in the air left. Kail was crying when he opened his eyes, his left shoulder was in terrible pain, but he had slept something. Cleaning up the tears, he stood up and listened for potential foes. After several minutes went by with no further sound than the constant songs of the Caves made by the lost wind, he decided to look for a small cave lake to wet his throat.

Forgetting the dream by degrees, willingly and unwillingly, he kneeled in front of a small pond of water not further than a hundred metres from his previous hiding spot.

With the pain of his shoulder easing a bit thanks to the movement he sorted out his equipment. The dream still pressed his mind more than he would like but he knew that it would disappear altogether in no time. There was no need for it, it only made him weaker, and a weaker version of himself would not cut his way outside that situation.

He stood up and smelt the moisture of the caves and realized that he could smell it once again. His body reminded him of the need for food, but he pushed it as he brought up the stolen orders. He was no further than fifteen kilometres away from the surface, a long distance, but one that he would fight to cover. In the caves, one was lucky if he advanced a kilometre a day. That was if one stayed in the main veins of the Caves and looked carefully for signs of Ferrums and Kaetions. And even if one was able to keep to those two key elements, Kail was in enemy territory, and there were no allies close by, he was the last of his platoon. This meant that whenever he was found, he was shot after the genetic checkers gave the ‘aye’.

Strapping all his gear back on, taking a sip of his canteen, and checking once more if the highly solid plasma magazine was loaded, he began to move. Faster than his instructors had told him, but they had not trained him for that hell. They trained him to transverse in orderly fashion the Holy Caves, to minimize the damage to the stalagmites, to stop every two hundred metres to pray, and to sing along the songs of the Caves. And for that, they were losing, while they marched in this dysfunctional way the others blew everything up, desecrated the caves, and urinated in the ancient pools of water.

But none of that mattered much in Kail’s head up to that point; he allowed the thoughts to flourish, to take his mind to different places and to theorize how his superiors could have avoided the catastrophe. He, however, did not do it out of its potential use, there was none in doing so, but rather to distract his brain and consciousness of the gravity of the situation: he was not getting out alive of the caves.

The Caves of Q’truth are endless, and the deeper parts have yet to be fully explored as they extend half of the planet, always interconnected. The fauna was simple, Ferrums and Kaetions. There was also a great variety of insects which thrived in humid environments and lacked light, rodents, and other small animals which explores can go for years without seeing. His platoon had not made an incursion of more than twenty kilometres; however, they were ambushed. An ambush that far meant that the battle outside was lost, and with it, the entrance was taken by the others, the Fuligin Shirts, or so his platoon had heard was the name of the detachment.

His rugged haphazardly crafted map had only one way, the same he had taken coming in. And that was it, not only he had to retrace his platoon’s steps, plagued at this point with Fuligin Shirts. But also, he had to survive along the way somehow.

Theorizing hard all the time he kept a fast pace along the upper massive crevices, keeping the main road of the caves under him. His footing had to be perfect, he moved fast and felt the lost wind guiding him at times.

After another hour of gruelling advancement, he came to the opening where he had seen his platoon for the last time. It was like a carved sphere in the middle of the Caves, barely any stalagmites or stalactites populated it and the winds converged from the five passages that he counted from his cover. Checking for sounds he found the rest of his camp in the middle. Now he was able to see the folly of such action, the sphere was not more defendable, as his commander had said, it was perfect to get butchered.

Unannounced, a magnet shot blew the rock to his right and sent him flashing to his right cover. He had to pass through that clearing, he needed it to come back. They expected him to run away, but that gave him a very thin moment to do something. In those precious moments in which his life was being waged, he decided to stake everything on sweet fortune and moved away from that entry, going out of his charts. Without a guide, he was dead, but so was he if he tried to go through that sphere from where he was standing.

