Chapter 9

Staring into the shadows on the cavern walls, they started distorting, pulling him into their realm. Awakening as they dragged him to the past, twenty seven years, to be exact. Looking around, he found he had been taken back to his childhood.

Inside of this three bedroom, cockroach infested home were some of his hardest memories to process. Walking into the living room, his two older brothers were watching the television and smoking weed out back. They had just come in from the smell and look in their eyes. Like watching a bizarre rerun, he was able to see his younger self coming into the room and sitting down.

Being the youngest by four years he was naturally the smallest, and with his father being constantly absent, he might as well of been their personal punching bags, but this day, they had something much worse than the normal beat down in store for him.

Sitting down, his oldest brother, David, asked, “You want to smoke a bowl?” being barely eight or nine, John was terrified of drugs and told him, “No, I don’t smoke” This seemed to get under David's skin and infuriated him, but he continued to smile, letting his rage build.

Playing with a new brass pipe that he had bought from who knows where, he turned to the second oldest, James, and told him, “Hold him down, lets show him my new pipe”

Knowing the situation was turning ugly fast, John bolted, trying to escape from the room. Making it to the section of the house separating the dining and the living room, he was tackled to the ground by both of his brothers. Quickly overpowering him.

Screaming, he yelled, “Let me go right now, you bastards!” Praying in his mind to somehow grow bigger and stronger, so no one could hurt him again! Screaming and kicking, he was pulled back into the living room where he was held down by James and David, “You see this new pipe?” “It’s brass, and we just got it.” “But, it hurts like hell if you use it too fast, and put too much heat to it.” “It ends up burning your fingers, like this”

Pulling out a small blow torch lighter, he began heating up the pipe, making it glow bright red, and holding it with his bundled up jacket. Pulling up John’s sleeve, he lowered it down, Sizzling the moment it came into contact with his bare arm. ‘SSSSSSSSSSSS’ “AAAAAAHHHHHH!!”

Coming back to, in the dark, empty cavern, John looked around, finding he had somehow walked farther along the path leading to the back of the cavern. Now farther along, he was able to make out, a stone altar.

Sitting atop the altar, appeared to be a book, or maybe that was just a shadow. Being too far away he couldn't tell. Walking forward, he made his way towards the altar, suddenly stopping at a mirror. “When did that get here?” Looking at the mirror, it was beautiful, and ornate. The sidings looked to be made from silver, and the mirror itself was exquisite, and appeared to be ancient.

Looking into it, shadows looked to be swirling around, and objects were beginning to distort. Behind him in the mirror appeared a young girl, but looking back, she wasn’t there. However, in the mirror, she stayed true.

Unsure of how to react, the small blonde girl began smiling, and held her hand out, when hundreds of thin roots came jetting from her fingers and palm, penetrating him in the mirror and tying him up. Draining him of his blood, and pumping it into the girl. She began growing blood red hair, with pronounced white stripes, all over her body.

Unsure of what was happening, he continued forwards, not wanting to stay next to the girl, still smiling at him as he walked past the mirror. Still draining and consuming his reflection. Finally within spitting distance of the altar in the cavern, he was stopped when he stumbled into a wishing well, directly in front of him. "That was definitely not there before."

Looking down, he could see the stars and moon, despite their being no sky, but looking around, he finally noticed, he had no reflection. Immediately thinking of the blonde girl, he started rushing back to her spot, when, the well water became turbulent, and started swirling. The world suddenly turned upside down, and he fell into the well.

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Waking up sometime later, he felt like hell and his head was pounding. Looking around, and he didn’t know where he was. There was a long dark cave, with tunnels everywhere, on both sides. Leading every direction, all around it, like a maze.

Walking up to the nearest tunnel, he looked inside, only to be sucked in from what felt like a twister. Inspecting the area, he realized he was back in time again, but this time, he was a little older. Realizing where he was, he prepared himself. This memory was from his father and brothers. In the hall, leading to the bedrooms one night, His father came home in a very bad mood.

