Other Earth 1
W.Bob Yankovic
The Cave





	The car drove slowly down the road carrying three late teenaged
guys with it. They pull up to a red light and roll down the window,
noticing that there are some pretty girls in the car beside them.
"Hey
Sean, your turn," the driver named Crash said. Crash was just a
nickname, his real name was Matthew, but after wrecking five cars in
two years the name Crash just stuck. The guy in the passenger's seat
was named Luke, he was a little less outgoing than the other two, but
still knew how to have a good time.
	"Guys, do you always have to do this? You know that no girl in
her right mind would ever fall for someone singing out the window to
them," Luke complained. He was a down to earth kind of guy.
Almost
completely opposite from Sean, who was a self proclaimed ladies' man,
and always seemed to find a way to get the girl. Most of the time it
involved one of his retarded schemes like the one he was about to
pull.
	"Hey, Crash, crank the music" Sean said as he
pulled himself
out to sit on the window. Crash stuck in his special CD he had titled
"Love Mix" and turned the volume up all most all the way.
Marvin Gaye
blared out of the speakers at 30,000 decibles. Sean, now making
interpretive dance with his upper body, was mouthing "Let's get
it on"
out the window to the girls who were now pleading to God to make the
light turn green so they could escape.
	Their prayers were answered and they sped off not even the
slightest bit impressed. "I swear that has worked before,"
Sean said
flopping back down in the back seat dejectedly. "Yeah, but the
time it
did the girl was a prostitute and thought you were making a business
proposal," Crash shot back with a big grin. Luke tried to hold
in his
laughter but was unable to contain it. He burst out laughing slamming
his hands on the dash.
	"Hey! Shut up! Both of you! I didn't know she was a hooker, I
swear!" Sean said giving the passenger's side seat a little
kick. The
laughing would have probably continued for a while, but the car behind
them blared it's horn. Crash, realizing that the light had been green
a
good twenty seconds, slammed on the gas. After smoke poured out from
is
tire wells the car caught its gear and flew off down the road.
	"Luke, you sure you can't go camping?" Crash asked for the
hundredth time. Luke just shook his head and thumped the stack of
books
under his feet. "Nope, gotta have this paper finished by monday
or I'll
fail and my dad will consume my immortal soul to sustain his regime of
terror until my sister gets into college," he said.
	"Too bad man. Sorry bout that. It won't be the same without
ya," Sean commented from the back seat. "Hey you might
wanna change
lanes goofball, Wally World is right there," Luke said changing
the
subject. "Don't tell me how to drive," Crash said a bit
agitated.
	"Someone should, cause Taurus, Eclipse, Grand Prix, S-10, and
that Jeep, didn't teach you anything but how to drive in a demolition
derby," Sean cut in. He stuck his hand in between the seats and
a once
again rolling Luke slapped it and added, "Classic."
	"Hey! The breaks went out on the S-10, and someone hit my
Eclipse, so I have really only wrecked three!" Crash said coming
to his
own defense. He begrudgingly hit the blinker switch a little harder
than normal and echoed the annoying clicking sound it made.
	After taking a good twenty minutes to find a decent parking
space the three boys piled out of the car, which was the rebuilt Grand
Prix, and entered the great world of Wal-Mart. "Ok, let's split
up,
Crash, run munchie/drink detail. Luke go get the stuff from the
sporting goods we needed. And I'll run chick inspection detail,"
Sean
said drawing a dull look from Luke and a playful slap on the back of
the head from Crash. "How bout you go and some batteries and
film for
the camera. We're gonna be in some beautiful woods and there will be
plenty of sweet photo ops," Crash said. He was always a bit
artistic.
He loved nature and loved even more taking pictures of it. He also
loved music. There was hardly ever a time when he didn't have his
trusty guitar with him, or as he called it, his "baby." He
was pretty
good at it too. He had even cut an independant record of stuff he
wrote.
	Sean complied and sauntered off in his not quite right walking
pace. Luke struck out towards the outdoor section, and Crash grabbed a
buggy and headed for the snack aisle. When he got there he pulled out
the crumpled piece of paper he had crammed in his pocket during Old
Testament earlier that day. "Hmmm, pina colada mix, ginger ale,
oooooh
yeah ORANGE SODA! KING OF ALL CARBONATED BEVERAGES!," he said to
himself as he put each item in the buggy. He threw in some beef jerky,
trail mix, and some chocolate chip cookies in the buggy. "For
Sean," he
said. He rounded the next aisle to meet Luke carrying flashlights,
tent
spikes, and some nylon rope.
