Day 249 - Cavern Story

Cavern Story

Matthew Ryan Fischer

He was persecuted and deemed a heretic. He was a simple scribe, but he had been found guilty and condemned to death. They put him in a cave along with all his lies and sealed him in as punishment. He was buried and left for dead, surrounded only with his lies and with those that had listened to them and believed. The punishment would be most awful. He and the others would slowly starve. And then in fits of hunger and madness they would turn on each other, as if a few extra moments of sustenance would be worth anything while trapped in a cave. But that was how animals worked. They would still be hungry. They would still be rabid with the desire to survive, even though in their minds they would know that no survival was possible. It wouldn’t matter. The time would come and one of them would break. One of them would be the first. They could all fight it. They could all agree to go quietly, but those would be empty promises.

The scribe wondered what sort of survival plans he should make. He thought of three options, none of them good. He could wait to die, as calmly as possible. He could take matters into his own hands and kill himself, but that seemed too finite. No matter how infinitesimally small, he wanted to hold out hope that there could be some form of rescue or escape. Maybe the gods would hear his prayers. Or maybe there were other followers, waiting until darkness to free him. He wanted to believe that, no matter how small a chance, he needed to believe. So that left him with the third option, the option to kill before he was killed. He had never killed a man. He didn’t want to do it now. But he saw no other way. He wanted to survive. He was sure they all wanted to as well. Someone would turn first. If they turned before him, he would be defenseless. If he turned too soon, they would outnumber him and be able to overpower him. He didn’t like those odds. He decided he would kill them in their sleep. It seemed like a good, safe way to guarantee that he wasn’t outnumbered. But he had never killed anyone before. What if they made noise? What if it woke the others? Then he would be outnumbered and overwhelmed again. It wasn’t a good solution.

He sat back and thought. He looked around in the darkness and assumed that many of them were doing the same. He could hear some people talking and others whispering. He wasn’t sure who to trust or who to be most worried about. He would have no way of knowing when the first went to sleep. He would have no way of knowing if they were really asleep or faking it, waiting for someone to make their move. He also realized there was no way of finding them all in the dark. Surely he might kill one or two, but eventually someone would be awake or awoken or ready to defend themselves. The odds just weren’t in his favor.

He decided he perhaps needed a new plan.

He thought of one option, the option of negotiation and reason. He could suggest a slow process where one by one they would cannibalize the weak and the first to die. Then, when those individuals ran out, they would resort to a process of forced sacrifices where men of station would die or be killed last. That would be logical. And certainly being a scribe and they being his followers, he would be the man of station and they would all willingly submit to his needs. Certainly he would be the last to go.

But he understood the nature of man and understood that no matter the logic, no matter the evidence or societal mores, it would not matter and once man was reduced to a state of survival, no man would eagerly be immolated and consumed. No one wanted to die that way. Unless maybe they had been trained from birth to believe in some sort of cannibalistic system. But it was too late for that here. He was a respected scribe and these people believed his spiritual guidance, but he also had never once written or spoken of any such system of self-sacrifice. He probably couldn’t start preaching that now and get away with it. Or they would have to be pretty superstitious and stupid to fall for it. No, there was probably no way he was going to convince them that they should kill themselves in an orderly and polite manner.

He had tried to warn them and for his efforts he was condemned. He had written down the questions and dared to theorize about the answers and they buried him. He had believed he was going to be a leader among men – respected, honored and privileged. What he had received was a slow and agonizing death.

He crawled off in the dark, trying to get as far away from the group as he could. His first thought was to do this so that no one would go about killing him while he was asleep. His second thought was that there was some small chance they would all kill each other and not be able to find him in the dark, thus surviving just a little bit longer. His third thought… well, he actually didn’t have a third motivation. He couldn’t convince himself that he was getting out of there. He couldn’t believe he would be so lucky as to find some secret passages or unexplored route out of the cave. He wasn’t that naïve. He would have taken it though if he had found it. And he wouldn’t have gone back for any of the others. There was no sense in risking his life too much for these people.

Besides, if he somehow did become free and returned to the world by himself, he was sure he could convince the townspeople that had condemned him that he was somehow mystical or magical. He could make himself into a chosen one, protected and freed by the gods. He could be feared and find power in another way. He could talk his way into becoming their leader, their ruler. He would be their master.

The scribe reached the back of the cave. There was no back way out. Above, he saw what seemed like a speck of light. A crack in the rocks maybe. Or some hole an animal had dug out. It was enough to give him hope, but too little to mean anything. It was just another punishment. Just another torture.

He sat against the rock wall and looked up and dreamed. It might very well be the last bit of sunlight he ever saw. He would miss it when the sun finally set and there was nothing above to inspire hope. He would close his eyes and cry and pray to survive somehow by some miracle, but really he would be wishing for a quick and painless death. He would have taken care of that himself, but he just didn’t have the courage. Instead all he could do was sit there and wait.