The Eternal Cavern, Prison of Lost Souls
(Also posted on new writing account @andtheoceanwept)
I was pushed by a familiar and lovely face into what seemed to be the pits of hell.. or perhaps… purgatory? I feel cold but hot, blind but not. So cold, almost frozen. And yet strangely enough, I feel as if I have been set ablaze? My head is heavy and hammering and my ears ring louder than the bells of Notre Dame. My cognitive and motor skills appear to have gone on a slight hiatus as I attempt to recover from the deadly fall, leaving me helpless and distraught.
I’m surrounded by darkness for a good long while, but as I open my eyes, I am blinded by the rays of sun that shine through the sky hole of the barren den I am now in. I can hear water falling from stalactites softly onto the sandy stone that surrounds me and listen for what feels like an eternity. The growling of this seemingly infinite cave echoes throughout causing all but gentle tremors ever so often near its source.
Above me is a grand opening, shaped like an oval, with brittle decaying roots pouring from its mouth, which seems so close that I could merely jump and touch it. However, no matter how long and high I climb the dangerously sharp rocky walls or tediously hoist myself up the roots, the ever-elusive day-aught hole continues to evade me. Every time I find a possible escape from this hell my soul fills with hope and I become joyous. But just as I am about to celebrate my hope is ripped away from me, much like a toy ripped away from a fragile child.
It’s as if the universe is playing games with me, cruel and despicable ones at that. Every exit I come across is but an illusion that aggravates me to my core because just as I reach what I think is my final trench through a narrow weaving trench, climb to the top of the cave, or almost escape through the other passageways, it vanishes or I am teleported to somewhere random. Just as it and its inhabitants have done to me since I arrived in their domain, out of pure anger and distress, I will beat, tear, claw, and maim the cave system as well as scream for hours, even after I am coughing up the gummy flesh of my torn-up throat and my vocal cords are beyond damaged and unrecognizable as such, only when my lungs seemingly collapse will I cease.
My life before was hastily taken from me the moment my punisher laid eyes upon this cave. Every nightfall I drag my broken and battered body to a bone yard that the darkest of creatures have learned to stay wary of and rest in the colossal skull of what once was a powerful and respected being known by many names, Fenrir, Fenrisúlfr, Hróðvitnir, and Vánagandr. The skeletal system of the behemoth wolf child of the Norse gods Loki and Angrboda who had long been slain has quickly become my sanctuary.
I have spent eons upon eons in this cave and learned many things along with secrets that shall die with me, this cave and everything is alive in a sense. After being here for so long the only thing that gives me even the slightest spark of joy is when the little animals living obviously above my prison wander into one of its entrances or deceiving exits. Though a tragic and grave mistake for them, it is a joyous occasion for me. Their mistake of entering through one of many pathways brings me food and more importantly, company. Because while nothing can leave this place, anything can enter, like a carnivorous plant that lures insects of little importance, it draws them to it with enticing smells, sounds, and colors.
Eventually, though, they all die, one after another they parish but not alone, never alone, for I stay with them until their end. Like a tree shedding its dead leaves, life sheds itself of them. Once on the brink of death, the spirit of the great wolf arises from its slumber, possesses its languished skeleton, and absorbs their limp corpses as he snatches them in hopes that they will one day give him enough matter to live once more in not a spiritual body but a physical one.
The difference between myself and the other victims of this inescapable chamber of both life and death, human or not, is that while they are mortal, I, unfortunately, am Immortal. Humans tend to think that being Immortal is a blessing and even fantasize about the subject, but no, It is anything but. It is a fate truly worse than death, let alone hell, and makes such a place seem heavenly, to me at least. And while I have everything I need like water, flora and fauna that thrives almost everywhere, and food that when I consume it, does nothing and is simply a pleasure I partake in to try to fill the gaping void in me, at the same time, I have nothing at all and am utterly alone. What a conundrum I have found myself in.
I use ash from burned wood mixed with water as my ink and write with a feather I plucked from a fallen bird before the great wolf’s lingering spirit consumed it to write this letter, a letter which you will never read. I feel frozen with sweat like I have been submerged under the crashing waters of the icy Atlantic by your hands as they wrap painfully around my neck and nearly choke the life out of me. And yet at the same time, strangely enough, I feel as dry as the ancient bones left in the boneyard I spoke of before. And hot, as if I have been surrounded by scorching magma that seeps its way into my pores, melts the flesh from my body, and turns my bones to ash.
All at once I am surrounded by the darkness of near hopelessness and agonizing dread that ever so slowly closes its walls in on me with the promise of insanity whilst I weep weakly and cry out for gods that I had resented before in one last desperate attempt for someone, anyone, to hear me and come to my rescue. I wish for a savior, a hero, call them what you will but as I picture in my mangled mind what they could look like, all I see is you.
Long have I forgotten your bodily features, all except your soft eyes that glimmered like a dying ember drifting away from a fire when the sun shone down on them during dawn and dusk. All except your lips that fit perfectly with my own like a puzzle and not only that but the way that your lips always tasted like the sweetest of honey. All except the way the skin near your eyes crinkle when you smiled at me or the way they glossed over with sorrow when you found me dripping with blood after my first attempt, and then soaked with water after my second, and then when the rope burned my neck making it red on the third, just like your anger.