The first fifteen minutes of moving, crawling and even rolling through unknown passages were easy to deal with. He was able to keep his spirits. But as the passages got narrower, he had to take his gear to pass more frequently, and his mental commitment began to fade.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

As he moved robotically cuts began to appear on his shoulders, wrists, and legs. His thoughts began to corrupt into blobs of negativity and destruction. At that moment, he stopped, in the middle of a great struggle. Each time that he had to breathe his chest expanded and hit the wall of the cave. He stopped because he remembered. He remembered all those days thinking with her, the memory dissipated his black thoughts.

“So, you believe, that if any time that you feel stressed, blue or depressed, all you have to do is to stop and analyse the situation,” He had said.

“Yes. There are the factors of clinical or sudden catastrophic depression. But in most situations when the emotions are not that great, you can control them if you just stop,” she said.

“I can’t see how this will work with your sudden outbursts of rage toward me.”

“Those are amply deserved believe me,” she pointed.

“How is it that you should get around controlling these emotions?” He asked.

“Depending on the emotion. The most destructive is Fear, it blinds you into attacking that which you must protect. It empowers your vices while dwindling your virtues, and makes you become the contrary of what you should.”

“That sounds like something we would not want to happen. Still, I find a great flaw in your theory.”

“Hush,” she said. “I have yet to tell you the theory. How can you see a flaw? At least we agree that fear is the worst. Don’t we?”

“No, not at all, but continue.”

She sighed and continued: “Once you take all this in, you must ask several times: Why am I feeling this way? After answering this simple question several times, you will see that the further you answer the further you move from your preconceived ideas, and you might not even be angry anymore. But there is still a chance that you still are. That is incurable, the human mind is still far away from evolving and we still are those humans of old that hunted to survive.”

“What to do in those situations oh great sage of the universe?”

“Stop it! I hate when you do that.”

“Okay, okay, I’ll stop my cheri.”

“STOP IT.”

He stopped it.

“In those situations, there is nothing to do but to accept your limitations. You must go away and let those feelings dissert you. More than likely, once you come back to face the initial cause you will be more prepared.”

“And if you are not?”

“Then do it again until you are ready.”

“That is hardly efficient.”

“Humans should not optimize emotions.”

“A good one, I’ll give you that.”

A shout took him out of his imagination. He had heard a very soft and slow whisper below him.

Slowly, very slowly, he took the enhancer and placed it on his ear, he was lucky he could do so without gracing the wall. The buzzing indicated that the enhancer was on, and then he focused on the sounds.

“Three minutes already and nothing. It makes no sense,” said a man who could not be further than three metres below.

“We tracked him from the sphere. It had to be him for sure, but it makes no sense that there is no more noise. It's like he stopped suddenly for no reason,” said another man.

His heart quickened, he had been followed through lower passages that he had no notion of existence, and what was worse, he was trapped.

“Either he has stopped on purpose and is making no noise as he thinks. Or he is dead.”

“Dead is more probable; but the sounds that he was making, look at them in the graph. They do not indicate sudden death. Look at this peak, and also at the rapid decline according to this he is still standing.”

“But of course, he must be, he had gone through almost impassible narrow crevices.”

“Impassable? Yes. But what if he had not passed them at all? What if he is just standing there?”

Then came the silence.

“Load her up.”

Kail lost no time and took from his belt one of the magnetic grenades small enough to fall inside the crevice he was standing on. It was a wild shot, but he was aiming at the total collapse of the lower stone he stood on. If he was lucky, he would not blow himself up.

He extended his right arm, with a limestone sharp edge craving into his right shoulder the lower he went until his arm began shaking. Sweat fell from his forehead to the lower stone and in his mind, the sound was louder than the pounding of a pick on stone. With excruciating pain he was able to take the pin away, and then, gasping for air, his right shoulder bleeding inside the limestone, he let go of the grenade into the narrow space.

“What was that?” one of the men said.

He could hear the magnetic grenade descend from the narrow passage in which no more than a boot could enter. It rolled and then fell five centimetres down to then roll again, each second that the grenade went down his chances of survival went up. But then the grenade stopped, a bottleneck of sorts but it fell no more.

“What was that, put the analyser up right now!”

