The Ark of Humanity

  To Free the Forbidden Fluid

  At Cavern’s Entrance

  “Together we have witnessed the peak of this great goliath,” Japeth spoke as he, Shem and Maanta stood with packs on their backs and lit torches in their hands before the mouth of a gargantuan cave in the side of Ar’arat. “Now we will embark on a journey to the uncharted realm of its very depths. Watch your footing. Listen carefully. Beware and respectful of whatever creatures may dwell here.”

  The midday sun beat exhaustingly overhead as they stepped into the cool darkness of the cave, leaving the sun’s sweltering glow behind.

  After their first thirty or so steps, Maanta turned around and could barely see the hint of sunlight behind them. His torch crackled above. Echoing droplets of water, dripping from stalactites yards overhead, resonated in the vast cavernous expanse. Japeth led the group. Shem was in back.

  “Ouch!” Maanta exclaimed as his foot twisted in a slight drop of stone.

  “Are you alright?” Shem asked, placing his massive arm beneath Maanta’s armpit to help him regain his full support.

  “I should be alright as long as I keep a better eye on where I step,” Maanta replied.

  Time seemed to stretch eternally in the darkness as they followed a rocky, earth-made trail through moist tunnels leading downward.

  In the pitch black beyond their glowing torches, Maanta thought he saw demons slithering on the distant walls, waiting for the company to loose their flames so that they could approach and consume them. Something swooped from above, brushing his ear. He questioned the others, but no one else had seen or felt it.

  The darkness led on.

  In an effort to liven up their journey, Japeth taught Maanta a melody which Noah had sung to him and his brothers as youths. Its lively highs and lows lifted the boy’s spirits.

  Long lengths of time passed, and even after Japeth and Shem had quit the melody, Maanta hummed it gently.

  “Shhh!” Japeth let out from the front.

  “I was trying to…” Maanta spoke before Japeth cut him off.

  “Shhh!”

  A faint noise hummed in Maanta’s ears, approaching them quickly from the front.

  “Duck. Something’s coming,” Japeth spoke, before urgently kneeling low to the moist cavern floor.

  Maanta and Shem followed his lead, their torches flickering above their crouching bodies.

  The humming beat louder now in Maanta’s eardrums, every second’s noise resonating twice as loud as the last in the darkness. Shrieks scathed in echoes against the cavern walls.

  “What are they?” Maanta whispered to the brothers.

  A gust of wind swept above him as Maanta was almost deafened by a humming and shrieking noise consuming the space. Shadows whipped and beat his face and skin. Something crashed into Shem’s torch before knocking it from his hand. The creature itself ignited before careening in screams to the cavern floor behind them.

  The shrieking went away, the humming dissipated, and silence consumed the pitch darkness once more. The creature that had ignited on Shem’s torch lay squirming and crippled as the flames exhausted about it.

  “What is it?” Maanta questioned as he and the brothers neared its smoldering carcass. The stench of burnt hair caressed the air.

  Shem kneeled, picked up his torch, and reignited it anew on Maanta’s. “It’s a bat, a winged rodent that can bite, but is more annoying than anything. They clutch the roofs of caves and are filthy creatures.” Shem pinched its charred, crisp wings with his free hand, holding it up to the dim torchlight. Smoke wafted from its carcass.

  “They’re actually quite tasty,” Japeth chuckled from behind Maanta and Shem. “And this morsel comes fully cooked.”

  “Feel free, brother.” Shem passed the charred bird-rodent to Japeth. “I wouldn’t take a bite out of that stank filth for anything you could offer me.”

  “Suit yourself.” Japeth cracked the bats head off along with its wings and feet before tossing the limbs off into unreachable parts of the cavernous path. “Any extra protein for this exhausting journey is welcome to come my way. And you, Maanta, will you partake of this creature with me?”

  “Mother always said to try everything once.” Maanta made a queasy face as Japeth ripped the bat’s charred body in half and handed him some to try.

  Shem unlatched his leather pack and pulled out something. “I’ll stick to dried deer and berries, thanks.” He bit into a strawberry. “Mmmm. You know it’s not too late to do the same, Maanta.”

  Maanta shut his eyes and bit off a piece of the bat, pulling meat away from bone. It was a bit salty and burnt, but possessed a rich flavor. Realizing he would need his strength in days to come, Maanta decided he had made the right choice. “It tastes alright.” He took another bite.

  “Brother, have you ever even tried bat?” Japeth gnawed into his piece, chewed it and swallowed. “It wouldn’t hurt you to try a few different things.”

  After partaking of their meals, the troop was on their way once more.

