The cave had turned silent; it almost seemed like time had stopped. The two rock men stood there, stiff and frozen, waiting for the dust to settle on their foreheads. All Pierre could do was intently stare at the puddle, which had gradually settled at his feet. He casually observed how the droplets from the ceiling rippled through the water as their harsh splashes reverberated through the mute caverns.
Abbot's answer had caught him off guard. What did he mean by heaven? Did he mean it literally, theoretically, or was he perhaps just being silly? Pierre had rarely thought about heaven. In fact, he couldn't have cared less about where he would go after his death, but he certainly had not expected that he would be spending his afterlife in a cave with an eccentric rock creature.
"Does that mean we are dead?" he asked after a short eternity had passed.
"I assume so. What is the last thing you remember before waking up?"
Pierre tried to recall the horrifying scene that had unfolded that evening. He was reminded of how he could only squeak and pray as unstoppable waves of mud swept over him in the pit, crushing and suffocating him, akin to an insect in water.
After a short while of self-reflection, Pierre simply shrugged. "I drowned in mud."
Abbot's jaw sharpened a little bit. He was probably grinning, but Pierre could not tell due to Abbot's visage being as expressive as a rock could possibly ever hope to be.
"Ha! I knew it! You see, the last thing I remember was working at the construction site of a new school building in... and then I... so I thought that..." Abbot just kept going on and on and on.
Pierre was dozing off again. This guy was indeed very obnoxious.
So he just kept staring at the puddle, watched it grow into a tiny river, which dug its way through the solid stone floor of the cavern until it suddenly disappeared into a crevice in the wall. All the while, he couldn't shake the feeling that the spikes around them just kept getting longer. It was barely noticeable, but it looked like they had grown almost a centimeter by the time Abbot had finished his story.
"You are not the very talkative type, eh?" Abbot noted.
Pierre nodded in agreement; he was not.
The two of them just stood there for a while, nervously jumping from one foot to the other, just waiting for the other to make a move. All the while, both of them just kept observing the little river grow ever so slightly wider.
"I like this," Abbot finally broke the silence. "When I first arrived here, there was nothing to do, nothing to look at. Honestly, I felt like I was going to lose my mind. There was no drinking, no video games. Man, I really miss gaming. I mean, what is the point of living if you can't mindlessly grind out a map after a hard day of work?"
The cave was suddenly filled with the noises of water dripping into a puddle as Abbot eagerly waited for Pierre to respond.
"What is your favorite game?" Pierre asked after a while. At this point, he felt obliged to continue the conversation.
Abbot's eyes lit up. He seemed very thrilled that the two of them finally had something to talk about.
"Have you ever heard of Geosu Dash? It's this super-cool rhythm game where you have to jump over cubes by clicking circles to a beat! I know it sounds very stupid, but hear me out: I just really like repetition, you know? There is something satisfying about blocking everything else out and just focusing on a game where you are doing nothing else but recognizing and repeating familiar patterns. Do you understand what I mean?"
Despite Abbot falling back into his talkative nature, Pierre understood very well what he meant.
It was the same with reading for him. He loved just phasing out and being dragged into another world full of samurai, dragons, and pots. When he was behind a book, he had no responsibilities and no one to care about; all he could do was get immersed in the story as he mindlessly kept flipping through pages. To Pierre, it did not even matter where he was; he would read on the toilet, while crossing the street, hell, even the lectures he attended at university were not safe from his reading frenzy.
"Books probably don't exist in this cave either," Pierre thought.
Suddenly, he burst out laughing. "Man! I really wonder how you managed to survive so long without your PC."
Abbot laughed with him. "Yeah, it is really tough not having to work to get food on the table. I just don't know how anyone could possibly be able to bear this horrible curse we have been afflicted with."
"Wait, hold up? We have food?" Pierre was very intrigued. Could they find food in this cave?
"Nope, we don't need any. I have been here for several weeks, and I haven't felt hunger once. Seems to be one of the perks of being a goliath, I guess."
"The downside is that we don't have to get a job?" Pierre jested.
"Yeah, poor us. Whatever are we going to do?"
Pierre pondered for a moment. They did not have to eat or work, and no one he hated was in this cave. All of a sudden, all of this became very clear to him. His eyes widened as he finally understood what Abbot had meant. This was not just a cave! This was a whole new world! A world without limits or pesky responsibilities. Being in this cave meant that Pierre could be truly free.
"Hahaha, no wonder you called this heaven! This place is amazing! We don't have to work, we don't have to eat, and no one is coming to bother us? Knowing this, I really should have died sooner!"
The two of them continued laughing over the absurdity of their situation. They went back and forth, mocking their old lives, talking about the things and people they would never miss, like bosses, work, or airport security. They kept laughing for what felt like hours, all the while the river kept growing even wider, and the spikes ever larger.
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