2013 Watty Awards Finalist. Final rank: 3rd.

A drop of water hits a pool somewhere far ahead of me and the sound ricochets back. I slow my walk and run my fingers across the cool rock wall to prevent slipping in the moisture below my feet. The wall is damp and the oppressive darkness ahead gives no warmth. Coming here was a bad idea, a dare gone wrong, but Emily is now just ahead and she seems to have no intention of stopping.

A beam of light soars over my head and refracts off the cold black rock, catching me in the eye. I shield my face from the glare and look down. At my feet is slimy brown algae, making the descent even more treacherous than it already was. There in the algae, I see a single footprint killing probably decades of precious unhindered growth. That must be Emily's. I follow her destructive footsteps deeper into the earth as the light rays behind me swing around the cavern.

Speaking of behind me, that is the boys, Jasper, and Chase. Both are gorgeous in their own way and best friends, lucky for Emily and me since we've been stuck together literally since our mothers sat us together for baby photos. I guess I could say we're so close we have nude photos together.

Jasper has a dark tan, nearly black hair, and fairly large muscles, which is to be expected since he's one of the best guys on the varsity wrestling team and only a junior. I've seen him pick up Emily on multiple occasions, even once over his head with one hand, though it was only for a few seconds. His only flaw, in my opinion, is his dress attire. He always wears the same black tank tops-today being no exception.

Chase is significantly paler than Jasper with blond hair and blue eyes. If Jasper was Spartacus with the oiled chest and perfect tan, Chase was the glow-in-the-dark angel that came down from the heavens to take his soul to a better place. Where Jasper is big Chase is refined, he's also on the varsity wrestling team, however in a much lower weight class.

Today, Chase has his favorite shirt on, a loose fitting white one that nearly went to his knees with a grayscale city on it. In the foreground is a black haired woman with red fingernails and lips holding a hand-rolled joint between her lips. Above the woman's head are the arched words "Live Life".

Chase sometimes acts hard, but he has a big heart. He tries to give off this persona that he doesn't give a shit and all he does is smoke pot and chill with the 'in crowd', but even his hard ass can't hide the butterflies in his stomach or the hearts in his eyes when he's with me. I guess it's pretty obvious now he is my boyfriend. We've been together since freshman year.

Ironically, Jasper looks like a total badass but is 100% a goody tootsie. Hell, half his classes are AP and the other half are honors. He is Emily BFF. Jasper and Emily actually hooked up nearly a year after Chase and me-through me of course. I knew the moment I met Jasper I had to get him to go on a date with her, and oh boy did that work out.

Emily is a small blond girl that's been leading the way. Since we started this double-date-dare, she's been two steps ahead of the pack, leading us deeper and deeper into the unknown. Today she has a white tank and long blue jeans. At first, the boys had no intention of entering the small channel, but she wouldn't take no for an answer. She went in armed with a flashlight and I sure as hell wasn't going to let her go in alone. I guess the boys followed in the end not wanting to be showed up by a pair of girls.

We've been heading on a decline for the past ten or so minutes and the temperature has dropped a few degrees. This is a problem for me. I have a black blouse and white shorts, which is clearly a grave mistake. Outside it was so hot, but the further we descend into the cave the colder it gets. I flinch as my leg catches another pointy rock. That's the second problem, the passage sometimes gets narrow and I keep getting caught by the walls. Not my best wardrobe choice.

A chilly breeze wafts up from the depths of the earth. I notice boys have stopped their snickering. They were probably laughing because they kept shining their flashlights on my ass, but when Emily shouted from ahead for them to stop and that this was serious, they directed the lights away and have remained quiet since.

I hear a crack echo from the blackness ahead. Emily is hitting the stone walls with her stick again. She says hitting the walls helps her hear which way the cave turns so she can go faster. I hurry up a little faster. All I have is my cell phone for light, which isn't much. Emily was smart enough to bring along a full-sized flashlight. I think it's best to try and stay close to her so I don't trip over something I can't see. The last thing I need is the boys cracking up again.

"Jenny, you scared?" A voice echoes from behind me. That's Jasper.

"I ain't scared, but you probably are," I say, straightening my back and picking up my pace until I am right on Emily's heels.

Her blond hair is in my face, but right now I'm totally okay with that. I see she has dirt on her arms from hitting the walls and shit falling down, but she doesn't seem to mind getting a little dirty.

"Why so?" Jasper replies from a distance now.

"Because you two pussies sent the ladies in first, because you two pussies weren't man enough to take the lead. What is it supposed to be? The man of the relationship protects the woman?" That should shut him up.

"Damn honey, that's deep," Jasper says sarcastically. His voice is closer now, like both of the boys picked up their paces as well to prevent getting left behind.

"Shut up," a second boy's voice comes forward, much quieter and not directed at me, "she's mine." He's sticking up for me, cute.

Emily slaps her stick against the wall again, causing another echo of sound, "Watch out the ceiling gets low here," she gives a stern warning, tapping her stick on the roof. I duck after her. She's right. It's no more than four feet high. "Maybe it just dead-ends here," Emily says.

