Dark, everything was dark; Glenn could see nothing, feel nothing, and be transported in a black and infinite void. At least he felt no pain. For a moment, he thought he didn't even exist. Fortunately, he knew who he was: Glenn.

  After an indefinable amount of time, a bright, searing light illuminated his field of vision, but it didn't hurt his eyes; in fact, he still felt nothing. When the light disappeared, Glenn was back in the dark cave.

  "Haaaa..."

  A long sigh, a habit he had decided to forget, echoed in the deathly silence around him. Followed by a sigh of relief after checking the state of his body, this one was completely unharmed, at least without any additional injuries, and to top it all off, he felt no pain.

  Getting up quickly, he dusted off his dusty clothes and noticed his bag, which had mysteriously fallen a few feet away. As he approached, Glenn saw the box with the initials W.P. and took it in his hand, then stuffed it into his bag.

  Looking around, Glenn didn't notice any change from before, probably because he had only passed out for a moment. Even so, he could see a kind of new, thin layer of dirt covering the whole of the little cave. But without really paying attention to it, he turned around and approached the exit.

  He passed the gigantic and terrifying fresco for a moment, then quickened his pace. Taking a last, hesitant look at it, he saw the horrifying mural for the last time and quickly looked away.

  Glenn was sweating profusely, his eyes wide open, and he ran out of the cave as fast as he could. He was terrified. In the last look, he had given the mural...

  He thought he saw a movement.

  Trying to banish the image from his memory, he ran as fast as he could up the slope he had descended, or fallen, a few minutes earlier. He climbed the pits and then ran up the slopes again. He had to go as fast as possible and hurry; his family had surely noticed his disappearance long ago and might even be actively looking for him.

  Not to worry them more than that, Glenn ran as best he could through the galleries, passing more than once the objects he had not been able to observe before, and, always with some regret, he ignored them and continued to advance.

  After a while, the inevitable happened, and Glenn fell hard to the ground and rolled for several meters before coming to a stop. A sharp pain hit his skull, and a thick, hot liquid ran down his eyes and face. As he put his hand on the sore spot, he noticed something strange, and after a few seconds, a huge shiver ran through his body.

  He had no headlamp.

  'What? How come? I hadn't even noticed that. I've been walking all this time without any light.'

  While asking himself these questions, an even greater shock startled him.

  He was no longer in pain.

  He didn't even feel any blood on his face, as if he had never fallen and never hurt himself. In utter incomprehension, he stood up and looked around. He obviously couldn't see anything, but somehow he could feel the space around him; that's how he had moved so far.

  Touching the spot where he had been injured a few seconds before, he felt nothing; the wound was completely gone. Finding this very strange, he spent a few seconds touching his skull, but he found nothing.

  So a few minutes later, he decided to continue on his way, trying to be very careful where he put his feet.

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  'There are more important things right now...'

  On his long journey to the cave entrance, Glenn fell too many times to count; the stone spikes sticking out of the ground stung and scratched his ankles all over. But for some mysterious reason, within seconds of being hurt, the wound disappeared, or so he felt in the cold, gloomy darkness of the tunnels.

  The worst thing was that the way seemed to him to be terribly longer than at the alley. He had reached the little cave in fifteen minutes at most, but now he must have been walking and running for an hour without seeing a single bright light—not a single light at all, in fact.

  Despite this, he kept going, hoping to get there as quickly as possible, at any cost. After a while, fear took hold of him; he couldn't think straight, he was sweating profusely, and he couldn't look away without blinking once. He had the feeling that terrifying monsters were surrounding him and were ready to grab him and do him some harm. In short, he was afraid.

  Afraid of not being able to go home, afraid of starving, afraid of rotting inside a dreary, lifeless cave, and especially afraid of not seeing his family again. In this state of mind, he quickened his pace.

  After a few more hours of walking through the tunnels, falling, turning, and running at full speed without needing to rest, which shocked him a little at first,

  'Probably the adrenaline.'

  He saw a small, really small, light source. So he accelerated with all his might towards this point of light, which grew larger as time went by. It became a luminous door, then a huge hole, and finally, he passed through it.

  Looking around, he immediately recognized the large room, the entrance to the main cave. It was dark, and no one was there. Not even his family.

  Despite his disappointment, a spark of hope lit up his heart.

  "Maybe they've been looking all day and decided to rest and start again tomorrow. Hahaha! I wouldn't blame them for that; admittedly, I was pretty far away!"

  After momentarily rejoicing and trusting that his family would be back the next day, Glenn walked over to the last mural he had not been able to see during the morning. But as he got closer, a hoarse, old voice echoed through the cave.

  "Hey, who's there?"

  Startled, Glenn turned abruptly to see an old man, short and very wrinkled, with a bent back and a blue uniform. He was pointing a lamp at Glenn, at which point a single thought crossed his mind.

  'So cliché.'

  Keeping his thoughts to himself, he turned and faced the old man, then raised both arms in the air and smiled respectfully.

  "Er, hello, my name is Glenn. Sorry to disturb you in the middle of work!"

  The old man glared at him, his gaze disapproving and angry. He approached Glenn, torch still in hand, and met his gaze.

  "Who are you, and what are you doing here?"

  Glenn hastened to answer, his tone still respectful.

  "Oh yes, actually I got lost in the caves; I've been wandering around in them since this morning and have only just found my way out!"

  The old man remained impassive for a moment before turning deathly pale, as if all the blood in his body had just been found and as if he had seen the most terrifying ghost in the world.

  "What? What did you say?"

  Still full of incomprehension, Glenn was about to reply, but before he could, the old man turned and walked quickly towards the exit. His body was shaking and he was sweating profusely. Glenn, without understanding his actions, followed him just as quickly.

  "Hey! Wait! What is it?"

  The old man didn't answer and preferred to move forward even faster. After a while, they arrived in front of some kind of very small building. After the man opened it, Glenn could see that inside there was only a desk and a few appliances, like a fridge and a printer.

  Clearing everything off the desk, the old man took out a small pile of paper, which he flipped through with great speed as if it were a matter of life and death. After a moment, he stopped dead in his tracks and stared at one of the sheets intensely. After a few seconds, he looked up and observed Glenn, and then, without Glenn knowing how this was possible, the old man paled even more.

  "How is this possible?"

  The old man's words had the effect of a blow to the back of Glenn's neck, and in fear, he answered quickly.

  "What do you mean?"

  However, the old man did not answer and just watched Glenn. Slowly, he started to back away. Then he tripped over another pile of paper and fell, still keeping his gaze on Glenn. His eyes were those of a terrified man.

  Feeling a pang of anxiety, fear, and stress run through his body, Glenn couldn't help but scream.

  "What is it?! What's going on? Why are you looking at me like that? This isn't the first time someone has gotten lost in the caves! I know! My family must have been looking for me, right? Where are they? Where is my family?"

  After a moment without an answer, the old man managed to articulate a few words; these words, however, were, in many ways, the most terrifying Glenn had ever heard.

  These words were among the only ones Glenn would ever remember.

  "It's been fifty years since the caves were closed...

  ...and the government hasn't let anyone in."