A shiny black rat ran along the path before her. Its
tail mimicked the trail beneath it. The little girl had
the sudden impression that the rat's destination might not
be the best place for someone of her stature to go, but she
followed anyway.

The rat and path reached a cracked-rock entrance to a
dark cave whose blacked-out appearance was incongruous with
the shards of sunlight transfixing the forest's canopy.
After a hesitation, the rat skittered into the underbrush,
ignoring the cave. The little girl was uncertain if she
would be as at home between old leaf and new ground, so she
slipped between the rock walls. She noticed only one side
had moss growing on it.

Just inside the darkness, she walked into a wall that was
warm, soft, and wearing a scratchy woolen sweater. A boy's
voice spoke to her, and hands held her shoulders steady
while pushing her back a step.

"Be careful. It's easy to fall into things in here and
to never be able to climb out."

His voice was young and earnest, its predictable nature
disappointing the little girl. She sighed and opened her
eyes to the less than pure blackness. "If there are going
to people in here, I suppose it won't be as much fun to
explore. Shall I go?"

The boy let go of her shoulders. He stood shorter than
the cavern's roof, but higher than its floor. His hair was
an obnoxious colour that the little girl had always hated,
so she pretended it was pitch black instead. At least that
way something would be the perfect absence of light. She
noticed he was missing all the fingers on his right hand,
thumb included.

He adjusted his ponytail with one hand and rubbed his
lonely palm on his pants. "I'm the only one in here
besides you. You can still explore if you want. But
shouldn't you have parents to look after you?"

"Does it get darker deeper in?" The girl was a bit angry
that although the darkness had never overstepped itself
into the forest, the outside light had no qualms about
inviting itself into the foyer of the cave.

"It might, I don't know. I've been standing here the
whole time."

She was tempted to ask him how long the "whole time" was,
but wasn't certain enough that the answer would be
interesting.

"Why?"

A common question; the girl felt that a common question
deserved an uncommon answer, for pity's sake. "I'm
wondering what I will see if the outside of my eye matches
the inside of my eye."

He lifted an eyebrow. "I don't think you'll see much
more than nothing."

"Good. That's an appropriately common answer." She
pushed past the boy gently, mindful of hungry pits. It
struck her as odd that a pit in a cave was an absence while
a pit in a date was a presence.

She followed the line of pondering as her feet led her
and the boy, who'd apparently gotten bored of the entrance,
away from the obnoxious light.

The cave was dark, dry, and dead. Aside from the moss at
the entry, there wasn't anything living at all. Not even
bats. The little girl wondered if the bats found the cave
as boring as the rat and she did.

Then, she noticed that there was slight definition to the
walls, slender shadows being cast along the rough-cut
surface. A wall far ahead of them--which hadn't been
visible until now--was slowly disappearing, and the light
it had held back was breaching the dark. Now along the
rock, she could see the boy's grotesque companion that
spread grayness on the gray rock wall behind him. She was
too afraid to look for her own.

Along with the tendrils of light, came the drifting ivy
sounds of soft music. Plucked notes shivered softly around
them, full of sharp, happy vibrations. The tune slid up
and down, snaking it's way through a melody. The noise was
obnoxiously bright; it hurt the little girl's teeth.

The boy, predictably, was listening raptly. He shivered
along with the song, and as a distant voice added in trills
and bells, his own mouth opened and shifted along with it.

"You know the words?" She didn't see the point in
maintaining a silent, dark attitude.

The girl waited for a typical "but there are no words!"
but the boy exceeded her expectations. Closing his mouth,
he took an unsure step backwards. Curious, she stepped
forward, so that he was only in her peripheral view. He
finally stopped staring at the almost completely dissolved
wall, and stared at her. He almost took another step
backwards, then changed quickly, and hurried ahead,
ponytail bouncing.

His stride lengthened ridiculously, as if he'd borrowed
legs from his ghastly twin. The girl walked rapidly to
keep up, wishing for a leash to bring him to heel. Around
them, the cavern changed; what was once bare wall glistened
with moisture and was infested by glowing larvae. Fingers
of rock jutted up and down from the ceiling like misplaced
fangs. The sides of the cave closed in until the path was
narrow and scrawny, claustrophobic. The ragged ceiling
beat down on them, forcing them tighter and tighter
together.

The boy stopped walking, blocking the way. "Be careful
not to fall off the path. There are so many things to fall
into here. Deep things, full of darkness. If you go in,
you can't get back out. Stay to the middle, and don't
trip; there's nothing to catch onto here."

The boy was finally being entertaining.

He continued walking, bobbing his head out of rhythm with
the persistent song, which continued to beam merriment, and
the singer, with her voice comparable to an praying angel.

The girl's arm brushed up against the wall yet again,
covering her with wetness, but, with the light increasing,
she saw that it wasn't water, but a milky grey fluid--
melted rock, like the disappeared wall. As she realized
this, the rest of cave melted back, revealing a large
chamber she and the boy stood around the edges of.

The walls--dry and immovable--stretched up to a darkly
invisible ceiling. They were rough and natural, but the
floor was polished smooth with a gloss. A distance into
the room, a massive circle of light threw everything else
into a bold shadow--the castle guard--making it difficult
to see the boy beside her, who was frozen and, again,
transfixed by something.

In the centre of the circle, on homey wicker chairs with
red-and-white checked cushions, a man and a woman sat,
young and beautiful. The man was plucking away at his
beat-up, but loved, guitar, and the woman sang along softly
beside him, her mouth smiling around the squealing,
saccharine sounds and nonsense words. Both were wearing
white gowns, with billowed sleeves, and they had hair the
same unfortunate colour as the boy's, which was
disappointingly not black.

At their feet were two children--a young girl, and a
genderless baby. They had the same appearance as everyone
else, but the girl's hair was tangled about her face, and
her blue eyes were stretched wide and blood-shot. Both
were dead, with congealed lumps of black gore at their
torn-open throats.

The boy stupidly walked into the light.

He stepped carefully over his sister's body and next down
on a small stool next to his father, watching the man's
hands push, pull, and snap the strings. As he made eye
contact with the boy, the man stopped playing and handed
the guitar over to his wife, who was nudging the baby's
corpse with her toe. Then he gently took his son's left
hand and carefully put it into his mouth. He paused,
watching his son's dull, trusting face, then slowly bit
down, through the bones and skin. As the man chewed and
nibbled, the woman began to play the guitar on her own--a
simple beginner's melody, which she accompanied with more
high-pitched screaming.

The little girl skirted the circle of light until she
came to the opening on the other side that led further out
of the cave. Despite her high hopes, her little side-trip
had introduced her to nothing that she could appreciate,
and she knew that the boy should have saved his boring
little drama for someone else.

Very disappointed, she crawled up the thin passageway
that increased its incline the farther she went. Finally
coming to the top, she pushed leaves and dirt out of the
way to reveal the sky.