Green cave

   The cave was covered in the same slimy kind of substance we had seen in the trail going up the mountain. It was very sticky and had a dark color to it, which we had identified as a very deep green. Someone argued that, maybe, the creatures inside the mountain used that goo to attack predators and be able to escape. Another person said it was very likely that they were the predators and that they used the substance to actively hunt for food. The third opinion was simpler but more confusing: the substance could be blood.

 In trees, sap is green and it acts, in a very basic way, as the blood of a tree. But it never gets that thick or dark. Susan, who was the botanist in the expedition, analyzed a sample and assured everyone that green thing was not sap from any tree she had ever seen or that had ever been recorded by any human being. It did pass some of the tests that Marcus, a biologist, did for several other animals we had found earlier in our journey through the mountains. So it was blood but it was impossible to know why it was all over the place.

 Maybe they did use it as a weapon, like those lizards in the desert that squirt blood in order to scare their enemies. Something like that could be at play with these creatures, which we hadn’t had the opportunity to actually see with our own two eyes. Some of the tribes living around the mountains talked to us about creatures living under the mountains, creatures that would come at night into the town and kidnap children. We didn’t believe that story but it was repeated to us in various occasions.

 Alex and Richard stood at the entrance of the cave. They were geologists and wanted to have time to analyze the mountain itself so they asked to stay there as lookouts if anything went wrong. It wouldn’t have been a very smart idea if we would all enter the cave at the same time. Samantha and Sergei were the last two to enter the cave, just after I get stepped on a rather large mound of the gooey substance. I had to be helped by Sergei and Marcus in order to get my foot out of there. It was very scary for a minute.

 The cave was rather large and our voices seemed to run wild inside, so we decided to stop talking in order not to scare any potential new findings. We had helmets with soft lights on them and all the equipment necessary if we had needed to go down a very dangerous wall or even jump over a crevasse. It was normal for such cavernous systems to have different features that would play as obstacles for groups of people such as ourselves. But, strangely, after walking for twenty minutes, we realized that the cave wasn’t shrinking in any way, rather it was descending gently but steadily.

 I think we all thought the exact same thing at the same time: whatever creatures inhabited this world; they had modeled the cave in order to accommodate them and not the other way around. What that meant was that the creatures had to be able to use tools of some sort and had various abilities to carve stone. They would even be able to do a certain degree of calculations, which was only possible if they’re brain was evolved enough. We weren’t looking for some little creatures in the dark.

 After another twenty minutes, we finally arrived at a larger chamber. The ceiling on it was huge, covered in what seemed to be bats in a deep slumber. We fixed our lights in order not to disturb them and kept on walking until we weren’t able to. The ground stopped dead in the middle of the room to give way to a rather large body of water. The liquid look as gooey as the green substance in the entrance. We actually looked around for it but realized there were no traces of it in that chamber. There had to be a reason why.

 Samantha and Marcus walked and kneeled in front of the body of water, as Susan walked closer to me. It was obvious that, as a botanist, she had not being in such a situation before. She wasn’t hyperventilating or anything, but she was clearly not comfortable being in the underside of a mountain. Sergei stood right behind us, looking at the path we had used to come down to the chamber. It looked like he had heard something but, when I asked, he said it was nothing and tried to seem unperturbed, which he failed at.

Samantha filled three large syringes with water from the pond and Marcus grabbed some in his hands. He first smelled it, very thoroughly, and then drank some, to everyone’s amazement. But none of us said a single word, because we didn’t want to wake up the whole bat infested roof. When Marcus stood up, we asked in a whisper if there was anything wrong with it and he just did a negative movement of his head to answer. We all went back to breathing normally then. For a second, it had been very scary.

 However, we had failed to notice that Sergei was looking at the path we had come down through and there was something wrong with it. Sergei did not answer so I turned him around with one hand. His face was livid, whiter than ever, blood completely drained from his features. He was breathing heavily and it was only when I saw what he had seen that I realized why he was behaving in such a strange way. Out of nowhere, a rock had been put to block the path. We were trapped in the chamber. It was a trap and we had fallen into it without even a glimpse of doubt.

I wanted to tell them what was going on but then the water from the pond started making sounds, as if it was boiling. But that did not make sense. We only had time to look at each other once more before we saw something coming out of the water and then our lights failed and the bats flew over our heads, filling the place with confusion. Then, we felt them and it all went black.

Small green man

   The only thing Serena could do was drive. The desert was an enormous place and she felt good entering it with the old car she had bought in the city. The idea was the cross the whole length of the desert, taking pictures and getting to know the few people that lived there. She had a fascination about that place and, although she had already visited the largest cities in the world, her mind was set know in getting to know the Earth’s most isolated places. She put on some music in the old radio and drove away from the city at first light of the morning. That day, she stopped several times to take pictures of the rock formations and of the animals of the area. It was dangerous, but she didn’t mind.

 The first night of her trip, she slept in the car. She just parked by the road and covered herself with a blanket. From that point of view, she could see the moon, which also fascinated her. It was its brightness and uneven terrain that made her wonder, for a long time, if people would ever be able to walk there permanently. She fell asleep fast just by looking out. Early next morning, a sandstorm woke her up and she had to wait inside her vehicle until it had moved on elsewhere. It was a violent situation but she had loved it because it was so unique. The storm indicated that the future held many secrets and interesting things and one of those happened just a few hours later.

