Martyn Vaughan - The Cave of Shadows

Shana’s face bore one of the expressions that Jon had come to recognise: the display of a growing sense of triumph; of discovery.

‘Jon we are in a building that we should have seen before but didn’t. We awoke from being inside caskets which we must have been in for a long time. Our bodies are similar to what we remember but are subtly different and seem more practical. You don’t bear the scars that you thought you should have.’

Jon nodded reluctantly to each of her points.

‘And your conclusion?’

She leaned forward so closely that some of her cloud of hair hung over him and her food-marinated breath invaded his nostrils.

‘Jon the things we remember they cannot have been real. This – where we are now – this is reality!’

Jon stared at his companion. ‘This is reality. So what was it that you’ve been trying to get me to remember?’

Shana looked confused. ‘I’m not sure Jon. But if I’m right, all that we experienced on the hill was – was just a dream.’

‘No’ said Jon flatly, ‘It was not a dream. I recall what dreams are like and that was not one. In dreams there’s no continuity, no cause and effect.’ (A small portion of his mind noted, not for the first time, that his vocabulary seemed to be expanding.) ‘In my time on the hill, which is becoming clearer to me by the minute, things happened in a regular sequence. The time of darkness followed the time of light in a definite pattern. And in any case there’s one completely fatal objection to it all being a dream.’

‘And that is?’

‘Have you heard of a dream which was exactly shared by two people? You recall things happening to me and I recall things happening to you.’

Shana looked both puzzled and irritated at the same time.

‘You’re right of course. There is one way it could have been a dream, though.’

‘And that is?’

She gave a wan, uncertain smile. ‘That’s if you are not real. If you are part of my dream.’

Jon rocked back, uncertain whether he was amused or angry. In the end, he settled on being amused. He reached over and grasped her wrist, squeezing tight.

‘Are you dreaming this?’

She glared at him and eventually managed to extract her wrist.

‘Alright Jon, we’re not in a dream. We weren’t in a dream. You’re not dreaming me and I’m not dreaming you. And if I was dreaming up a man I’d have dreamt up a more agreeable one than you!’

They stared at each other for a few moments and then simultaneously burst out laughing.

The laughter soon faded however and the strange uncertainty of their current state came back to them.

Jon finally stood up and looked around.

‘I think I feel the way that you did, now. It’s a definite feeling of fullness. But if this is a normal part of life now there must be some better way of dealing with it than your method.’

There was and he found it eventually, just in time.

‘Let’s recap’ he said, stretching his legs out in newly found comfort, ‘we awoke inside cabinets, caskets whatever, without knowing how long we were in them. We are like we were but subtly different. Our bodies seem to make more sense than they used to – which would suggest that of the two types of experience, where we are now is more likely to be the true existence.’

(Once again he was mildly surprised by the ease with which he was able to express such abstract concepts, as if parts of his true abilities were gradually awakening.)

Shana nodded. ‘Agreed. So where does that leave us?’

Jon gave a shrug. ‘Absolutely nowhere.’

She stood up. ‘Look, if there is an answer to all this, we’re not going to find it just by feeding our faces. We’ve got to explore more of this building in the hope that we’ll find something which will give us the answer.’

‘Agreed.’

The corridors appeared to be endless and all exactly the same; nothing but grey metal curving this way or that. The only signs of “life” other than themselves were the squads of arachnoids which they frequently encountered, always busily taking something apart or putting it back together again. Once Jon picked one up only to find that it twisted violently in his hands and then emitted a harsh alarm cry that caused the other arachnoids to menacingly surround him. To his great relief as soon as he put the ululating thing down it scurried off to join its fellows and they all busily got back to work.

‘I won’t try that again,’ was his only comment.

‘Jon,’ Shana abruptly said, ‘what if we get lost? All these corridors look the same!’

‘We can’t get lost,’ Jon replied, ‘we were lost before, remember, and that man in the glass panel told us where to go.’

Shana pointed to one just ahead of them. ‘Let’s try again.’

They activated the screen and wasted no time in stating their requirement, being careful to phrase their question in a way that would be accepted.

‘We need to know our location,’ Jon said to the image of the unblinking man.

Immediately a schematic appeared with two blinking figures shown in the centre. But this time there was lettering identifying other locations. They were gratified to see that there were several food-dispensing locations not too far away. But one location piqued Jon’s interest.

‘Look,’ he said, placing a forefinger on the icon, ‘“High Official Generation Room.” What can that be?’

Shana frowned. The phrase brought an unwelcome memory up from her subconscious. It was the phrase the two creatures had used when barring her way to the Forbidden Books: all she knew was that she “Was Not a High Official.”

However, all further thoughts were driven away when the familiar directionless voice suddenly boomed out: ‘Jon21! Shana12! Proceed directly to the Education Room!’

They looked at each other. Jon spoke first: ‘The education room? What do they want to educate us in?’

Shana shook her head to demonstrate her ignorance. Jon crossed to the information panel and asked for the whereabouts of the Education Room.

‘Not too far from the Generation Room,’ he said on his return, ‘I’d like to take a look at that first.’

Shana grasped his upper arm. ‘Jon, I’m worried – the last time I heard those words is when I met those repulsive creatures, you know, the ones who keep asking me to solve riddles.’

‘Well there are two of us now,’ he responded, ‘we may not have any swords but I can give them a puzzle of my own. How to avoid my fists.’

Shana looked unconvinced but fell in behind Jon as he strode off down the tunnel.

They hadn’t gone far when a tremendous shudder shook both the floor and walls, causing their features to momentarily melt together into an indistinguishable blurring. They were thrown together by the seismic shock and stood holding each other for a while. Finally Shana asked the inevitable question: ‘What was that?’

Jon shook his head. It didn’t seem possible that he could have looked more worried than he had previously but somehow he managed it.

‘I don’t know.’

They waited to see if it would recur but after an anxious period of immobility they decided it would not and resumed their quest.

It was not long before they came to a large door in the curving metal of the corridor with the words “High Official Generation Room” emblazoned thereon in large red letters.

They stood before it, looking first at the imposing lettering and then at each other.

‘One Generation Room,’ Jon remarked, ‘but how do we get in? And how do we generate a High Official once we are in?’

Shana looked both concerned and puzzled by that last remark but finally realised it had been an attempt at a joke.