He'd been missing for almost fifty years when we found him again. My family were never the sort to let something stay shut when there were answers to be found and his poor mum - my great grandmother - dedicated the rest of her life to finding him or whatever was left of him. Any answer would have eased her pain.
We stumbled across him purely by accident, trying to find a lost sheep only to find that it fell into a cavern that wasn't showing on any map. We could hear something eating it and ran back home to grab our parents, torches and a heavy walking stick each - we prepared for the worst.
None of us ever expected to come face-to-face with our lost uncle, or what was left of him.
His body was now mostly fused with the cave wall yet somehow his torso moved like it was still made of flesh. Where his face should have been, there was only a maw that shuddered and clicked together whenever we made any noise.
Whether he wanted feeding or company, I wouldn't know. We were dragged out of the cavern before we'd any hope of answers and nobody, save for the parish council, has been allowed back since. Officially at least. Unofficially we've been rappelling down the same hold that the sheep fell into, making sure our uncle has a warm blanket and a hot meal at least once a day.
Sometimes he almost seems to be forming words but mostly he just snaps his maw at us. But we have hope that he'll start speaking again soon or maybe using the pens we leave beside him to write to us instead of eating them like everything else we give him.
We've been patient enough in finding him and we'll be patient enough to hear him speak again.
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