Seeing the chores not done, and thoroughly upset, he began spanking and punishing the brothers. But this punishment was not going to stop with a simple belt beating. Tossing his belt, he began whaling on James and David, and John, seeing them being beaten, and bloody, jumped into the fight, separating the brothers and father, and screaming to them, “Run!”

After jumping in to save his shitty brothers, he was beaten with a vengeance, with black eyes, and bruises, and cuts all over. Their father made him stay at home until he was healed, but the very next day, as he was healing at home, his brother went right back, to kicking him around.

Coming back from the cave, he followed the main cavern down, popping into all the side corridors along the way and experiencing pain after pain from his life. “His father pulling a gun on his twelve year old older brother for back talking, and almost being shot by a stray bullet fired from his father,” and “Being abandoned when his mother was moving with her new family, across country, to Oklahoma.”

“Being left at a random gas station and only coming back and getting him when the police were called when he was found trying to fish for his meals after a few nights.” Memory after memory began playing out right in front of him, showing him the failures of himself and the world. Finally getting to a cave that looked, different.

This cave, was lush and green and had pure water coming from out of a spring. Walking in, he was immediately greeted by the young blonde girl, now in the flesh, and still holding on to what I thought was my shadow.

Looking at her up close, the world began to flip, and he was suddenly tied up, and at the blonde girls mercy, but the girl did not kill him. Smiling at him, face to face, he asked, “What do you want?”

Walking up close to him, she flattened her hand, and using the roots, stabbed into his chest, pulling apart his muscle and ribs and digging something out. Pulling the item out, she stared at him and smiled. Holding out her hand and showing a small piece of root that had been slowly growing in his body, unbeknownst to him.

Smiling, she wrapped her roots around my left arm, creating a band under my skin, and pushed the root she had taken out back into his arm. “NO!” Knowing the pain and misery he had to endure to get the tree mostly out of him, he tried escaping the girls grasp, only for her to smile, and wave her finger.

Pointing at the growing root in his arm, he watched as it made its way up his arm, but stopped at her band of roots. Confused, he looked at her as she began urging him to do something.

Thinking of what she could possibly want, he tried the only thing he could think of. Using his Nature magic, he began hearing a tiny voice coming from his arm. “Please allow this lowly one to stay and assist you, the great mother emissary has asked me to not evolve, and stay as your weapon against the mortal world.

Let me make a magic pact with you, and become your most humble servant.” Not seeing any other way out of this predicament, he agreed, and created a magical pact with the creature, identifying itself as a, "flesh tree spore."

After the pact was concluded, the blonde girl seemed satisfied, and released me. Looking in front of me, I can see the mirror that I had previously passed, appearing from nowhere. Seeing the altar, and book not far again, I asked the blonde girl, “are you the one controlling everything here?”

Shaking her head no, she pointed to the altar and darkness, kneeling and seeming to worship. She then began drawing the image of a bizarre shadow creature, whose features I could not define, and could only make out having, teeth, and claws, and it was enormous. …….beyond understanding.

Making my way back on the path, I finally arrived next to the altar, and picked up the book. The book itself was dreadful, and covered my body in goose bumps, and cold spots, shooting up, and down my back, the moment I touched it. Looking at the cover, it was made with something, wet, and almost …still alive.

The book felt warm, and pulsated, as if it had a pulse. Feeling the pages, it felt soft, like skin and flesh, and the ink and writing felt…wrong. Examining the book, I debated leaving it right there on the altar, but the cavern began vibrating, and shot me out as if I were attached to a rope harness and a rocket.

Being hurled from the cave, I felt myself passing through a barrier, or something like a bubble, and awoke to finding myself back on earth, having fallen right on top of a confused and horrified sports car, and its owner, while he was copulating with an equally terrified woman. In the middle of nowhere.