	"Got everything," he said. Luke was a man of few, but
meaningful words. He was pretty inteligent, very religious, but
generally worry free. He had his life planned out. History/Religion
double major, masters in history, doctorate in religion. He was in a
few classes with Crash and from Crash's point of view was a really
great friend. He always seemed to have a Bible verse, word of wisdom,
or a snappy, but always good natured, comeback for everything. Crash
swore that he had one of those photographic memories, or something
like
that. Luke was cool, despite his dad, who tried to control every facit
of his life.
	"Seen Sean," Crash asked. Luke nodded with a little
laugh. "The
ol' dog is on the scent of the girls from the red light." he
replied.
Luke dumped his armfull of items into the buggy, and the two guys
walked towards the electronic section. When they got out into the main
aisle they noticed Sean jumping up over the crowd to see them pointing
with both hands and mouthing, "Honies over here!"
	"Do we know him?" Crash said with a snicker.
"Join me and we
shall rid the electronics section of girl crazy babbling
idiots," Luke
said in his best Vader impression. Both guys enjoyed a laugh and
walked
to ward Sean who was now nowhere to be found. When they got closer
they
saw what neither of them had ever expected. Sean, with a girl under
each arm, was reciting the phone number of the three guy's apartment
to
a very attractive girl who was giving him the flirty eye.
	"Call me some time," he said as he dropped the film and
batteries into the buggy. Crash and Luke, now completely dumbfounded
turned and began to walk towards the cash registers. Sean with a big
grin on his face blew a kiss to the girls and trotted after them.
	"Poetry in motion my friends, poetry in motion," he
said. Luke
just gave him a blank stare in attempts to get an explination.
"You
wanna know how? One word, Confidance. You got confidance you got it
all," he explained. Still confused by the experiance Crash began
to
unload the items onto the conveyer.
	"What? I can't help it if I got mad game!" Sean exclaimed.

	The next day after classes, Luke drove up to the apartment to
find Crash and Sean packing the back of Sean's Z-71 with all of their
camping supplies. He hopped out and threw his bookbag just inside the
door and asked, "You guys need some help?" Crash gestured
towards two
sleeping bags with his head but didn't speak because he was loaded
down
on both arms and was carrying his toiletries in a bag by his teeth. He
managed a "owvs" which sounded enough like 'those' to
count. Luke
grabbed the sleeping bags and tossed them into the bed of Sean's
truck.
	"That looks like all of it," Sean said stretching
his weather
proof cover over the bed of his truck. "Sorry again you can't
come. Hit
the books hard for me. And if those chicks call, take a message and
tell them the love doctor isn't in but he will be back soon,"
Sean
said. Luke managed a smile and stuck his hand out. Sean shook it and
hopped in the driver's seat and started the ignition. Crash walked out
the door holding his guitar in it's hard case. "Baby, don't
leave home
without it," He said as he put it very gently into Sean's back
cab,
which usually doubled as his locker. He shook Luke's hand and added,
"I'll have my cell phone, but I don't know if it will work out
in the
middle of nowhere. I left a map with about a mile radius of where we
will be camping. I've been out there before so I know the woods pretty
well. If we don't show up by midnight on Sunday, be worried." He
gave a
little fake solute and hopped in the truck.
	Luke watched as his friends drove off and went back inside. He
noticed the map and the roughly scribbled circle Crash had mentioned.
He flipped on the TV and turned it to the weather channel. The
forecast
was nothing but sunshine and mild temps, perfect weather. The guys
would have a great time. "You have to do a paper. I know you
don't want
to do it, but school is important to you. God has put you where you
are
for a reason. Now get your lazy butt up and start that paper,"
he said
motivating himself. He never much cared for papers anyway.

	"Dude, I never knew nature had so many freaking bugs!" Sean
complained as he swatted a cloud of mosquitoes away from his face. He
reached into his pocket and pulled out a can of bug spray. "Eat
this
you blood sucking freaks!" he screamed at the mosquitoes as he
sprayed
the repellent in a big arc in front of him.
