Koji Suzuki - Dark Water

Nevertheless, Sakakibara had made his way to the edge of the cavern and was shining his flashlight down in search of a route to pursue. He was still whistling. The sound reverberated eerily through the stalactite girded arena.

“Say, Sakakibara, let’s be getting back,” Sugiyama called out to his partner, who had his shoulders hunched as he peered frantically at the floor.

Sakakibara finally stopped whistling. “Come look at this. There’s a shaft!” Paying no attention to what Sugiyama had just said, Sakakibara stood there with a triumphant air. He looked even less inclined to leave than before.

On hearing the word “shaft”, Sugiyama’s resolve swayed, for he was renowned among the members of the Pilot Caving Club for having the best shaft-scaling skills. Sakakibara and the others were no match.

Thinking he might as well have a look to gauge the value of the find, he casually made his way over to where Sakakibara was shining his flashlight. In the vast bell-shaped cavern where they found themselves, there appeared little else that promised to lead them any further than the shaft where Sakakibara was directing his flashlight. Hanging down like curtains, the walls of the cavern merged up here and there with stalagmites that extended up from the floor of the cavern. There may well once have been a passageway leading somewhere off the edge of the cavern, but it had undoubtedly been blocked off by debris from the cave-in.

Making his way to the edge of the shaft where Sakakibara eagerly awaited him, Sugiyama peered down. The shaft slanted slightly rather than descend at a perpendicular. He could also see that the furthest extremity formed a gentle curve. As shafts went, it was not that deep, and could be negotiated well enough without ropes and a ladder.

Sugiyama had the chills. He was unable to tell whether it came from fear or excitement, although the tingling sensation in his veins suggested more thrill than chill.

“Well, are you game?” Sakakibara whispered with a grin, as if he’d read Sugiyama’s mind.

Looking back, Sugiyama once again confirmed their route as far as the shaft, and tried to persuade himself that this was definitely the last move. Once he had managed to reach the bottom of the shaft, he swore, there would be no stopping him making for home.

Entering the ring of light from Sakakibara’s flashlight, Sugiyama pressed his back into the sloping surface and began his descent.

“What’s it like down there?” asked Sakakibara once Sugiyama was almost halfway down.

Not responding to Sakakibara, Sugiyama had stopped and was straining his ears to listen. He could hear the faint sound of water dripping somewhere. He remembered hearing a similar sound at the mouth of the cave.

“I can hear water!”

No sooner had Sugiyama responded than Sakakibara thrust his hefty backside into the shaft.

“I’m there!”

Sakakibara started down after Sugiyama, and there was no stopping him.

The shaft bottomed out in a gentle curve, which led to another level chamber of pretty much the same shape as the one before. It was a much smaller, bell-shaped cavern. A thin film of water covered the slippery surface of the cavern walls. So closely did the watery membrane adhere to the walls of the cave that you had to touch it to confirm that it was there at all. Percolating in through crevices in the ceiling, the water slid silently down the walls of the cavern to vanish through the floor of the cave without forming a single pool. The spectacle enthralled Sugiyama as he illuminated the area with his flashlight. He felt a surge of joy to think that he was the first person on the face of the earth to have witnessed this sight. It was the kind of moment savoured once in a lifetime, if at all. The power of the moment made Sugiyama forget the oath that he’d made to himself before entering the shaft. The fact that the descending water did not form pools but disappeared under the floor of the cavern suggested that there might be quite an extensive chamber below.

Sugiyama and Sakakibara began searching for a route to that chamber. All feelings of self-restraint now thrown to the wind, Sugiyama was oblivious to anything else. The bait was too tempting, and he was being lured farther down into the bowels of the earth.

In one spot, Sugiyama felt a slight draft of air. A subtle current of warm air came wafting up from some place.

Sugiyama called Sakakibara over and sounded him out. Sakakibara knit his brows, deep in thought. There was no doubt about it; he too could feel air blowing up from somewhere. Yet there was no shaft visible nearby from which the air could be coming.

Baffled as to where the source of the air could be, Sugiyama began moving slowly with the sensation of a faint draft on his skin. He then stood in a depression filled with piles of rubble. At his feet lay all kinds of rocks, both big and small. He used his light to survey the topography once again. The depression where he stood seemed to be shaped like a basin or circular crater. It occurred to Sugiyama that this may have been a sinkhole filled up by a cave-in. If so, all they had to do was remove the stones to uncover a shaft below.

Both men began quickly shifting the stones, and eventually exposed quite a large boulder. They could feel a more substantial blast of air coming through gaps under this rock. Without a doubt, this was the boulder that was blocking the entrance to the shaft.

Sugiyama and Sakakibara both tried to push the boulder to one side. It tilted to reveal part of a circular opening to the shaft underneath. Releasing their grip on the boulder would result in the boulder falling back to cover up the shaft. Thus, they redoubled their efforts with one more powerful push. With the base of the boulder now facing sideways, they wedged a stone in a niche to secure the boulder in place. Now the entrance to the shaft was completely exposed. Whenever either man moved, stones at their feet would roll down into the opening, bouncing off the stalactites to create a sound that reverberated like thunder. Both men waited until all stones likely to fall had fallen and the commotion had died down. After all, they did not want stones falling on their heads as they descended the shaft.

Sugiyama made up his mind: there could be no turning back now that they had come this far. He resolved to see this through to the end.

Tying a rope round a rock, Sugiyama released the other end, and it fell towards the bottom of the shaft. Although he felt capable of scaling the shaft without a rope, he wanted to take every precaution to ensure a safe return.

“Wait here.”

The tone of Sugiyama’s command was calm, yet clearly a command. Although the two men were the same age, Sakakibara was Sugiyama’s senior in terms of the number of years he had been a Pilot Caving Club member. It was thus with reluctance that Sakakibara nodded in compliance with what amounted to an order from a junior. Despite their relative positions at the club, Sugiyama far surpassed Sakakibara in terms of caving technique. Given the precariousness of the footing, one of them had to remain at the edge of the opening to make sure that the end of the rope remained in place, and Sakakibara was more suited to this task.

As Sugiyama lowered himself inside the shaft, he felt apprehensive once again. He wondered why, but simply attributed it to Sakakibara’s annoying whistling. The man was looking down at him coolly now, all the while whistling some cracked tune. Sakakibara was all too relaxed, and this gave Sugiyama a nasty sense of foreboding.

Putting his foot on a small ledge, Sugiyama assumed a rest position. He began to contemplate the nasty premonition he had just had. This was supposed to be a virgin limestone grotto, one which no human had ever set foot in until now. Yet an uninvited flash of intuition suggested to him that sometime in the distant past, someone had tried to access this shaft just as he was attempting to now. It was an impression that must have formed unconsciously from having glimpsed some evidence of a prior presence.