 He was walking by the road, very slowly, visibly on the verge of collapsing due to the horrible heat one had to endure in the desert. When he saw the car, he tried to wave but was so tired he couldn’t and just collapsed by the road. That was the way Serena had to notice him. She stopped the car and ran outside. The man had fallen on his face and had hurt his forehead with a rock. She carried him inside and sat him on the copilot’s seat. She didn’t have much water but used some of it to wake him up. As he came to his senses, Serena notices that the man was not a common sight: he was rather short but with big bulgy eyes and greenish skin. He had normal hands and legs but his skin seemed “fake” somehow.

 When he woke up, he congratulated Serena and asked if she had any water. Whatever she had left, he drank it in haste. He was very thankful but then fell asleep very fast, after dropping Serena’s thermos to the ground. She picked it up, closed the copilot’s door and then got in the car and started driving again. The man was in no condition to keep walking and she couldn’t just leave him there so she decided to carry him to whatever place she found. She didn’t stop for the whole day, mainly because she was scared to be alone with such a strange man. She just wanted their shared journey to end as fast as possible. That night, she almost gave up but finally found a motel past midnight.

 The manager was a young man with his face covered in pimples. He was reading a science magazine when Serena opened the door and asked for two rooms. When he looked at her, the young man started looking for the keys but then realized there was a small strange man behind Serena. She almost screamed when she heard his weird voice, a bit squeaky. He thanked Serena for the ride and the water and told the young man that he wanted a room too. But he told them, as he looked suspiciously at the small man, that there was only one room available with two beds and another one with only one bed so should choose what to do. Serena thought about sleeping in the car again and letting the small man take the single room but her body hurt a lot from all the driving.

 It was the squeaky voice of the man and his stubby hands on the counter, who asked for the double room. He told Serena it would only be for one night and that way they could take care of each other. And then he winked at her, which she didn’t really know what it meant.

 The young gay gave them the keys and indicated the way to go: it was just across the parking lot. So Serena told the little guy to go there first. Meanwhile, she would park the car in front of the room. After she did so, she entered the room to see that the small man had taken off his shoes and socks and was lying there on the bed closest to the door. He had his eyes closed so she could stare at him longer than usual.

 It was not only his statue and the weird hue of his skin. Besides his eyes, his little hands and feet were also kind of puffy, as if they were filled with water or something. Maybe he had been walking too long or maybe he had an allergic reaction to something in the desert and that was why he looked like that. As she sat down on her bed and took of her shoes, she realized how strange it was for anyone on Earth to be walking alone through a desert. Or maybe he had been left there… The desert was a place of many strange events, where people saw lights in the sky and had encounters with life from other planets. Maybe her new friend was a little green man, of the other ones.

 She then asked him what his name was and he answered right away. “Gordon. Gordon Shumway.” Was it wrong that he had answered so fast? Maybe it was his real name but she was sure she had already heard that name before. Or maybe she was just tired and her mind was jumping to conclusions. He asked her name too and she only said “Serena”. They talked for a while about their love for the desert, which they discovered was mutual. They talked about certain species and plants and about the beautiful sunrise. And, slowly, they feel asleep at the same time.

   When she woke up the following morning, the first thing she felt was how hot the room was. The desert had to be burning up. She was glad to be inside a room, on a bed. She wondered if it was early and if she should start her journey of the day right away or maybe just ask for some breakfast and then take some pictures around the place. It could be interesting to talk a bit more to the young receptionist and to any other person working in the motel.

 Then, she recalled the earlier day and finally opened her eyes. Gordon, if that was his real name, wasn’t there. His bed sheets were all over the place so maybe he was still around or maybe he had just left… with her car. She sprung up the bed and ran outside. For a moment there, her heartbeats almost made her deaf. But there was no need for that:  the car was there and looking towards the reception, she saw Gordon waving at her and telling her to come. She raised her hand to indicate she had heard.

 After putting on her shoes, she walked to where Gordon was and realized here was a small dining room, with a few tables, by the reception. The lights must have been turned off the previous night because she hadn’t seen it. The pimples boy was there and it was him who served them as a waiter. They had orange juice and black coffee and lots of bread with butter and jam and also some scrambled eggs. The quality was not the one of a five star hotel but it certainly wasn’t bad at all for a desert motel.

 Serena and Gordon chatted all the way through breakfast, starting the conversation where they had left it the previous night. They talked about all the creatures they had seen and also about their journeys and what they were planning for life. Gordon confessed that he still wanted to roam the desert and showed Serena a bag the boy had gave Gordon as a gift. He only had two big bottles of water inside and an old map. Then, he asked Serena for a one last favor before parting ways.

 That afternoon, they both penetrated even more into the desert. Serena took, on Gordon’s suggestion, an alternate road, which went straight into a national park. The small man told her he had some business to do there, as if it was an office building or something of the sorts. Once they started seeing more hills and rock formations, they stopped the car. She got out and took some pictures as Gordon looked all around, mumbling. He finally choose to walk to a far away mountain, which he said would have a great view over the whole desert and he could do whatever he was he wanted to do.

They bid farewell with a very peculiar hug and a smile and then parted ways. As she went into the car, Serena saw the little man walking very fast towards the mountain he had chosen. Secretly, she admired him for his sense of adventure and because he seemed to know more about life than her.

 After an hour of driving, before she hit the main road, she stopped the car and looked up to the first few stars of the night. And then laughed. It was strange how funny she had thought Gordon was, considering she was the one who had arrived to this planet only a couple of years ago. She was the “new” girl in town. Maybe he looked like a small green man but she had seen some of the real ones and they much less pleasant and adventurous.