	"Calm down, you're gonna scare everything off," Crash said
holding his camera in semi-ready position. "That's the
point!" Sean
whinned from behind him. He did a couple of punches a spin kick, and
finished his exhibition off with one last spray of repellent.
"You have
fought bravely insects, but the Kung-Fu Master has defeated
you!" he
said.
	"Hey, Sean, might wanna chill with the ninjitsu until we get to
a clearing. Don't wanna have to carry you out if you sprain your
ankle," Crash said over his shoulder. He had never much cared for
Sean's martial arts. He did have to give him props though, he could
kick some major butt. Crash had lost count of how many types of self
defence Sean had learned at seven, but could think of at least nine
that he had mentioned. For someone who seemed to have no serious bone
in his body, Sean had major karate skills.
	"Yeah, I think you're right. How far till we camp? I think that
it looks like rain," Sean said. Crash looked up and sure enough
there
were some dark clouds coming in from the east. "That weather guy
sucks.
He said 'clear skies till Monday.' That's the last time I'll listen to
him. Sean gave a worried look and shrugged his shoulders. "Oh,
camp.
Right, its about ten minutes over this ridge. Right on the side of a
stream. We're just about there. I'm sure that the weather won't get
really bad," he said trying to reassure Sean. The guy was deathly
afraid of lightning, but could never explain exactly why.
	The guys had just barely assembled the poles to their tent when
the wind began to blow. They struggled with the awning part for about
five minutes until they could secure it where it wouldn't blow away.
By
that time the rain had begun to fall lightly. It was a tight fit
inside
the tent with all of their gear from their packs, and themselves.
	"This sucks dude. What happened to ruffin it? You can't ruff it
when there is torrential rainfall." Sean said kind of missing
the point
of ruffing it. Crash let out a chuckle under his breath. Sean
interrupted him with a wave of his hand, a signal to quiet down.
Outside the rain eased up. "Yeah, party time!" Crash said.
Just when he
reached for the zipper of the tent a huge bolt of lightning struck the
ground not fifty yards from them. The thunder was so loud that it hurt
their ears. Crash looked back to check on Sean and found him on all
fours, under his sleeping bag, with his pillow over his head, shaking
furiously.
	"Hey, Sean, you okay?" Crash asked genuinly
conscerned for his
friend. Sean leaned the pillow up just enough to look out the side and
see if it was over or not. "The rain has stopped, I don't think
there
will be any more," Crash said. Sean sat up and wiped his
forehead with
his sleave. "I'm gonna kick some weather man's butt if I ever
find
him," Sean said with a shaky voice. Crash laughed and threw his
own
pillow over at Sean, who blocked it and sent it back at Crash before
he
could realize what was going on.
	"Don't forget who's faster," Sean said making his way past
Crash and out the tent. The sun had come back out and you could still
hear the rain dripping off all the trees and bushes. "Hey, check
out
the cave. I can't believe I didn't see that earlier," Crash
heard Sean
say.
	"Hey, there aren't any caves here. I have been here five times
and I have never seen a cave," Crash said crawling out of the
tent.
When he stood up he saw a very adamant Sean with a condescending look
on his face and an arm pointing to what was a very large cave.
"Guess,
I was wrong," Sean said, "That's just a big whole in the
side of a
hill, its not a cave." He gave crash a little shove and pulled
out his
pack. "Let's go check it out," he said.
	Before Crash could get his pack on Sean was already at the
mouth of the cave. "It's pretty hot right here. I think when the
lightning struck it opened it up!" he yelled back at Crash who
was now
making his way over to where he was standing. Sure enough when he got
there he saw a big pile of rubble and felt the heat from what was
probably a fire at one time. "Sweet," Crash said as he
walked in after
Sean. He could see the glow of his flashlight way up in the distance.
	"Hey! Don't go in by yourself! It might not be safe!" Crash
called out to Sean. "DON'T BE A BABY!" Sean said as he
trodded off
towards the back of the cave. "Idiot," Crash said to
himself as he
walked toward him.
	The cave was barely big enough for two men to walk in side by
side, and extended up a good five feet above Crash's head. He took out
his camera and began to snap pictures of the walls. They were grey
rock, but seemed to have been hewn out of the rock by hand. They were
much too smooth to be natural. He could hear Sean up ahead humming to
himself, and every now and then could catch a glimpse of his flash
light. Crash had walked fourty steps into the cave when he came to a
much larger room. It was about ten yards across and ten high. It had
three seperate passages one going forward and one to the left and
right.
