First off, Happy Diwali! I’ve seen shapes like this one in my coloring book but didn’t know it was associated with Diwali:
Now I know. I can see a yin-yang quality to it with my “new eyes.”
It is also the season for Halloween, which is coming up on Thursday, so please enjoy this scary Halloween tale.
Mary Jo talked me into joining the group on a Halloween adventure, The Cave of Horrors. Unlike a lot of the haunted whatevers that proliferate at this time of year, instead of visual scares, they would be tactile ones, as the haunted cave we would be going through would scare by touch and sound as it would be 100% dark! Being a cautious person, I was afraid of stumbling and falling or running headlong into something if I got too scared. Against my better judgement I agreed to go.
That night, as the seven of us stood in line waiting, we watched people exiting from it. They had smiles on their faces but you could also see the blank horror in their eyes. My excitement as well as fear was already kicking in.
Groups of seven went in each time, which is how many we had, where they had the cave until they exited. We were told that we had to try to feel our way out of the cave and we were in there for as long as it took. Before going in we agreed we would keep hold of some part of each other’s clothing going through so nobody was left behind.
Taking a deep breath, we entered the darkness of the cave. Our column of bodies traveled along the right wall, holding onto the person in front of us with the left hand and running our right hands along the wall to the right. I heard a scream ahead and the line lurched. I was last in the line by choice. The person ahead of me disappeared and I was alone. Shaking, I moved my hand forward; a few feet ahead it sunk into something wet, warm, and with bones inside. I yelped and yanked it out. A soul-shrinking voice whispered in my left ear, “Your friends didn’t last long.” My heart was rattling in my chest as I started running forward, both arms wide open and flailing outward.
A ledge in the rock floor tripped me and “Ouch!” I fell into wetness that I hoped was water. Something insect-like ran across the back of my neck which spurred my standing. I could hear laughter off to my left and running water off to the right. Straight ahead was a pulsing sound like a large engine running. I called out to my friends, but my voice ponged off of the walls. Icy fingers brushed my cheek and bat screeches umbrellaed the space above.
They say, “It is in the darkest hour that”… one pulls out their cell phone and turns on the flashlight app. There, in the corner of the cave, in a recess, were my friends’ inert bodies, with a creature that looked part vampire, part giant mole rat, hovering over them. The flashlight startled the creature and it turned towards me, eyes glowing a neon red. It began to chatter in an almost human gibberish. Reaching for a wooden dowel attached to the side of the cave I began screaming at it and advancing toward it. It made a lunge towards me but it was a bluff as I stood my ground. Then it screeched and ran away.
I ran to my friends and shook the nearest one. Thankfully it was discovered they were all simply sleeping. With seven flashlight apps going at once we were able to find the exit in a hurry.
It was only later that I noticed the puncture marks in each of their wrists..
The End.
Reena is the host of Reena’s Exploration Challenge. Reena says:
Sarah is the host of Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie’s Saturday Mix. Sarah says:
This week we are hearing things, as we explore the use of ONOMATOPOEIA. You will need to use the THREE onomatopoeic words in your response – which can be poetry or prose. Our three words, using onomatopoeia are:
ouch
pong
rattle
I painted the “Boo” at a “drink and paint” gathering a year or two ago which was a lot of fun.
Tao Talk 
Hi msjadeli,
HAPPY DIWALI to you and your family too! Also, Happy Halloween!
I visited your but could not leave my comment at your “About” page. So I came here to greet and meet you.
I enjoyed listening to your offering of the song sung by Olivia Chaney, IOU, from “Shelter”. How beautiful and uplifting the song is!
Thank you for liking my post about October Opal. I have been away from the blogosphere for a long time until quite recently, as a result of having to deal with the daily demands of filial piety and caring duties, as explicated in the post lovingly crafted and published as a special eulogy entitled “Khai & Khim: For Always and Beyond Goodbye”, published at https://soundeagle.wordpress.com/2019/08/31/khai-khim-for-always-and-beyond-goodbye/
Please kindly take your time to read it as it is very involved and multidisciplinary. Moreover, this multimedia eulogy is very extensive and is best viewed on the large screen of a desktop or laptop. Thank you in anticipation.
May you find this autumn very much to your liking and highly conducive to your writing, thinking and blogging!
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Thanks for the welcome. Sorry, but I don’t have time to read Khai & Khim. Have a wonderful autumn as well.
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Please feel free to read it when you have time later. Take care.
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By the way, there are several of my musical compositions and arrangements that you can relish in the eulogy there.
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Great! Will remember that.
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I am wondering about the title of your blog. Does it have something to do with Taoism?
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If you look at the tabs/links on the right side of my main page, you should see Taoism and Daoism. I’ve tried to tag the ones that are directly speaking of it.
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May the Dao be with you!
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🙂 Thanks, Sound Eagle.
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You are very welcome. 🙂
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Fascinating. Love your story. It sure scared me.
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I like to get a little scary around this time of year. Glad you liked it, Sadje.
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😱😱😱😍
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One of our local radio stations is advertising a contest for a scare-cation. Yeah, um, no thanks I’ll pass at that. Real life is scary enough with an older neighbor having a hip fracture, several family members being treated for cancer… I can do without darkness I can’t control…
You’ve written a good campfire story for the season! 🙂
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Jules, thank you, and you are right, life is scary enough as it is.
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One place I won’t be visiting… (k)
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The transition has begun.
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lol!
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A new twist on the Halloween haunted house. Very creepy, but I sure liked it. 🙂
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🙂
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Got them also!…but at least you got way without the marks…or did you?
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Let me check….. No marks! :::wiping my brow:::
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LOL..
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Intriguing!
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Thank you, Reena!
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Reblogged this on Reena Saxena and commented:
Lisa’s take on Exploration Challenge #110
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OMG!it was really scarry but hats off to not getting intimidated and showing courage at the right time.
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🙂 Thank you very much for reading and commenting, Indira.
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My pleasure.
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