  The darkness seemed to pulse about them now. What other strange creatures make their homes amongst this cavern? Maanta thought.

  The trail became steeper and steeper in the pitch, chilled dark. Once Shem slipped, but luckily Maanta caught him before he slid down the sharp slope.

  The blank nothingness of the cavern before them seemed to shiver in the cold of their breath. “How long have we been moving?” Maanta’s calves ached and above all, his arms were sore from holding the heavy torch.

  “Halt!” Japeth held his free hand back toward Maanta to stop his movements, while waving his torch to conjure more light. A sheer stone wall rose upward against the torchlight, blocking their way.

  With a swoop, Japeth moved his torch along where the ground should stretch before him. Its flame illuminated nothing but darkness, held by a curved edge of stone. “We’ve arrived. The endless pit drops here. We will rest in this place now, and upon awakening, descend into its depths.”

  After partaking of a few morsels to eat, and drinking some boiled cave-water, they took their rest next to the cold and seemingly bottomless hole. The light of Japeth’s torch shivered as it leaned against the cavern walls nearby.

  Maanta’s eyes closed, his head propped upon a raised, moist stone, as dreams overtook his mind.

  Upon awakening, Maanta shivered. The torchlight had extinguished during their slumber and a bitter chill swept around the cavern. All was pitch black.

  Slowly he moved his hands to massage his toes, stinging with the bite of cold. His nose dripped and was chill as well, as were his fingers. “It’s so cold.” He shivered in the darkness.

  “Wha…?” Japeth’s voice groggily returned.

  Maanta pulled his clothes tight around him before breathing into his hands. “The flame’s gone out,” he said weakly, his teeth chattering.

  “So it has,” Shem responded, apparently already awake. “I didn’t wish to wake you, Japeth. But you’ve got the tools to light a fire to warm us and to relight our torches, in your pack.”

  Maanta could hear rustling, and something being passed from Japeth to Shem in the darkness.

  “Thanks,” Shem replied as he retrieved the unknown things. “I’ll tell you what I’m doing as I do it, Maanta. You might need this skill.”

  “What did he pass you?” Maanta asked curiously while warming his chilled toes with his hands once more.

  “Sticks, for starting a fire with, and dry leaves for kindling,” the noise of Shem stacking sticks and leaves could be heard in the darkness as he spoke. “You rub the sticks vigorously together until the friction of their rubbing creates flame. Then you move the flame from your sticks to other dried sticks and leaves below and softly blow the tiny flame to spread it amongst the kindling.”

  In the dark silence Maanta could hear sticks rubbing together beside him. Long moments passed and he began to think Shem’s hands would tire before the sticks would ignite.

  Then a spark of crimson fli
cked in the pitch-black air, briefly hovering, before it disappeared amongst the darkness it had been birthed from. Another flick of fire jumped from the rubbing sticks, then another.

  Shem’s breath could be heard as he blew on the tiny flames, coercing it gently, until a small red flame rose and crept downward along the propped sticks. It engulfed the leaves in quick, consuming flame; the fire now a rippling, dynamic ball of heat and light that silhouetted its maker’s face.

  Shem warmed his hands over the fire and motioned for Japeth and Maanta to join him. “We will light our torches from its flame once we have warmed our selves and nourished our bodies.” Shem pulled more meat and fruit from his pack for them to eat and passed it to the others, who devoured it hungrily.

  After they had finished their meal, Maanta looked up at the brothers. “Where do we go from here? I know that neither of you has ventured past this point. As far as we know, this pit truly is bottomless. What if it doesn’t lead to the crystalline cavern of air, after all?”

  Japeth grasped the boy’s hand. “Have faith, Maanta. God has led us on the right path to your people’s freedom. The crystalline cavern is at the bottom of this pit, I assure you.”

  “So how do we proceed?” Maanta asked as he stretched his feet close to the flame, the bones in his toes slowly warming.

  Japeth pulled a massive braided rope from his pack and sat it heavily in his lap. “We begin by knotting this rope a few times around this large stalagmite.” He patted the one beside him as if it were a pet. “Then we’ll drop the rope’s length down the pit and pray it gets us as far as we need to descend.

  “Once we reach the end of its length, we’ll have to devise a fresh plan from there. Shem will remain here to watch the knot and help us if we need his assistance. Shem, we may need you to unknot the rope from the stalagmite and drop it down to us if we can’t reach the bottom of the pit with this single length.

  “Also, we won’t be able to carry lit torches with us as we descend, but we’ll strap them in our packs in case we should need them later.”

