Where all started

We were cutting the shrubbery and making our way into the cave, and when we found it, the cave was gigantic, we stopped for a few seconds, we were mesmerized by it, we already got prepared and had a homemade torch, we entered and as we walked our steps echo around it.

There wasn’t anything out of the ordinary to worry about, we saw a light a few meters ahead and we all opened our eyes.

“It’s… beautiful…”

“I have never seen such a place in my entire life, is this even real?”

“There is even vegetation, trees… not like I didn’t know they could grow here but… wow…”

Below us there was an entire new place, trees in the center of lakes, a cascade that was not that big and a ton of vegetation around, the place was making its own light, it was a perfect place to take a photo.

I turned off the torch and saved it in my backpack. I looked below me and sat down as I tried to put my feet around the climbing plants and started to get down. When we got down, I observed the water reflecting on my face, I touched it and smelled and tasted it.

“Ryu!”

“It’s okay… it’s not toxic, it tastes the same as the water from town, a bit salty though, but I believed is safe to drink”

While I was saying that, Alexander was drinking a ton of water with only his visor up.

“I was so thirsty… yeah, this is good, minerals, and all”

“Easy, Alex, we still need to search for that obelisk”

We walked around the place and saw the vegetation, it was foreign even for them. I saw one of the things that was giving light around the place, a plant that had a warm blue at the end of its branches. As I tried to get a touch of it, I felt and Alexander took my hand.

The place was not safe to walk, there were a ton of ends where the track ended and it would drop us to the end of the lake, from what I felt it was not a few meters, it was way deep. But we weren’t the only ones here.

There were some animals as well, the same fauna as we know it, some frogs, fireflies, and small animals like wild boars that were just eating around and resting, it seemed like a retirement house almost since none of the animals ever bothered us.

I saw a few monkeys and small insects, all of them minding their own business as they rested or just walked around. We entered another cave where it covered our view from left to ride but it was the only entry nearby.

In front of us it was just the same, circles that formed small lakes with a tree in the middle, beautiful fauna and below it, a path where to walk. Elizabeth stopped from time to time to observe a few flowers, she didn’t take any, just touched and smelled them with a smile.

It was like if all our problems went away, it was like getting into a new world.

Funny

We found our end when we encountered a cascade going down and to get down was a long climb, I touched my abdomen and saw the others.

“Should we eat?”
Everyone nodded and we took our stuff down, made a small fire, and started to cook some meat and water. I was doing some herbal tea while Elizabeth seasoned the meat and cut it to put it in the fire.

“How do we know if there is an obelisk in here?” —Alexander asked. “Because if we got all the way down, it means that we didn’t find it or how is this going to work?”

“I already explained, Alex, but it is as you said, if we don’t find anything at the end of this cave it means that the obelisk if not in here, and we just need to move forward”

“Still… this place, I think if we don’t find the obelisk it would no matter, after all, this is what we are really searching for, our adventure really begun”

Elizabeth held such a cute and bright smile that it made me flinch I look the other way and nodded

“True, never in my life I thought I would be actually out of the kingdom limits, it really makes me wonder what we would find… thank you guys, I… I am truly grateful”

Alexander stood up and made a bow but we stopped him and just laughed alongside him.

“Don’t get sentimental man, but I know what you mean… when I get out of my hometown, I didn’t even know what I would be doing in here, I just wanted something different and now I’m with you two, that alone is enough for me”

I smiled at Elizabeth but before she could react Alexander hugged us and we punched him with our palms since we couldn’t breathe, he let us go after laughing, and we cleaned our spot to continue with the exploration of the cave.

This time, the place was getting darker and darker as we went down, not animals were around anymore, and the fauna was erased, the only thing that provided us light was the river that was still going down, this time was way easier since we only needed to follow the river and when it formed a small cascade, we went down grabbing the climbing plants.

But the river ended in the middle of the way so we needed to light up the torch again, with some alcohol and flint we went ahead, the space was way smaller leaving space only for the three of us to walk around and when we reach the end we saw it.

A structure that was similar to a pillar with something written on it, but it was not Japanese, it was the league of this place, we all stopped to read it but it was strange.

“The journey was made to satisfy my anxiety of just having a regular life, some can live with the monotonous flow of life, but I can’t, and I will find a way to go beyond exploring, this cave is the symbol of my first expedition and with that there would come others”

I was reading it and Elizabeth and Alexander were thinking about it.

“What does this even mean?” —Alexander asked.

“I think it doesn’t matter since we found it, right, Ryu?”

“No”

“What? What do you mean?” —Alexander said.

“This is not the obelisk that the man requested”

“What? Are you sure? How so?” —Alexander said.

“He gave me info about what it was supposed to say.

“And what are we looking at then? What does the text say?” —Alexander said.

I remained silent and Elizabeth took my hand.

“Ryu?”

“Sorry… he gave a hint about it since even he doesn’t know what the obelisk said, but it said something about travel to a place, a location”

“Coordinates? Strange” —Alexander said.

“Yeah… but this one is not the one we are searching for”

“I'll still write it down, it seems interesting” —Alexander said.

“Right”

We stood for a little bit and when Alexander wrote down the text we left, not without making another stop to eat but in the middle, I noticed how we didn’t even reach the middle, we were exhausted even if it didn’t look like it.

“Should we take a rest?”

Both nodded and when we got at the start of the main cascade, we put out our camp and decided to rest, as always, Alexander was the first one taking care of guarding, next to me and later Elizabeth, when we were about to go, I had Elizabeth resting in my back as we went up.

When we needed to climb, Alexander was the one taking Elizabeth on his back and later I continued charging her until she woke up, we gave her a bit of time to recover her senses and offered her a bit of water, when we were ready our pace was much faster.

Another break to take a meal and then we made it out of the cave, it was dark, if we take in consideration our regular stamina, we probably spent around two to three days inside it, it was quite the journey.

We decided to camp a bit further from the cave, but this time I decided to volunteer first, I couldn’t sleep due to my thoughts but I made sure to not tell any of the other two.

Where could it have been that obelisk? I’m sure it needs to be written in Japanese but, what if I find it and don't say anything? I am even more confused after reading that one in the cave… guess is not something I can discover alone…

I looked at the stars and sighed, wondering what would be awaiting.