"Maybe that's that," I reply, looking around in the darkness. I'm not really liking the idea of being down here, but I'd never admit that to her or the boys for fear of looking weak. I'll call this a dare gone wrong right now.

This idea started a long, long time ago with Ronny and Lisa from senior year. Well, back when they were juniors. They came to Nightly Hallows, a love cave of sorts just outside of town. The cave is notorious as a place couples go to 'get it done'. It's said the front of the cave is actually quite romantic with candles strewn around lighting up the many colored walls, turning the inside into a kaleidoscope of colors.

Anyways, Ronny and Lisa were out for a romantic time in the dark when they stumbled across a small airway in the back of the cave which opened to a long dark tunnel. Now, neither of them went down that passage because it's a well-known fact that they both lost their virginity that night, but word of the tunnel spread through the school like a wildfire in California. No one dared to enter the secret passage. For whatever reason the entrance scared people-so much so the place sort of lost the romantic vibe it had and people stopped going there.

Today is about a year after that and Emily had this idea, this dare of sorts to go into the opening to see where it led. Jasper wasn't going to let her go alone and there was no way in hell I was going to let her go in without me so I followed too. Chase was roped in because I was. The second we got to the secret entrance the boys backed away, uneasy. Emily had no fear and went right into the small hole, I followed and the boy's grudgingly came after.

Distant giggling echoes from ahead of us.

"Stop that," Jasper says, directed to his girlfriend in the lead.

"Wasn't me," Emily responds, not too perturbed by the sound. She knocks the stick on the wall again and continues forward. "It opens up again," she says.

Great the passage doesn't end. I get this eerie feeling that makes me uneasy. People were afraid of this cave, why? Why are my nerves on end? Is it the fact no one's ever been down here? Is it the noises that permeate from the nothingness? Maybe it's the cold, stale air and how still and calm everything is.

Ahead is a sharp bend. Emily stops at the corner and puts her hand up for me to wait. "I can't... see anything," she comments hitting her flashlight on the butt and pointing its beam ahead of her.

I move up right behind her to try and get a view. Even with the flashlight shining in front of us it is as dark as a kettle and we can only see four or five feet ahead. It's like the walls are sucking up the light.

I jump as a hand touches my shoulder. I turn to see Chase is behind me and behind him is Jasper. Even if he clearly scared the crap out of me he isn't laughing, "Do we stop here?" He asks.

"Let me check it out, it's weird," Emily says. She hands me her stick and steps into the blackness. It's like the void sucks her up. Even with the flashlight, after a few strides, I can't see any sign of her.

"Emily?" I call, she doesn't reply. "Emily, it isn't a joke, come back, let's go back. This isn't cool." Silence. "Emily?" I call once more.

She screams. Chase grabs me around the neck and pulls me away from the darkness. I drop the stick as this blasting loud racket of gears threatens to make us go deaf. When the sound stops something heavy slams behind us. I can hear my own heart beating and try to look around to figure out what just happened.

I hear Jasper slam his fist into metal and say, "Fuck!" under his breath. I turn and Chase does too, putting me back on my feet. Chase shines his flashlight at Jasper, who has his fingers wrapped around metal bars that now block our escape route.

"We're trapped," Chase says.

Jasper nods and smacks the bars again. He tries to force them, but they don't budge an inch. Okay, that's not good. I turn around. There is a dim blue light coming from the bend Emily screamed from.

"Emily...?" I speak, letting her name draw out on my tongue. My voice rebounds and no response returns. "Emily?" I say again, more softly than before. I take a few steps forward. Emily should be just around the corner, but I haven't heard her since she walked ahead.

"Are you crazy!" Chase says, grabbing my arm. He tries to pull me back towards him and Jasper.

I look blankly into his eyes, "We can't go that way," I say, pointing at the narrow part of the passage that the bars conveniently blocked. His hand tightens on my wrist and I can tell he is slightly shaking and has gone incredibly pale, even paler than he normally is. I nudge forward and try to hide the fact that my own heart is threatening to pound out of my chest, "Let's go."

Jasper I can tell is just as scared, and fully prepared to abandon his girlfriend in the depths of the cave, "Sh-she screamed," he says, his voice stuttering and low.

"I know." I pull my arm hard, causing it to slip out of Chase's grip and move to go around the corner.

It turns out the blue light was her flashlight on the ground reflecting off deep blue rocks which litter the floor. It must have been thrown back in the commotion. But that is all that there is around the bend, her flashlight. She is gone. I slowly reach down and grab the light, turning it in the direction of the gloom.

"This is a bad idea," Jasper says. I scan the light over the walls. What looks like dried blood covers them at random. We move further along and the splatter turns into a symbol, some circular shape which looks kind of like a bleeding rose. Seeing the symbol Jasper reassures his argument, "This is a really bad idea."

"Well then, fuck you, Jasper. You may be so fast to leave the love of your life in a ditch, but I'm not going to just leave my best friend behind."

I continue forward, unphased. Chase puts a thoughtful hand on Jasper's shoulder before removing it and turning to follow me. Deciding he doesn't want to be alone, Jasper soon follows. I'm now leading as we move further into the cave. I try to avoid the walls, but every time the light glints across them I see the red smears. It's like someone was ripped apart and their guts were spread out across the walls. The only solace I have is that the blood is dry, so it can't be from Emily.

