“H-how could something like this suddenly appear here?”
The 15-year old Rodney stares in disbelief at the huge sinkhole that suddenly appeared in front of him while he was on his way to school. He was visibly shaking in fright.
How could he not be frightened?
He was almost swallowed by the sinkhole!
If he didn’t notice the peculiarity on the asphalt road and continue walking, he would have fallen straight into the hole when it opened up without warning.
Rodney’s heart could not help but race faster after recalling how close he was to falling. He didn’t even notice that his back was already drenched in cold sweat and that he was hyperventilating.
Moreover, although he didn’t want to, his mind started to recall a traumatic experience that he tries so desperately to forget.
“No, there’s no way that this sinkhole is related to that incident,” he mumbled to himself while desperately trying to shake the unsettling thoughts that was starting to form inside his head.
While Rodney was stewing in a dilemma of his own making, several people approached him after noticing the sinkhole, and the teenager that seemed to be staring blankly into the opening of said sinkhole.
“Hey, kid, you okay?”
One of the people, a middle-aged potbellied man tapped Rodney’s shoulder and asked after noticing his absentmindedness and visible shaking.
The shoulder tap startled Rodney, successfully pulling him out of his stupor.
“I-I’m okay,” he said after turning around. “I was just a little scared, that’s all,” he added.
“Did you almost fall into the sinkhole?” asked a gentle-looking old lady after noticing his face looking ghastly pale.
“Yeah, I was walking to school when the sinkhole opened in front of me,” Rodney honestly explained.
When the people surrounding Rodney heard his explanation, they could not help but feel sorry for him. No wonder he was visibly shaking, he was almost swallowed by the sinkhole.
“You’re not hurt, are you? Do you want to go to the hospital for a check-up? I’ll give you a ride,” offered a young man in suit.
“Thank you for the offer but I’m not hurt. I should be okay once I calmed down.”
Rodney forced a smile and gave thanks to the people around him before telling them that he’ll be going home.
He no longer wants to stay in that place even for second longer. He also didn’t feel like going to school too. Thankfully, he got a valid excuse so he wasn’t worried that his parents would lecture him for missing school.
Back home, Rodney didn’t see his parents’ car and figured that they already left for work. He quickly took out his spare key, opened the door before slamming it shut and rushing to his room. It was as if someone was chasing after him.
Only after locking the door of his room, did Rodney finally felt somewhat safe. That being said he’s still far from being calm. Not only did he fidget around, he would also peek outside the house by slightly opening the window of his room – like he was looking for someone or something.
Most people would consider his action weird but to Rodney and his classmates who had suffered that incident two years ago, his reaction was to be expected. After all, he was indeed afraid of something, and it had something to do with another sinkhole that had opened a few years back.
The sinkhole that almost swallowed him earlier just happen to trigger memories of that incident.
Two years ago, Rodney didn’t just have a close call with a sinkhole; he was actually swallowed by one. And it wasn’t just him; many of his classmates shared his fate.
It happened during a summer camp. While Rodney and his classmates were preparing their tents, a huge sinkhole suddenly opened in the middle of the camp and swallowed everyone and everything in the vicinity of said sinkhole.
Miraculously, everyone survived the fall though most of them have various degree of injury. Surviving the fall should have been a happy occurrence. Unfortunately, the sinkhole that swallowed Rodney and his classmates was far from ordinary.
Most people would think of a sinkhole as a depression or a hole that formed due to a collapse in the surface layer of the ground after water eroded the rocks beneath it for many years. None would think of it as a home to terrifying creatures that hunt anything that falls inside it.
But that’s exactly the kind of sinkhole that swallowed Rodney and his classmates.
Stranger still about that particular sinkhole was the fact that the opening where they fall into was missing.
Did the hole collapsed on itself and buried the opening? That shouldn’t be the case because if it did, everyone would have been buried along with it. Moreover, when they pointed a torch at the cavern’s ceiling, they noticed that it was whole and has no sign that it had collapsed.
Then what happened to the sinkhole’s opening? How could it disappear just like that? Did they end up somewhere else after falling into the sinkhole? Was that even possible?
Those were the questions that even the people involved in the incident couldn’t answer. It was also the reason why Rodney and his classmates decided to explore the cavern besides looking for a way out.
