sol.ace_r

It was no longer a simple shadow born from the absence of light that surrounded me.
It felt like a cold breath grazing across my skin—
as though my entire body were wrapped in a heavy, sticky black fluid
that left not even a single pore through which I could breathe.

The hollow silence, swallowing every sound in the world without mercy,
pressed upon my ears so heavily that it resonated deep inside my skull.
It wasn’t mere stillness after sound had vanished—
it was a pressure that seemed to bend my eardrums and crush my hearing from within.

The deeper I stepped past the mouth of the cave, into the heart of darkness,
the faint threads of light that had trailed in from the outside world slowly faded,
until they disappeared completely—
as if they had never existed at all.

No trace of radiance remained.
Perfect, absolute darkness engulfed the cave,
and with it, swallowed my small and fragile being whole.

I could no longer tell whether my eyes were open or closed,
whether I was facing forward or backward,
up or down.
Every sense of direction was stripped away,
and my body felt as though it floated, drawn toward some unseen void.

All around me was only black—
darkness so dense it pressed like a tangible, viscous substance.

Each breath I took was thick with the smell of damp rot—
not only the must of mold and decayed earth,
but a stinging stench like crushed, rotting leaves,
or the fishy reek of stagnant water.
It clung to my lungs,
seeping deep until I felt my mind itself slowly begin to decay.

The dampness didn’t linger in the air alone.
It was as though the cave itself were a vast sponge—
or perhaps, a living organ soaked and pulsing with moisture.

The chill that brushed my skin
crept inward like fine ice dust,
seeping slowly into my bones,
freezing me from the inside out.

I couldn’t see the ground beneath my feet—
only the unpleasant, unstable textures that told me
I was still standing, still moving forward.

The wet soil sank beneath each step,
and hidden within it were slick, shifting things
that swallowed my feet or caught my ankles without warning,
sending a cold shock through my chest each time.

There was no firmness anywhere.
The ground felt treacherous—
as if it might collapse at any moment,
swallowing me whole into the dark below.
I stepped forward carefully,
as though treading across the thinnest sheet of ice.

Even the faintest sound of my footsteps
stretched unnaturally long in that pitch-black air.

Squishing, scraping, slipping—
those noises filled the cave,
wrapping around my ears like living things.

Even my breathing sounded too loud,
ripping through the thick, primal silence.

My heartbeat thudded against my throat,
pounding heavy and uneven,
as if someone were drumming beside my neck.

The sound hit the damp cave walls
and came back twisted—
not merely as an echo,
but as something that mocked and whispered back at me.

Sometimes it was a low, broken laugh.
Sometimes, it sounded like the harsh voice
that once condemned and cornered me.
And sometimes—terrifyingly—it felt like a quiet prophecy,
foretelling the horror that lay ahead.

I could no longer trust my eyes,
so I moved forward with my hands—
fingers, palms, elbows, shoulders—searching the unseen.

The walls were far from smooth.
They were jagged and coarse,
as if not shaped by nature but twisted out from within.

Sharp protrusions bit into my skin,
like exposed bones,
like broken fangs.

Everywhere my fingers touched,
slimy moss slid beneath them,
sending me stumbling forward again and again.

When my hand slipped into an unseen hole,
the cold emptiness within
stabbed straight through to my heart.

The cave was unbearably long and narrow.
The passage barely wide enough to twist my body through,
sometimes forcing me to hunch deeply,
sometimes to turn sideways and squeeze.

It felt as though the rocks themselves
were slowly closing in, crushing me in silence.
The fear of confinement rose up my throat,
making even a breath feel like a struggle.

Will I be trapped here forever, in this damp darkness?

My heart convulsed with panic,
like a thin blade twisting within my flesh.

Each small movement stirred up
the stench of soil and mold,
sinking deeper into my lungs and throat.

The dampness seeped through my clothes,
stealing away my warmth, little by little.

The cave was alive—
pressing, suffocating,
slowly tightening its grip around me.

With every step, the ground seemed to cave in,
the walls closing in as though they had been waiting,
holding their breath until I drew near.

Is there an end to this darkness?

Invisible hopelessness
wrapped around my ankles, my waist, my chest—
slowly, heavily, tightening its hold.

I walked on.
How long, I couldn’t tell.
When even the faintest glow had vanished,
I searched desperately for something—anything.

My hands traced the walls,
my feet felt for the ground,
my ears strained for the faintest sound,
the tiniest trace of light.

Is there a crack I missed somewhere?
A hole that connects to the outside world?
Or even a fragment that leads back to my memories…?

But no—there was nothing.

The cave was filled only with darkness,
with twisted rocks,
and with the fear and pain crawling up from within me.

There was no clue of hope anywhere.

Instead, the deeper I wandered,
the larger my inner fear and sorrow grew,
pressing upon me until I could barely stand.

My past failures, my loneliness, my self-blame—
all of them came alive again, sharper and clearer than ever.
The cave itself felt as though
it was feeding on my despair,
growing with every step I took.

I don’t know how long it went on.
At last, the narrow, endless passage
came to a complete dead end.

No matter how I reached out,
there was no path forward.

My toes touched something cold and solid—
a wall, smoother and harder than any I’d felt before.

I pushed, I struck it,
but it didn’t move.
It was as if nature itself had built it,
or perhaps as if someone had raised this barrier on purpose—
a primal, unyielding boundary
at the very heart of the island.

And there I realized:
there was nowhere left to go.

Strength drained from my limbs.
I sank to the cold, damp floor.
Moisture seeped through my clothes,
and the warmth fled from my body.

Despair surged like a massive wave—
a tsunami that swept everything away.

The light was gone.
The path was gone.
Hope was nowhere to be found.

Only the extremes of fear and pain remained,
and the bitter void of being trapped
forever at a dead end.

Is this the end?

Even breathing—
even existing—
felt unbearable.

Tears fell endlessly,
but in that darkness I couldn’t even tell if I was crying.
I couldn’t see my face,
couldn’t tell if I was even alive.

Only the cold dampness
soaked into my skin, my clothes,
and deep into my soul.

The darkness of the cave whispered, almost laughing:
“So this is it.
You are nothing.
You end here.”

I don’t know how long I sat there,
leaning against the frozen wall.
It felt as though time itself had stopped.
I was trapped in eternity.

I wanted to let go of existence.
To end everything.
The temptation to quietly vanish into this darkness
was sweeter and stronger than ever before.

My consciousness dimmed,
my senses dulled.
And then—

Through the distorted echo of my ragged breathing,
beneath the unsteady, stubborn rhythm of my heartbeat,
a sound emerged.

A small voice—
soft but insistent—
rose from within me,
like a seedling breaking through the stone.

And in that instant,
realization struck like lightning.

This cave… may not be a place at all.

This damp path,
the wall that sealed my way,
the suffocating fear and darkness—
perhaps they were not physical,
but the bare, unfiltered landscape
of my own heart.

The things I feared,
the wounds and failures of the past,
the pain I had locked away in self-loathing—
they were what bound my feet.
It was I who had trapped myself
in this darkness all along.

When I understood that,
a faint light seemed to brush across my tear-streaked face.

This place was not the end—
it was the wall I needed to face and embrace.

Before the immense barrier of pain and fear,
with nowhere left to run,
I found the most important moment of my life.

Here,
I began to understand my wounds,
to accept them as a part of me,
and to prepare to rise once more.

Perhaps this dead end
was never a wall at all—
but the beginning of a new path.

In the darkness,
I rediscovered myself.
I began to reshape who I was.

And in the deep, trembling heart of despair,
my truest first step began to bloom.