Read Online Cave Dwellers by Jonathan Randall - Free Book Online

after six hours. He lay for several minutes lost in thought before getting up and starting a fire. When he reached for his cellphone to turn it on, something landed on his hand and bit him. He used the phone to try to see what it was. There were definitely shapes out there, but he couldn’t tell what they were.
       Wasting no time, he soon had the fire blazing. He heard a shriek from Ramira as she jumped up.
       “What was that? Something bit me.”
       Zaac located one of the moving creatures and collected it with a light pinch on either side of its body. Holding it up to the light, he said, “I think it was this little creature. I don’t know what it is but one of them bit me too.”
       Ramira tried to see it in the dim light.
       Zaac turned it around. “I’ve never seen one before.”
       Another jumped off of the wall, getting ready to land on Ramira. She didn’t see it in the darkness yet she knew it was coming and swatted it away before it could land.
       Zaac could see only that she swung through the empty air. “I don’t think it will do any good to just swat at the air. The likelihood of you hitting one is pretty small.”
       “I did hit one,” Ramira said. “It jumped off the wall at me. I couldn’t see it with my eyes yet somehow I saw it in my mind.”
       Zaac looked puzzled. “You what? Say that again.”
       “It’s true.” Ramira wasn’t sure how to explain what had happened. “I didn’t see it with my eyes. It’s too dark. But somehow my mind saw it and I swatted it before it could land on me.”
       “That’s impossible.” Zaac was incredulous. “How could your mind see something that is happening to you that your eyes can’t see?”
       “I don’t know.” A strange look came over Ramira’s face. “It does seem weird yet that is the only way I can describe it.”
       Another of the bugs landed on Zaac’s neck and bit him. He knocked it off. “I think we need to get out of here. I don’t care to be on the food chain for these little creatures, whatever they are.”
       Using his cellphone, they headed on up the cave passage. After twenty feet, the bugs disappeared. At places, they had to scramble over rocks, other spots required turning and twisting to get around. With Zaac holding the cellphone so as to illuminate the floor, they continued on for another couple of hours without interruption.
       “Watch your head,” Ramira said as he bumped his head on the cave roof.
       “Ouch.” He rubbed his head. “How did you know I was about to hit my head? I can barely see.”
       “I don’t know.” Ramira realized this was the same way she saw the bug earlier. “I could somehow see it in my mind and knew that you were about to hit your head.”
       He glanced over. Something strange was going on and he wasn’t sure what it was. “Are you telling me you saw this in your head even though you didn’t see it with your eyes? Like the bug back there that you swatted?”
       “Yes. I don’t know whether it’s intuition or what. It’s like some strange sense that I saw both of them but not by sight.”
       Zaac was not convinced. “Well I don’t know how you did it or if you can do it again, but next time I’m about to hit my head, let me know before I actually connect.”
       “I’ll try but I don’t see how I can tell anything without seeing it.” Ramira pointed to his cellphone. “You have the only light source.”
       The terrain in the cave began to change, becoming steadily more rugged and more difficult. They couldn’t take three steps without turning sideways to squeeze through a tight spot, scramble over a boulder or stoop to avoid hitting their heads. Once they had to remove their packs. Zaac crawled through and Ramira followed after passing the knapsacks to him.
       Eventually they came to a small cavern with a wall nine to ten feet high. Above that was a ledge.
       “Good place for a break,” Zaac