Maybe, if the group just stayed still, they might not have run into those creatures…
No, if the group didn’t explore the cavern none of them would have returned alive. They would have starved to death, or were eventually found and captured by those nightmare incarnates.
Upon recalling the strange creatures they’ve encountered inside the sinkhole, Rodney couldn’t help but shiver. It was a nightmare, one that he would rather not recall. Unfortunately, once his mind turn into that direction, he could no longer stop the deluge of memories from flooding his mind.
The monstrous shadowy figures they suddenly encountered during their exploration; the fear that everyone feared when those creatures suddenly went after them; the desperate screams of his classmates that couldn’t run fast enough – Rodney remembered all of it.
“It’s not my fault. All I could do that time was to run for my life.”
As one of the survivors, Rodney’s guilt towards those that didn’t make it was strong. Although he was a victim too, he still couldn’t stop but blame himself for his cowardice – for running away and leaving his classmates that were seriously injured to their fates.
“I didn’t even know how I survived. All I did was run till my lungs almost bursts.”
The entire cavern was like a complicated maze with countless entrances that lead to God-knows where. Rodney, who was in full-panic mode that time, didn’t even stop for a second to assess the entrances and just randomly choose an entrance.
Whether it was luck or due to divine intervention; Rodney was able to find the right entrance that led him outside which was mysteriously, the opening of the same sinkhole that had swallowed them. Moreover, he wasn’t alone; some of his classmates that made there before him were already being lifted out of the sinkhole by the rescuers.
Only after knowing that he was finally safe did Rodney passed out of exhaustion. When he finally regained consciousness, he found himself in a hospital bed with his parents by the bedside looking at him worriedly.
When they asked him about the incident, he recounted what happened and what they have encountered inside the sinkhole. Though judging by their expression that time; Rodney doubted that they believed his story.
He can’t blame them though; his story was just so out there. If not for the fact that his other classmates experienced the same thing and recounted the same story, even he would have doubted whether experience that time was real or not.
Speaking of which, when their story was published, many people also doubted its authenticity. Most people that time thought that it was all made up – that the survivors simply collaborated with one another to concoct such an unbelievable story – that it was all for money and clout.
“Money, huh… We didn’t even receive a single cent for that story. Instead, people would mock us behind our backs.”
Rodney felt helpless after recalling how people looked at him that day after their story was made public. The jeers, the mocking smiles, the pity… Although they only recounted their experience and didn’t tell a single lie, no one believed them – even their own family.
The only ones that showed some support for them were the parents of the missing children – the ones that weren’t able to escape. Although there were also some doubts in these parents’ hearts, they couldn’t just ignore the survivors’ story. After all, Rodney and the other survivors were the only witness to the entire incident – the remaining clue as to what happened to their missing children.
Since many children were swallowed by the sinkhole, how come not all of them were present when rescued? What happened to the rest? Even if they believed that these missing children were already dead then where were the corpses?
Moreover, even the rescuers admitted that they were only able to rescue the survivors after ten hours of searching and that when they were exploring the sinkhole, they couldn’t find anyone – it was as if the survivors just suddenly appeared out of nowhere one by one.
There were many suspicious points in the incident that no one could explain but for some reason, all of them were ignored, and instead, the public believed that the story was made up.
“There’s no point thinking of this now,” Rodney sighed after looking outside the window one last time.
After more than an hour of unease, Rodney’s heart finally calmed down. Feeling somewhat bored, took the laptop from his study table, sat on the bed before booting it up. Once booted, he opened a browser and searched for the news or videos of the sinkhole that appeared near his neighborhood.
“As expected the news is already out,” he said after seeing the search result.
Noticing a video with a really catchy title, Rodney frowned before quickly clicking on the link of the video.
On the video, he saw people from the local police force investigating the sinkhole when suddenly one of man investigating the inside of the sinkhole shouted that he had found something. He then told them to make space as he was going to throw it out.
After a while, an object was unceremoniously thrown out and dropped on the open space. When the policeman and the people watching the investigation took a closer look at the object they couldn’t help but take several steps back.
When the camera zoomed in on the object, Rodney couldn’t stop the dread from spreading all over his body.
“No way… this isn’t possible?!” he exclaimed in disbelief as he stared at the object with bulging eyes.
Lying on the asphalt road was severed arm covered in black scales.
