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Hank and I awoke as soon as the first streaks of daylight began to trace their way across the sky. We packed our meager gear back into our backpacks and then ate a simple breakfast. We both shared that sense of urgency to get back on the trail quickly but understood that we would need all the energy we could muster to make it the rest of the way to the cave. Once we had finished off some of our dry rations Hank and I looked at each other. No words needed to be spoken, our eyes indicated that we were both ready. We stood, donned our packs, and set out once more on the trail.
Both of us had anticipated several more long hours on the trail before we reached the cave. The map that the old shopkeeper had given us was extremely primitive and did a very poor job of indicating true distances. So imagine our surprise when, after climbing up and over the rock formation where we had camped the night before, we were greeted by an enormous rock formation. It stood only a few hundred meters ahead of us on the trail. Yawning out from the center of the rocks was a huge dark hole. There was no doubting that this was the place that we were looking for.
“Well, that was a nice surprise!” Hank exclaimed.
I laughed and nodded.
“Let's get up there and get inside!”
We closed the gap between us and the cave quickly. Approaching the entrance the forest broke away, exposing bare ground to us at the mouth of the cave.
“Hank, look,” I said as we neared the opening. “There are paw prints on the ground.”
“I see, and they're large too. I guess you were right about animals using this place. We'll need to be vigilant.”
There were a number of different types of paw prints around the cave. Some came from harmless creatures such as rabbits and deer. But others were much larger and more akin to the paws of the bear that we had encountered the day before. I shuddered and pulled out my flashlight from my backpack.
As we walked into the cave the sounds of the forest became muted and dull behind us. It had been warm in the open air, despite being early in the morning, but within the cave, everything felt cold and damp. It seemed like a very strange place to find a tree of any kind, and I marveled that one could survive in these conditions.
We walked for perhaps fifty feet until we came to a dead stop. The cave opened up into a large room, with at least five smaller tunnels leading away from it.
“Fantastic,” I muttered, trying to keep my voice low to avoid an echo. “Which one do we take?”
“Your guess is as good as mine, but why not start with the one that has all the vines growing around it?”
I squinted and saw that Hank was right. One of the tunnels was indeed different from the others! There were wiry green vines etching their way around the edges of the tunnel in a strange and somewhat ominous manner.
“I guess if we're looking for plant life, that's our best bet!” I nodded.
So together we headed for the tunnel.