"Emily?" I manage a sound just above a whisper. My voice bounces but only emptiness responds.

A sharp witch-like heckle echoes back up the tunnel, I jump and let out a quick scream causing Jasper to freak out in turn. "What the hell was that?" Jasper moans, crouching low to the ground as if it would keep him safe.

"I have no idea, but we have a bigger problem," I say.

"What?" He asks.

I shine the light forward. In front of me is nothing. I can't even see the walls anymore and the flashlight does nothing to illuminate the tunnel. I grow really scared at this. What could be so dark that even a flashlight doesn't work? I reach my hand back and grab Chase's hand as I slowly etch my way forward, trying desperately to get the flashlight to reflect off something. Nothing. The space in front of us is like trying to shine a light into the night sky, only to be returned with the vast darkness of space itself.

Baby steps. That's all I can handle right now. I really wish one of the boys would go first, but it seems they are perfectly happy to stay right behind me with no attempts to be heroes. Why the hell did Emily want to come down here so bad? More importantly, where the hell is she?

"Emily?" I shout, causing my voice to echo again.

I take another baby step and feel my foot slip. I fall forward and down. In my fall I quickly contort my body and swing a second hand up to catch Chase's arm. He comes down with me, but also grabs my hand. My feet dangle down some kind of pit and Chase is the only thing keeping me from sliding down its mouth. With no light to guide the way, Chase pulls me back up over the ledge until my torso is above solid ground and safely on top of his. He rolls over on the ground and exhales while my head sits on his chest with my feet dangling off the cliff.

"Holy shit," I gasp.

"What the hell?" Chase asks running his hands through my hair to make sure I am okay, "You good?"

Before I can reply we hear gears again, "No, no, no, no!" I hear Jasper. The gears stop as he repeats his habit of punching steel. I fondle on the ground to find my flashlight and shine it back up and see metal bars again, great. It's like we're slowly walking deeper and deeper into a mousetrap. Now we're on the edge of a God-knows-how-deep hole with metal bars locking us in. There is nowhere to go.

My eyes start tearing up. Emily is gone, we're trapped here, and there's nowhere to go, it seems hopeless. We're going to die down here. We're going to-something brushes across my leg. I jerk up into Chase's chest and adrenaline starts pumping again. I try to pull my feet out from the pit.

I can't, something moist grabs my leg and I feel myself getting pulled down, sliding through Chase's arms like butter. In a panic right before I go over the cliff, I grab my boyfriend's leg. Suddenly his leg is the only thing keeping me from getting sucked down into the darkness.

"Help!" I scream as he tries to reach down and pull me up while preventing himself from getting sucked into the hole. "It still has my foot!"

Jasper, in the heat of the moment, goes on his stomach to help pull me back up. I feel my fingers slip a bit on Chase's leg, but I catch his shoe. I reach my other hand up for Jasper and right as I'm about to wrap my fingers into his something else grabs my arm, pulling even harder. Chase slides, fast, and I feel myself getting hauled under while refusing to let go of his leg.

Jasper shouts as he just misses us and we both go down the pit. Whatever was trying to pull me down lets go as we both tumble down the shoot like two kids on a tube slide. Jasper's shouts grow distant as we slip around a bend, go a little bit deeper and tumble out of a drop. The drop isn't more than a couple feet and we land on a soft mushy pile. It's dark, pitch black, I can't find the flashlight. I reach into my pocket and pull out my cell phone, "Chase... you okay?" I ask.

"Yeah, honey." I hear him groan right next to me, "Thank God it was soft down here, or that could have been really bad."

"Yeah," I agree as I grab his arm and pull him towards me, "Yeah..." I finally get to the camera light on my phone.

This is when I realize what I am holding is not Chase's arm, but someone else's arm, the arm of a dead body. I jump several feet in the air at this and scream so loud I'm sure if Jasper was still listening at the top he'd of heard me.

"Holy shit!" Chase yells too, going the same direction as me. I find solid ground and so does he.

I point my light at the hole we fell through to find the cave slide leads to a small drop off into a pile, a pile of what looks like dead bodies. It's like that hole was a garbage shoot for bodies. There are least a dozen corpses below the opening. Most look pretty fresh as if someone has been recently busy and this is their dumping grounds.

We both look at the pile for several seconds in silence, "We're going to die down here aren't we?" I say. "I hope Jasper finds another way out... seems like we're on our own now." I turn around to see another path. This one has an upward trend.

But this upward trending path isn't natural like the cave we've been trekking through. There are planks holding up the tunnel, like mineshaft support beams. These supports have things hanging off them. Right in front of us is a dead rat tied at the throat, followed by several skulls, and dozens of mystical symbols etched into bark. It is like we are at the entry point of some kind of lair. Was that heckling witch real? Is this the entrance to its lair? This day just isn't getting any better, and now it looks as if we are about to enter hell itself.

Please Vote if you enjoyed, also comment - what do you think so far? Do you like the path of the story? What do you think is going to happen next?