He went back outside and found a piece of wood about two feet in length. He removed his sweatshirt and tee-shirt, only putting his sweatshirt back on. He wrapped the tee-shirt around the top of the wood (knowing that he would get into trouble with Fran and Bill later), which he then lit with his lighter. It actually took a number of attempts before it took and produced a flame. He knew it wouldn’t last long, so he stepped back into the cave and moved forward into the darkness. He could feel his heart beat a little faster.

As he proceeded, he realised that this cave wasn’t just a few feet deep, it went far into the rock. Should he continue or come back another time with someone else for company? He decided to keep going, his curiosity being the main driving force. Shortly afterwards, the flame on his improvised torch began to splutter and almost immediately died, plunging him into darkness again. He knew it was pretty stupid to decide to keep going without any light, but he stumbled on for a few feet, slowly checking each footstep ahead and feeling the wall as he went along.

He was just about to speed it up a little when he almost went hurtling into a hole in front of him. He stepped back just in time, desperately scratching at the wall to get a good grip. His heart was truly pounding now. He waited for it to slow down before he did anything else. The sensible thing would have been for him to turn around and go back, perhaps aiming to come back another time,

but he noticed a strange light coming from the hole in front of him.

He lay down on the floor of the cave, and edged his way forward towards the hole. Beneath him, he saw a very large hole, perfectly cut into the rock, the walls being smooth, and going down the side of the walls were a set of steps. There was a pale blue light coming from the hole, but he could not see where it was coming from. This cave, or certainly this hole in the ground, could only have been fashioned by man. If curiosity had been a driving force before, it had completely taken over now and, ignoring all other thoughts of possible danger, he lowered himself onto the first step going down, and then slowly made his way down around the inside of the hole.

When he eventually reached the bottom, he realised that the ground was just as smooth as the inside of the vertical passageway he had just travelled down. He was obviously some way down given the time it had taken to get there, and as he looked up, he could only see so far up the inside of the hole as the top was too far away to be visible.

He searched around the bottom looking for another way out. Otherwise, what was the point of it? Where did it go? He could not find any way out other than the way he had come. He gave up disappointed and stepped onto the first step to take him back up.