Day 247

There were bars on the cave and nobody knew why.
The locals would say "demons" this and "gateway to the underworld" that.
They never let anyone in, it was for the dead only.
Didn't stop the curious few who never seemed to go far in but always came out aged.

The view of the cave is said to be breathtaking from the inside.
The horizon seems to extend forever, gently mingling over the forest below.
It was this combined with terrifying legend that inspired the young trio to go further
than everyone else.

Sienna, Jaye and Tara went in around midday armed with a GPS tracker as proof
and enough batteries to power a torch factory, let alone their small plastic lights.
The gate was usually unlocked, the stories were supposed to be enough of a deterrent.

It looked disappointingly normal inside, bit damp but it was a cave so they expected it.
Nothing stood out as particularly "evil" or "underworld-like".
There was the occasional graffiti tag that repeated throughout the cave, seems someone
went quite far in before them.

They just had to get deeper than that tag and write their own somehow.

As they went in deeper the cave began to get bigger, darker and much colder.
After what seemed like hours the cave became a cavern and the wet walls expanded
to become tiny red streams (the cave had copper or something, Jaye reckoned).

It was pitch black, eventually they were ankle deep in the reddish water, treading carefully
in case it suddenly got deeper.
Their torches were kept pointing at the floor, not that is showed much besides rocks.
Deeper and deeper they went, not noticing the floors gradual incline until the ankle-level
water began tugging at their feet as it flowed down.

They noticed that there were no tags anywhere at this point and the GPS tracker said they
were almost four miles in which seemed awfully short for how long they'd been going.
As a group they decided to go to five miles, surely the cave wasn't that deep?
According to the internet it was only supposed to be 2 and a half miles deep so they could
show everyone that it went way past that.

Just as they began to tire of walking up an increasingly steep incline, it sharply levelled off
to a plateau.
The ceiling was littered with small holes that filled the medium sized chamber with dim light
revealing what looked to be an old well right at the centre covered with red moss and overflowing.

Seems they found the source of the red river that flowed through the place.
Stepping round the well they saw eight chairs lining the back wall.
Each chair had a skeleton seated, heads tilted towards the well, hands holding a single cup.

Their GPS tracker now said they were twelve miles in.
Dismissing it as broken they began to dare each other to take a cup and drink from the well.
Eventually they all took one and drank on the count of three.

None of them were seen again.
The authorities were too superstitious to look into it.

After eight months a phone was found at the entrance of the cave, though everyone denies it.
Still, if you ask in the right pub late at night they'll tell you about the photos they found.

The girls' heads in red water, smiling with far more teeth than is humanly possible.
Their bodies sitting on stone chairs, heads on their laps facing something behind the camera.
The view from the cave, half covered by a skeletal hand.