“Just gimme a-”

Vibration of the highest calibre shook Kail’s body. His left clavicle was instantly destroyed by the limestone point. Then he began to fall, the point tearing apart the flesh of his right shoulder.

He was free-falling, and his training kicked in as he frantically tried to reduce the speed of his fall by grabbing onto something. Seconds later his vision was obstructed by the dust and he landed with a great thud. He had broken a couple of ribs and coughed blood as he tried not to scream too loudly.

He had not forgotten about the other two men. Dust was all around him, his vision was fogged as his eyes tried to shut. He put off assessing his physical situation for now and took his pistol from the inner pocket. Controlling his breath he closed his eyes and tried to listen.

The dust was settling in and yet no sound had come from any of the directions, from time to time a loose rock fell from the ceiling; one had crushed a metre from him, too close to his comfort.

Suddenly, to his right, the ragged sound of dirt made him dart that way and shoot three times. The echo of his projectile weapon was deafening, and as much as his wounds pained him, he had to move as the other man could have seen him.

He moved slowly, taking big steps, landing his feet slowly to not disturb the settled dust. For five minutes he kept his search until he heard a faint sound. He lowered himself and listened.

He pinpointed the general direction of the sound but could not make the nature of it. He closed his eyes once more; the sound was weak and irregular.

It was almost like a cracked voice where the lower tones were about to break. Like those moments deep at night when you hear something so far away that only a fraction of it reaches you. The sound stopped and started at short random intervals, but it was getting louder to Kail.

He slowly closed, covering his mouth with his free hand. Then it became apparent, somebody was wailing, he deduced it was the other man. He stopped two metres away from him and pulled his handgun’s hammer as the wailing continued. As his eyes adapted to the dust in front of him, he saw the shape of the disaster. The dust had not gone away; however, he could see, he could see the destruction he had created. The man in front of him was no man, but rather pieces of it, he breathed in and out, trying to keep his insides from emptying.

Then he unloaded the gun.

When he recovered himself, the dust had settled down so that he could see the walls. He was in a tunnel, probably not far away from the sphere. With each step a new pain surfaced. He had been thinking about how to get out of that place as he was trying to take down the other two men, but now his mind was tired, his body was dying, and each breath took so long. He looked with tired eyes down at his gun and dropped it down.

Dragging his feet, avoiding the big rocks and coughing he moved to one of the walls and laid his back to the wall letting himself fall to the floor. He tried to rub his eyes to take some of the dust away, but the glove was too coarse, and he felt his skin crying out for help. When he took the green right glove, his hand was bleeding. From the running blood outside the left glove, he knew that the other hand was bleeding as well.

He had too many injuries, too little supplies to patch them up, and little time until more Fuligin Shirts were upon him.

His eyes closed and opened as his fingers twitched fighting for their own life. He could feel the burning devastating injury in his left shoulder, pumping blood, trying to close, trying to do its job to keep on struggling. His hands cried for help, he could see them shaking uncontrollably, miniscule rocks had penetrated each part of his skin that was not covered by the electric armour. When he foolishly tried to take a deep breath, his ribs called for help and when he inhaled an acute pain rose, right under what he suspected was his heart. He was also bleeding inside his armour pants, he could feel the flood beginning to envelop all his legs, some of it reaching his socks.

Each breath could be the last, each breath took him closer to death, so he decided to see her once more time. He might not wake up again, but he was certain that he would dream of her, it had to be her.

“Kail,” She called him, sitting in front of the fireplace with her book half opened in her right hand.

Kail turned himself and placed his arm over his father’s leather couch. “Yeah birdy?”

“I was thinking. If we are going to prepare that stuffed pork and accompany it with some peppers, we should better start working on it, there are no robs in here.”

Kail took his watch and realized that it was five already, without the robs, little time remained if they wanted to have dinner at a respectable hour.

“I’ll get the oven started, when you are done with those puzzles bring some wood, I used all during breakfast.”

Kail finished his puzzles with a wide smile on his face. His parent’s cabin was perfect for this living together experiment.