I never knew such sweet and loving eyes could hold so much rage, betrayal, and disdain, let alone for me. Even if I had, I would still have loved you the same and ended up in the same situation. So when I looked up at you in fear and saw the smile that you wore so proudly, even giddily, after you pushed me into this place of entrapment, I imagined that my eyes held the same rage, betrayal, and disdain that yours did on that mourn. The last time I tried to…
I am blinded by the brightness of my wilting hope that still holds out for you like Adam holds his hand out for God in the old painting you always found beautiful, just as I still find you. Though you have hurt me I cannot help but still adore you. Clearly, I am mentally ill. No sane person would have the thoughts and emotions that I do. So sure I had been that your memory alone had kept me sane but perhaps I was wrong. There will be days where I swear on all that I have left that I will smell your perfume, catch a glimpse of you in the corner of my eyes, hear your voice, think I am speaking or holding you only to be rudely hit with the truth.
That you are not here, that I do not smell your perfume, I did not catch a glimpse of you, I did not hear your voice, and that I am not holding nor talking to you but a skeleton in my arms! Truly my dear you have driven me mad. My mind is so loud and yet so quiet, it's filled with screams and words but also nothing at all. I am aware that no one will read this sob story that was written on a piece of bark, let alone you. But perhaps, if I engrave it into the stone wall some poor fool, far in time from now suffering the same fate as I am currently before it erodes away, will read it and weep as I have wept.
Instead of even the simplest melodies or songs of birds, I listen to my tears hit the ground in a musical manner, my dear I think you would find it amusing to see me in this state. Even with that knowledge, even with all of my pain, I have gritted through the unimaginable pain for you and you alone. You have cast me out and yet I still treasure you. You see, truly, I am absolutely and utterly devoted to you! Can't you see that I am worth saving!? How could you, you're not here nor would you care if you were.
The rumbling silence of this inescapable prison and the soft murmur of the earth fill my bleeding ears that scream a pitch so high and loud that only dogs would be able to hear it and shyly whimper away from it in fear as I did from you the day before you doomed me to this fate. I feel as if I’m slowly withering away to nothingness, It is useless other than it keeps me sane and as content as one can be but I often daydream, I dream that someone from my long but not forgotten past will come to save me, more specifically, an old friend and dare I say, lover. You.
But as I softly gaze upon the stars, eyes barely open, one last time, I sit against the cold crumbling rocks with my art and poems of woe that adorn the wall of the spacious canyon. Vines that slither tightly around my abused body make me wish that it was you holding me so tightly when I finally realize that no one is going to save me and that I am destined to die alone, cold but hot, lind but not. Will you ever come to save me? You won’t, will you? I wish you would, I yearn to feel your loving embrace even if turned hateful just one more time.
Let me melt into your arms like ice in warm hands, let my body become putty in your arms so that you may mold me to your liking and hopefully love me once more. Writhe my body beyond recognition if that is what will bring your affectionate gaze back onto me. I need your amorous eyes upon me, I need you. And I hate it! You have driven me insane! The moment I first laid my eyes on you I was already done for. In this pitiful tale of the most toxic of love and betrayal, you are the equivalent to the serpent that tempted Eve and I am her! I resent you for what you have done to me! But how could I ever truly hate those beautiful eyes, breathtaking voice, lovely body, and what I thought to be a pure soul? Never have I ever felt so conflicted. Damn you, you and all that you love.
Once my dear lover, now nothing more than a memory, I use my final breaths to call and wail for you desperately. I stare up at the stars and reminisce about the memories of you and the way you looked so tenderly at me. A burning imprint of not only you but specifically the way you last looked at me in my mind is all I have left of you. Though you looked at me so scornfully as you broke me and threw me in this dungeon, I still adore you as much as I did when you returned my love.
Like daggers, I feel the freezing hands of death grip my being, my very soul. Often, he comes to converse with me about the world beyond mine. Often, he tells me about you. Oh, how I wept when he told me that he had collected your fractured soul all those centuries ago. But not out of sadness no, although that was there it was not the prominent emotion. My dear, I cried in the purest of anger. I was furious that you had gotten out of life and no longer had to suffer, that you had not suffered as I had, that you are at peace while I have been tortured for not. Once my rage had simmered down I made a deal, and a friend, with death. I had promised him myself if he would temporarily free my soul from this wretched hellhole so that I may find you.
I seek vengeance, my love, for far too long I have suffered not only without you but also because of you. Had you not turned your back on me, had you not believed lies told to you of me, had you not acted so rashly, maybe just maybe I wouldn’t be here and we would be happy together! You always did have such a quick temper… As I write I feel my life slipping away like how my hand slipped out of yours when you let me fall from my grace. I shall come to find you very soon. No matter if you have been reincarnated, are living in the astral plane, or have been sent to the heavens I will run to you with an adoring smile to deceive you while concealing a bloodied knife behind my back.
As I take in this final breath I bid you not a farewell but a vow, a promise, that I will see you very soon and that once you’ve let your guard down I shall steal you away from your happy ending and drag you into this horrid place I’ve come to call home. I will dangle you into the maw of the mighty Fenrir and drop you only when I see the tears pool in your eyes and you beg me as I did you before you let me go. Then and only then might you be able to stir the love I still have for you and gain my pity or sympathy, whichever one it may be, and be free. But not entirely. Oh no my dear not after what you’ve done. So long as the sun shines down upon the dancing grass in flowery meadows and the waves crash against the sands, you’ll never know true freedom nor peace of mind ever again. Your body and soul will be trapped here as mine are now. Soon enough when I finally bring you to this place of eternal entrapment, you will come to understand true insanity and suffering as I do. And just as it has become mine, this place too will become your tomb.
If you made it this far down the post thanks for reading it, I’m an amateur writer and write in my spare time. Put a few sleep token references in there, if you can find em good on ya. This was originally a poem I had to write for school but I turned it into a story, let me know if you like it! Peace and love be with you always.
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