  A few moments of rest passed before Japeth knotted his rope to the stalagmite. He rose slowly, tossing the remaining rope into the pitch-dark void. Both Japeth and Maanta strapped their torches in their packs along with food Shem had distributed to them.

  “Listen, in case we have need of you, brother,” Japeth hugged Shem lovingly before grasping the rope in his fists and beginning his descent into the consuming darkness. “May God watch over us in these depths to which we descend.”

  Maanta shook Shem’s hand. “Thank you for all you have done for me. I look forward to scaling Ar’arat’s peak with you once I return. You have become like a brother to me.”

  Shem walked closer to Maanta and hugged him. “Be safe in your quest.”

  As Maanta turned to begin his descent into the pit, a shiver rippled through him. The darkness of the hole was all consuming. When he peered down the hole, Japeth was already beyond sight.

  “Are you coming or are you just going to stare at me?” Japeth’s voice resonated from close below, but Maanta’s sight could not focus on him in the nothingness.

  The rope braced tight in Maanta’s fists, burning his skin as he gripped the tight braid, and with three breaths the darkness had swallowed him into its throat.

  The pit’s wall was cool and cragged to the touch. Moving slowly and bracing with their legs, Japeth and Maanta lowered hand under hand, downward. Damp moisture clung to the rope, causing them to slip in places, while lowering handgrips.

  “I wonder how deep it descends,” Maanta spoke.

  Japeth’s voice climbed upward from below. “Deeper than we could imagine, I fear. But we will reach its depths.”

  Down and down they descended. Far above, the faint hue of Shem’s fire swayed in the pit’s entrance, a space that appeared to be no larger than a pebble.

  Time seemed to span eternity.

  Maanta shifted his head, looking upward to find the distant firelight had disappeared.

  The pit narrowed so much, that for a good distance, Maanta’s body could barely move through it. In this small length of space Maanta let loose of the rope and merely used his hands to push himself downward through the hole.

  A gentle, whispering breath of warm air, warbled up from below as the pit widened once more and Maanta re-grasped the rope.

  Japeth startled Maanta as he spoke. “There’s a ledge here. We’ll soon be running out of rope. We should stop, collect our thoughts and strength and decide how to proceed.”

  After a few more moments of descent, Maanta’s feet found a solid surface beneath him. He held a tight grip to the rope as he felt Japeth there, standing beside him in the blackness. There can be no telling how large or small the outstretching stone beneath me is, Maanta thought. I’ll hold tight to the rope in case I need it.

  “We should run out of rope soon,” Japeth’s words came from right next to Maanta’s ear. “There is no telling how far this chasm descends. I have an idea. I’ll call up for Shem to untie the rope and drop it to us and then we’ll retie the rope to this outstretch of stone in the wall. If we do this, then you will be able to descend at least the length of the rope again. With luck, that will get you to the pit’s ending. You’ll need to descend the next length alone though, because I’ll need to stand here and watch the rope.”

  “But, without the rope tied to where Shem is, how will you return?” Maanta knew that he would have no need of a way to return to the land above, but Japeth could not enter the waters and breathe them into his lungs as Maanta planned to do.

  “I am a skilled climber and have brought my picks.” All was silent for a moment, as Japeth succumbed to thought. “Do not worry about me. And besides, if I needed him to, I could get Shem to fetch another rope and lower it to me.”

  “It sounds like a solid plan then,” Maanta said, but he knew he would worry for Japeth until he met with him on land again.

  Maanta could feel Japeth tugging up and down on the rope through his own grip on its braids.

  “Brother!!!” Japeth hollered through the hole above. “Untie the rope and let it fall to us!!!”

  Nothing. Silence. Darkness.

  “Can he hear us?” Maanta spoke.

  “Brother!!!” Japeth bellowed. “If you can hear us, let the rope fall!!!”

  The rope went limp in their hands. Seconds passed. One. Two. Three. Four. Five… Nine long seconds passed as they stood on a slim cliff in the depths of darkness, clutching to a limp rope.

  Whoosh! The rope swept past them, wafting a gush of cool air. Maanta held tight to its end, and then his body rocked forward as the weight tugged in his hands. Luckily, Japeth braced him upward.

  “I guess he can hear us,” Maanta whispered. “I felt myself sweeping off the edge for a second there.”

  Maanta sensed Japeth kneeling carefully in the dark, tying the rope to the outstretched ledge beneath them. As Japeth stood, he pulled fruit from his pack and shared it with the boy.

  Cool strawberry juices caressed Maanta’s throat, while the warm winds he had felt earlier blew upwards again. Why would a cave have warm winds? He wondered.