The forest was cold, but also reasonably dry, the five-minute walk to the woodshed was pleasant. As he loaded the magnetic cart he pondered if they had enough spices for the stuffed porks. He had made sure to restock them around a year ago, but he hardly looked at them.

The warmth of the cabin hit him as he brought the logs inside and placed them in their temporary station. He took the coat away, picked up two logs and carried them to the kitchen. There he saw her, as beautiful as ever, already tying her hair into a ponytail and ready, for sure, to give him some order.

“Can you bring me the mushrooms; we need to start preparing everything.”

“Aye.”

They worked on the dish some time, Kail doubted his help was warranted nor useful, but he liked to see her work. How her nimble hands moved to cut the meat, and how she washed each time that different ingredients were going to be used. He just loved her, and that made him be in a constant state of flying over the clouds; specially, for she loved him back.

Several hours later, outside of the cabin, after they had had one of the best dinners of their life, their spirits lifted by the red wine, and their moods lightened up by the electronic pipes; they looked at the shipless sky, shipless for the Caves of Q’truth.

“You know, now that I think about it, you never told me what the emotion was,” She inquired after taking a lungful.

“Wait what?”

“Yes, that one time that I told you about how to control fear, don’t you remember?”

“Oh yes, how come that I didn’t tell you the emotion that I thought was the most dangerous?”

“Can’t remember really. So, what is?”

He puffed his pipe and smiling at her spoke: “The worst one, without a doubt, is spite. Fear might kill you, but that is often for the best. However, spite kills your loved ones, friends, and inner self, at that point the death from fear that you speak of is rather welcomed.”

“Good one, I still believe that-”

His mind came back to the Caves of Q’truth. But he was not ready, not ready to depart, not without looking at her one last time, he wanted it so hard…

“I told you the Caves of Q’truth are going to destroy us! Please do not go there!” He cried at her in a run-down motel in their pseudo-honeymoon.

“Oh, shut it, Kail, shut it up! I love you but do not dare tell me where my limits lie, I am made for so much more than this!”

“For Christ's sake! I do not mean it like that! Is it so much to ask of you to not go away for five years and-”

“Shut it!” She moved picking hastily and nervously her coat and several other things.

“Oh, no, no, my love please don’t go, we still have the trekking to be done.”

“Shut up!”

He had played the god, and he paid the price crying in the Caves of Q’truth. He had asked for one last time looking at her, and he had received the last time he had ever seen her. The pain was unsurmountable, if only he could feel back the pain of his mortal wounds…

No more dreams would come, he was sure of that.

Looking at himself, his legs spread all over the place, almost looking detached from his body, he could not comprehend how a kid raised by such loving parents had ended up dying in these caves, these dammed caves. Because he was going to die, no further lying to himself, he had to make peace with himself, for there was nothing else to make peace with in those desolate caves.

But dying sitting was not his style, he had always imagined himself dying standing up, with a rifle in his hand if possible; after all, if one was to die, might as well be fighting for something great. But was he fighting for something great? Of course he was, for the Caves. But even that seemed to be false this close to death. Does anything carry absolute truth?

He began to stand up falling twice. He took his rifle and mounted it in what felt like an eternity, he remembered faintly that he had done it before in less than four seconds. He remembered the cries of joy all around him in the boot camp, but then the winds took those memories as well. Using the rifle as a cane, he began to stand up. His joints cried; his hands shook wobbling the cane-rifle.

At last, he stood straight, his right hand on the cannon and his left grabbing a rock in the left wall. His eyes granted him nothing but fog, and then he heard something in front of him. Focussing his last strength he saw that something was coming in front of him, it was still far but he could tell the flashlights as if the stars themselves were dancing in front of him.

Slowly, he lay on the wall and brought up his rifle.

The moment he saw the glittering shadows in the distance he shot the magnetic rifle which propelled him backwards. Falling hard to the ground.

And then he did not see her, but rather total darkness, the darkness of a forgotten life.