Another tale of fantastical adventure…

I don’t remember how this began. All I know is that my body is aching, my stomach is growling, and my mouth is parched. All the food and water I’ve brought had all been emptied out along the way.

Exactly what am I searching for? What am I trying to find? Who am I trying to prove myself to? Why am I doing this?

Sure, for the adventure, for the thrill, but there are so many other ways to do that. Why am I crawling around in a pitch black cave dodging bats when I can probably be cruising in the desert in a dune buggy?

I stop in my tracks and close my eyes. Inhale and exhale, I remind myself. It’s probably the hunger, causing my mind to play tricks on me. Inhale and exhale. You’re almost there. Inhale and exhale.

Slowly, I open my eyes but what’s in front of me is no longer pitch darkness but a scene of wonder. Can this be another trick of the mind? Before me is a lush green sea of moss, like a carpet covering every rock and crevices, and in the distance shines a beam of light. Slowly, at first, I walk toward the light, climbing over the moss-covered boulders. Quickly, that walk became a jog as the aches and hunger disappeared as if I am being healed by the light. Before long, I am standing on top, my body is bathing in the light.

Have I found what I was looking for?

---

“Again,” the man says in his native tongue before pressing the paddles of the defibrillator to his bared chest. They are at the entrance of the cave that had been flooded by the rain from the night before and despite the warnings from the locals, the American thrill-seeker still ventured into the cave.

“Charge it again!” The man shouts in his native tongue. “Foolish American, don’t listen to nobody.”

“It is too late.” The boy who came with the man says sadly, “he is gone, there’s nothing more you can do.”

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