The right tunnel ended up being a bit harder of a tunnel than you were expecting. Only after a few steps in and turning a corner further to the right you ended up hitting a rather restrictive section of the tunnel. The cave walls were rather close to each other. This also seemed to go on for quite some time.
You decided to take the risk and push as far as you could. This required some controlled breathing as you slowly pushed through the somewhat smoothed-out rock surface. You barely fit though but you at least could.
Once in a while your shit you get snagged on something. You are quite certain you would need to replace this shirt after this experience as you heard it tear a few times while trying to pass through this rather tight spot in the tunnel.
This went on for almost an hour. You were starting to wonder if this entire tunnel was just closed in like this. It however then opened up to a large chamber. It seemed like the hard part of this tunnel was now over.
Thinking back to it now it was also rather shocking how smooth most of that part of the tunnel was. Almost like lots of people over the years had worn the path down to not be so jagged and sharp like rocks can be. There was however still a few spots that got you.
You moved the flashlight across the giant room you were now in. It was so massive you could not even see the back of this cave chamber. So you started to walk around the room hoping to find where it would lead you.
It however just kept going and on. You did however notice after a while that it seemed to be slanted downwards. You also noticed temperature started to increase slightly. Perhaps there was something at the end of this tunnel to explain why that was happening.
After almost an hour of this, you suddenly got an alert from your wristwatch. You had not realized just how hot it was getting. You looked down to see the current temp at the location you were standing at to be 40.55 Celsius
You were so distracted with trying to see anything in the darkness that you had not realized how much you had been sweating. Your entire clothing was covered in sweat at this point. It was just raining down off your face leaving a trail along the cave's ground where you had been.
You were however rather determined to find out where this led so you kept moving forward. Every so often your wristwatch would beep at you again to indicate the temperature was going up another degree. Things were starting to get dangerous rather fast.
The whole experience of not seeing anything on either side of you while being underground in a cave was utterly shocking. You attempted to press on just a little further you told yourself. You were hoping at any moment just a single footstep more that you would uncover what was going on.
The ground then started to shake slightly. You almost lost your balance but managed to save yourself in the end if ever so slightly. Again, the ground shook even harder this time. There was however nothing to brace yourself against and with one last rumble of the ground you toppled over onto the searing hot floor of the cave.
This also caused you to swing your arm and move the flashlight out from pointing at the path in front of you. This is when you realized there was a slight red glow coming from the great beyond of the cave tunnel.
It was at that moment and another beep from the wristwatch you realized what this tunnel was. While the size was unlike any kind of lava tube on earth this was an alien moon after all. This was however the only answer you could come up with.
The ground shook again with even greater force. Panic overcame your face like a tidal wave. You got back on your feet the best you could. You then attempted to run back the way you came. It was however at this point just way too hot.
You almost collapsed with heat exhaustion. It felt like you were breathing in air that was on fire. All you did was know where you had to get out of this tunnel. For a short while, all you could do was crawl to move a few further feet forward.
You then were able to get back up on your feet. This time you took your time. You slowly walked away. Once in a while, as you did your wristwatch would beep. This time however it was to indicate the temperature was dropping.
After a while of moving back away from the source of heat, it was now cool enough again to start jogging the best you could. You just had this image in the back of your mind of being burned alive in lava. That was more than enough to keep yourself pushing forward to try and get as far away from what must have been lava let alone a lava tube and out of it.
Your mind also started to race to wonder if this entire underground cave network was nothing more than lava tubes and chambers. It however did not smell like you were in one. At least the kind of smell your mind would vision what one would be of sulfur and strangely melted-shaped rocks littering the cave walls leaving nothing else behind.
While it took longer than you would have liked. You finally made it back to the part of the tunnel that you could barely fight through. At this point you found it to be a bit strange that the lava did not clear out this part of the cave as well.
You thought about this for about half an hour it took to get past this section of the tunnel. You never came up with a why or how this part had remained. One thing was for certain, however, while you were almost out you noticed something you had missed beforehand. There was a metal sheet in a section of the tunnel you had not noticed before since you were so focused on just getting through this tight section. It seems you have not been as observant as you thought you were.
You finally made it though and were now back in the giant chamber as far away as you could get from the lava tube. You decided there was not any reason to venture back into that part of the cave again. It was time to go down the middle tunnel and hope it was not more of the same.
Content is written by @Enjar of @Enjargames. AI artwork was created using Playgroundai.
