Chapter 4 - Eryn

A sharp noise woke me from my sleep. I was dreaming about my father.

I opened my eyes slowly, feeling disoriented. My hands touched a soft fabric, and I looked down, realising my hands were bound by rope, but resting on a bed with silk covers. I looked around quickly, scanning my surroundings, looking for a door or a window. When I moved my head to the right, a sharp pain shot through my neck, making me whine in pain. I tried to reach the spot with my hands but was unable to due to the rope, so I just turned my head again and readjusted my body to be more comfortable. That’s when I noticed I was no longer wearing my clothes. Someone had dressed me in a long white dress, and had washed me, as the dirt on my legs was nowhere to be seen.

Panic started to set in once again, and I tried to steady my breath as tears began to stream down my cheeks.

My throat felt dry and rough, and I realised just how thirsty I was. I thought about screaming for help, but surely the ones behind the big wooden door wouldn’t come to my rescue.

I fell back down on the bed, bringing my legs up to my chest and closing my eyes once more, feeling sore and tired. I felt asleep again, and dreamt of the day my dad died.

My father, Christopher Vaughn, was one of the world’s most famous speleologists.

He had successfully studied some of the Earth’s most secluded caves, and categorised new species of animals and plants found inside them.

When I turned 6, he took me to my first cave. I felt like I had entered a new planet, a dark, scary, humid planet with dangers looming in every corner… but my father’s passion and desire to show me just how beautiful and unique each cave is slowly grew in me.

We would travel every summer to different countries all around the world, to study the species we had previously seen, to try to find new systems within the same caves. We would spend days secluded, underground, in our own little paradise, talking and learning and listening to each other’s stories. Most of the time, he would let me ramble on about how I thought I had discovered something new, he’d let me believe it, and he would never tell me otherwise, but made sure that I went back to read previous entries of every trip he’d done to that same cave, so I could see for myself that he had in fact already made that discovery. When I would confront him about it, he would just say that he had forgotten, that he was getting old and that he loved seeing me being so excited about it. Those were my most cherished moments.

But everything changed on my 13th birthday.

My dad had surprised me with a trip to an unexplored cave in Alaska. The entry to the cave had been located by a member of his team by sheer chance, and he had managed to break through some ice to see that the system seemed to go very deep within the mountain.

We left home two days after the discovery, promising my mother we would be safe and that we’d take as many pictures as possible. She always hated caves, never got past that fear of the darkness you find in them, but she was happy that my father had found someone that shared his obsession with him, in me.

We got to the campsite and my dad was briefed on the location of the cave and the possible dangers. They went for an initial descent to make sure everything was safe and to map a few passages.

The second time, I went with them. I know, I was very young, but my father had taught me very well and we weren’t going to go very deep anyway, he explained to his team. He just wanted me to experience what it was like to enter a new cave for the first time. One that had remained a mystery for many years.

We put our gear on and made our way into the entry. I remember how my stomach was in knots, I was consumed by nerves. I had always felt a sort of comfort when going into caves that had previously been explored, it felt safer, but this one was different. My dad saw the fear in my face and held my hand for a brief moment, looked deep into my eyes and nodded. That was all I needed. I smiled at him and followed the rest of the team down the main shaft. We took a look around it and found at least 4 passages that could fit a standing human, but there were others that would need special equipment to get through.

Dad and I headed west, down towards a very small system. We descended for about 10 minutes, until my dad suddenly halted. Even though I was behind him, I could see that he was shining his light towards a big hall. It was bigger than any I had ever seen, and judging by his reaction, I think my dad had never seen anything like it before, either.

I shuffled past him and he grabbed me by the belt, telling me to be careful. I shone my light downwards, but it didn’t reach the bottom.

My dad made a few annotations and I took pictures, and then we turned around, promising to be back with proper gear to climb up and down the hall.

We were walking towards the entry of the cave, in quite a steep ascent, when we suddenly heard what sounded like a woman crying. We stopped in our tracks, and my dad turned around to look at me. I nodded, letting him know that I had heard it too, and we looked around. I saw a small passage to my bottom right, and I started bending down to have a look at it, but dad stopped me, doing it himself, just in case, he said.

He shone his light and gasped. The sound made me jump and I asked him what was going on. He looked at me with a mix of fear and confusion, and for a second, he didn’t say anything, he was looking for the right words. I know now that he didn’t want to freak me out. He looked towards the passage again and turned to me, quietly telling me that he could see a woman in there. My blood ran cold and I couldn’t move, but he quickly took his backpack off and started making his way towards the woman, who I could still hear crying. I bent down and put my light in his direction to make it easier for him to see, and he thanked me for it, turning around and smiling at me. The passage was so narrow I couldn’t see past his body and into the small room. I saw him reach the end of the passage and slowly get up, asking the woman if she was okay, and how she had gotten there. I put half of my body in the small tunnel, ready to make my way there to help, when I saw the woman get up and grab my father from the neck. He struggled against her, even kicking her in the face, but she just laughed. Dad told me to run, to get help, but I couldn’t move, I couldn’t take my eyes off her. She bit his arm and then his neck, and my father started screaming in agonising pain. That blood curling scream haunts me to this day. I saw the woman drag my dad towards another passage, and all that was left was his flashlight on the floor. I laid there for a while, unable to move, crying, trying to process what had just happened. I felt the cold of the walls close in on me, making me shiver almost uncontrollably. After what felt like hours, I realised my father was gone and that I had to move quickly if I wanted to get help, or not suffer the same fate as him.

When I finally got out of the tunnel, I was so disoriented that I walked back towards the big hall.

I was there for two days before the rest of the team found me. I was dehydrated and had a few cuts and bruises. I had someone managed to get inside a different tunnel, instead of back towards the one we had originally come from. I kept walking and walking, mostly in circles. I could hear the woman laughing in the distance, and I swear I also heard my father telling me to find the exit. He told me he loved me, and that one day maybe I would understand.

The guys got me out of the cave safely, and asked me about my father a few times, but I was in shock, I couldn’t say a word. All I could think of was that woman.

When I finally told them the story, hoping that we’d all go back inside to find my dad, they all concluded that my father must have fallen down to the bottom of the big hall, and my brain, in an attempt to process what had happened, invented a story that could mean my dad was still alive.

They did go back looking for him, but after a few days, the search was called off and everyone went back to their lives.

I tried to tell my mother the story, but it was too painful for her to hear it, so in the end, no one ever believed a word I said, and my father was presumed dead a few months later.