  As they stood close on the small ledge, Japeth began to speak. “There is something I have not told you about a thing you carry in your pack. I have placed a sack of powder there, which explodes, destroying everything around it, once ignited.

  “When you are in the crystal cavern of air, you will need a way to crack the crystal and release the air into Meridia. This powder is your solution. Pour it in a pile on the cavern floor, and from a distance toss your lit torch upon the powder.

  “Cover your ears. An explosion will rock the crystal and water will flood the cavern as the air pushes through Meridia. Watch for falling stones as the explosion goes off.” Japeth gave Maanta a hug. “May your quest bring your people happiness once more and bring you back to us one day. As you descend the depths, I will be here if you are in need of me.”

  Maanta’s soul warm
ed with Japeth’s words. “Thank you for everything you have done for me and sacrificed, to help me on my way. Once my people are freed and calmer days have found their way to the world beneath the waves, I look forward to seeing you once more.” He smiled in the darkness. “This time, my visit will be a little better planned, though.”

  “I look forward to that day,” Japeth sighed. “I suppose you should be on your way now. Be safe.”

  “I will.”

  Maanta teetered on the outstretched limb of stone beneath him as he reached for the dangling rope. But before he could grasp it, his body tipped and he began to plunge downwards.

  Hands clasped at vacant air. Heart raced. Mind panicked.

  Darkness flushed upward about his irises.

  When he finally found the rope braid, his hands felt as if ripped by fire. But it didn’t matter. He was safely hanging from it once more.

  “I’m alright!” he yelled up to Japeth, half panting for breath.

  “Stop daydreaming about young ladies,” his friend shouted, “and concentrate on your descent!”

  Maanta smirked and gave a silent laugh. That was close, he thought. If I lose my grip here I won’t have Japeth and Shem to rescue me. He was alone now. It was a reality he would have to face.

  Down he descended, in the black shadows of nothing. The cave walls were no longer close enough to be felt against his body, and he only had his rope and pack to remind him of his companions. One was a weight, pulling him downward. The other held him up.

  With closed eyes he descended for a vast stretch of time. Then he opened them, but the depth and intensity of the darkness remained the same.

  kssssssssssssss

  He could swear he heard bugs scurrying on the cavern walls somewhere close by. As quick as possible he descended until the noise stopped. Something pricked and scurried across the back of his neck.

  Crunch! He smacked it with a hand while bracing to the rope with the other. The thing tumbled down his back and into the depths below.

  Another gust of warm air puffed about him.

  “What is that?” he whispered.

  Further into the depths he went, paranoid by each sound and quiver of the air.

  Hours passed which seemed like days. Drips from the rocks above trickled down his forehead. The air grew warmer and warmer.

  Grip after grip, braid after braid, the rope rubbed against his hands as Maanta met the shadows below. His feet clenched the rope as he moved, and then it was gone. Only his hands held on. The rope’s length had been exhausted. How far down is the cavern floor? he pondered, remembering Japeth’s description of the pit as endless.

  He panicked. He did not want to be alone anymore. Not even the rope would stay by his side. “Japeth!” he bellowed upward. “I have reached the rope’s end!”

  Nothing. Silence.

  Moments passed.

  Then a humming sound flittered in his ears. No. He thought. No!

  It increased as ear-scathing screeches broke in…

  He closed his eyes. A consuming wave of bats flushed around him, their wings beating his face and body. A few attempted to bite him as they passed, but moreover their screeches pierced his thoughts. His body pimpled with goose bumps.

  Their wings beat against him in an embracing horde. Then in a breath they were gone, fluttering up toward another vast span of cavern air. The humming noise dissipated before succumbing to silence once more. His legs hung limp and braced to nothing beneath him.

  I have come this far, he thought as he hung at the end of his rope. My people need me. If I turn back and return to the world above, never releasing the cavern of air, my people may never be freed. They will perish in mutilated agony. While dangling, he made a decision. After the end of the rope there would be a world to live. He would make it to free his people. I just need faith, he thought.

  His fingertips released the rope’s intricate braid as another warm gust of air puffed about him. Plunging downward, his body became one with the darkness, its winds blowing puffs within his clothes. And then the darkness released him against a smooth, slanted wall. Breath burst from his lips in the collision.

  Maanta swept, always facing upward, down the smooth surface as it bumped up and down beneath him. He pressed his palms against the surface to better steady his descent, and was baffled. The surface was warm.

  The surface dropped suddenly, releasing him in open air.

  Crash!

