After a long while of shouting and searching, hoping to find the sound of humans, at least, I finally decided to stop and wait for help. For a while, I sat there in silence, occasionally banging a rock I had found on the ground. time stretched, I knew it had likely only been a few moments, but in the dark, with my building sense of senseless dread, and my very real anxieties stemming from being lost, time dragged on endlessly.
After a while, I felt I would go insane without some form of stimulation, so I began to make a sort of rhythm with the stone, and my breath. I could hear my heartbeat in the silence, and it all fed into this drumming cacophony, this pattern which itself somehow anchored me and drew me in, and at once pushed my mind into an odd trance.
a breath in. thud bu-bump a breath out begins thudba-bumpthud thudba-thump thud A breath out ends. I hold it. Bu-thump buthump, thud, Bathump, BATHUMP, thud, BATHUMP, THUD, I suck in a breath, and hold it again. My head feels strange, first light, then pressured. thudba-bumpthud thud ba-dumph thud ba-thump thud thud. I let the breath out slowly, a breath in begins. Time passes like this, I think at least, perhaps no time passed at all. At some point in this melodious cacophony, I began to hear a whisper. A mellifluous murmur, a wonderful thrumming of a musical nature that seemed to be tempting, seducing, beguiling, then BEGGING me to come even an inch closer.
Almost involuntarily, I felt my legs begin to prepare to move me toward this melancholy tone. The tone is difficult to describe, but perhaps not impossible, in the same sense, it is difficult to drain the ocean with a bucket, but not impossible. What would be more impossible is to reproduce it, it was perfect and melodious. It was more than any combination of man, instrument, or beast would ever dare to dream of producing. The music felt to me as some archangel had adapted the sounds in music with the concept of a shattering crystal, all played on an instrument formed of stardust and flickering lightning. This mystical hybrid of things reminded me most vividly, though, of the sea. Of the beautiful bluish green, the softly crashing waves, then of the depth beneath it. It remining me of sinking, sinking deeper, now. To come closer would be okay, to hear the music a little better. I realized I was holding my breath, but this made sense, I needed to hold my breath, I was in the ocean, I didn't want to drown. My legs, completely without permission, began to carry me closer to the sound, though my mind could do little to object.
As I inched closer I happened to cross through the same stream of water that put my torch out, and it fell straight into my mouth (which happened to be agape in awe), this was more than enough to completely distract me from this perplexing tone and preoccupy me with spitting out the foul and musty tasting water which I had no clue as to the origin of. As I finished cleansing my mouth, I began to think of old stories from the classics such as The Odysseus; depicting bird-like women who would lure sailors out onto the rocks with their song. The thought of some predator luring me to the depths of the cave and consuming me was more than enough to convince me to stop chasing the admittedly still beautiful melody. Somehow, this sound had a completely clear direction, even though it should have been tainted by the echoes off of the cave walls, so I knew exactly what way I would need to go to follow it. Because I now suspected this sound to be that of a predator, I knew that it would most likely want to lure me deeper into the cave rather than toward the opening, so I decided that the way out would be in the opposite direction. I began to tread carefully yet quickly forward, in the opposite direction of this murmur, any time the sound began to get louder I would know I had gone the wrong way and therefore turn in a different direction.
This siren song began to become a source of dread, ever playing on my already worried ears, the sheer imagination of what this creature could be was causing my mind to quake with trepidation; my heart filling with dread the moment that music became even a decibel louder. I took a break to catch my breath, for a combination of extreme worry and a quickened pace had caused me to run out of stamina, then is when I noticed something much more horrifying than a predator in the distance luring me away, I noticed that this predator was following me, looking for a window to strike. The music was growing louder by the second, the tunes and beat beginning to sound excited, and somehow… hungry. I quickly adjusted my breath and controlled my fear, then I took a deep breath to ensure I would not faint and quickly found a large stone, I then silently slipped into the space next to the most likely entrance the beast would use were it following me, and threw a smaller rock towards the path ahead to try to mimic footsteps.
Eventually, I began to hear faint footsteps, clearly of arthropodal origin, as the pattern of the footfalls was slow and regular, as only a biped could be. The creature grew nearer and nearer, and as its footsteps became obvious the air took on a somewhat colder state, and I began to hear a much more quiet hum emit from whatever beast had come for me. This murmur, much quieter than the last, was somewhat like a lullaby, shifting slowly from tone to tone in a minor key, almost making even me in my agitated state fall asleep, but I fought this, and as I heard the sound pass through the threshold of the door, I struck down hard with the rock taken up earlier, feeling a wet crack confirming I had struck my mark, and the lack of vocalization confirming I would not have to strike again. I noticed, suddenly, an eerie glow emanating from somewhere on the creature's body, I fumbled around the still mostly unlit corpse searching for the source. Eventually, my fingers touched a smooth and cold stone in stark contrast to the warm blood now soaking through my pant legs and covering my hands. As I brought this small light source closer to my eyes, it began to glow much brighter, enough to light the entire surrounding room and show me the face of my would-be attacker.