  His body smacked against another smooth substance. He slid to a halt on floor that radiated heat. Where have I sent myself? he thought, with the soothing warm floor below him. What do I do from here? Something poked him in the back from his pack. Of course!

  With haste he pulled out the sticks and leaves Japeth had packed for him. Taking great care, he placed the kindling before him and began rubbing two of the larger sticks together.

  A single flame sparked off the sticks and the darkness appeared to light with stars about him, before disappearing again as the spark died. A lick of flame lit where the sticks rubbed and larger stars reappeared. Maanta moved the tongue of flame slowly down against the kindling. It ignited in a rush of light, consuming the entire smooth cavern.

  There were thousands of reflections of the fire in the vast crystal cavern about him, almost overwhelming the space with light. It stretched half a mile high and wide. His irises shrunk as sight adjusted to shimmering blue, pink, purple, yellow, white and orange hues reflecting through the crystal encasement.

  “I’m here,” he breathed, in awe of its beauty. “The depths of Ar’arat possess their own aurora.”

  He should have eaten. He should have slept. He should have planned. But the crystal cavern trapped him in its beauty, causing him to think of none of these things for long moments.

  When his own thoughts returned to him, Maanta realized he had no time to waste. For every moment he postponed releasing the air into Meridia, his fellow Meridians were enduring torture.

  He lifted a vast leather pouch from his pack and brought it several yards away from the fire before dumping it out on the shimmering floor beneath him. The black grains the pouch spewed seemed to obliterate and poison the crystal’s glow.

  Returning close to the fire, he reached his arm into his pack and withdrew the creatures Amaranth had sent him. The seaweed encasing them crumbled, dry and brittle, and swayed like falling leaves down to pink reflecting crystal below. The creatures’ pulses swept a mental shiver along his spine.

  They beat like miniature hearts in his outstretched hand, their veins pulsing as they sucked moisture from his palm. They are so starved for fluid to breathe and turn into air, Maanta thought. He was afraid of what they would do to him when he placed them in his mouth. It was too late to worry about that now, though. Without them, he would drown.

  He placed them on the two outstretched fingers of each hand, brought his fingers to the corners of his lips, and placed them in the insides of his moist cheeks. The symbiotic creatures instantly sucked to his cheek walls, draining the moisture from his mouth and converting it into air. He coughed, spat, choked.

  Dizzy breaths cracked through him, as the room appeared to spin in his mind. The crystal became nothing but a haunting sheen of ice. The entirety of his cheeks chapped as the symbiotic creatures sucked away.

  Have to have water, he thought, clumsily grabbing his torch from his pack and igniting it ablaze in the fire before him. He dropped it to the crystal floor in the dizzy haze, but quickly picked it up again, bobbling the torch in the air.

  With a swift thrust, he lobbed the torch toward the black powder he had poured upon the reflective floor.

  Dizzy exhaustion felled Maanta to the crystal beneath him.

  BOOM!!! An explosion consumed the room, almost reaching to Maanta’s legs. Flames and smoke bellowed forth. The complete encasement of crystal shattered in mirror sized jagged panes. The ceiling tumbled down, piece by piece from above. THOOM! THOOM! The fragments shattered the crystalline floor as gushing water po
ured down after them. Maanta’s lips pressed to the crystal floor as water filled the cavern. With each suck of water, gathering there, the symbiotic creatures left his cheeks alone and went more for the water he was consuming.

  THOOM! THOOM! THOOM! THOOM! Fragments from the ceiling crashed down, splashing the collecting water up into the air.

  Water consumed the fire Maanta had built. The cavern went dark.

  If I’m not crushed by falling pieces of crystal, then I’ll swim up to Meridia once the cavern fills with water, Maanta thought. He laid his body beneath the collecting waters, breathing the liquid into his lips softly and listening above him in the darkness as the ceiling fell like asteroids into the rising currents.

  THOOM! THOOM!

  Stars reappeared in the heights above. Their molten glow seeped and formed the outline of the cracks in the crystalline egg before flowing down through the holes in the ceiling and simmering where it mixed with water and air.

  A droplet of orange star plopped in the water beside him and floated downward until resting on his arm.

  “Ouch!” Maanta cursed. The lava scorched a mark just above his hand.

  THOOM!

  The cavern’s center crashed down into the deep waters as lava and water gushed behind it. Maanta swam for the edge of the cavern, where nothing had yet fallen. Waves and splashing currents pressed against him.

  Within a matter of moments, the cavern filled with gushing water and lava, the lava sizzling and blackening in the water’s embrace.

  All air was gone.

  An orange spider web of molten lava illuminated the swirling blue water before him.

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