	"SEAN!" he yelled. No responce. He tried four more
times before
he started looking on the floor for footprints. Even though there was
a
thick layer of dirt and sediment on the floor he found none. "I
know he
didn't come back out," he said to himself. He shined his light
down
each of the passages in turn and decided to take the right fork. Sean
was right handed and Crash had noticed while walikng to camp he tended
to favor that side when trying to clear an obstacle. "If I find
you
playing a trick on me I'll do my best to kick your butt," Crash
said
almost wishing that Sean would jump out from somewhere. He would at
least know where he was then.

	Sean walked for about fifty steps before he came to a room.
"Hmm, three choices, let me see," he said. He began
"Eenie Meenie Miney
Mo," and ended up taking the left passage. "This place
needs some
interior decorating," he said swiping a finger along the wall to
produce a thick clump of dust on the end of his finger. He blew it off
then something caught his eye. He looked back to the wall where he had
run his finger and noticed some markings. He put his flashlight in his
armpit and used both hands to clear the rest of the dust off that
section of the wall. "What the heck is this?" he asked
himself.
	The markings on the wall looked almost like english letters,
but were distinctly different. He began trying to decifer the letters
out loud. "That kinda looks like a 'B' but could be a 'D' That is
definatly a 'L' or is it an 'I'," he said as he went down the
letters.
There were five symbols in all and he decided that they could be Diaok
or Black, or some combination of the two. After racking his brain for
about a minute he decided to go with black. It made more sense.
"Of
course I could be wrong and it is some ancient word for 'hot
chick,'"
he said as he began walking down the path again.

	"Ok, this isn't funny anymore Sean!" Crash called
out in front
of him. He leaned up against the wall and slid down to his heels.
"Goofball probably left a long time ago and is eating all the
food back
at camp," he said. After a moment or two he stood up and put his
hand
on the wall to balance as he stretched his legs. He noticed that there
were some cracks where he had his hand. He brushed away some dust to
reveal four symbols. "Grey? What the heck does that mean?"
he said to
himself.
	Just then a light flickered in the tunnel ahead of him. He
turned his light off and began to walk slowly towards it.
"Gotcha now,"
he said soflty. The tunnel took a slight curve to the left and Crash
stuck his head around it very slowly keeping the outline of it on the
back wall. He saw another open room about the same size as the first
one. There was a fire burning in the middle of it. And there, standing
with his back towards him, was Sean.
	He took a few steps closer very quietly, just in range for a
lunging attack. He jumped at Sean from the side and grabbed at him in
attempts to tackle him. When he landed on the dusty floor with empty
hands he quickly spun over and looked at where Sean had been standing.
That's when he noticed, it wasn't Sean.
	"Who...who are you?" Crash asked in a small shaky voice.
Thefigure walked to the other side of the fire and removed his hood.
He
was an older man with grey hair and a long grey beard. His face was
wrinkled and showed signs of extreme age. It was a miracle this guy
was
still walking around on his own power.
	"I am the Gatekeeper. And you are Matthew Perry, Twenty-Two
years of age, and lover of music and art. Welcome to your
destiny," the
man said opening up his cloak to reveal a sword. It looked like one of
the swords he had seen in his history books. It had a long blade that
was etched with strange symbols and markings that were unintelligable.
The hand gaurd ended in what looked like claws of some kind of big
lizard that were open towards the top of the blade. The grip was
wooden
and wrapped with leather strips. A dragon head adorned the pommel.
	The old man sheathed the blade and laid it on the ground. "How
do you know who I am?" Crash asked. The old man pulled his hood
back up
and seemed to fade into thin air. "Grip your destiny!" a
voice called
to him from the flames of the fire. Crash was freaked out by this
time.
He pulled out his pocket knife and turned to walk out of the passage
he
had came from, except it wasn't there. He spun several times looking
for the opening to the passage. It was hopeless. He was trapped.
	"Why does this stuff always happen to me?" Crash
said. For an
hour he walked along the walls trying to find a switch or something
that would reopen the door. "By now Sean has probably come
looking for
me. Or at least I hope that he has," he said. He walked over to
where
he had taken off his pack and opened one of the compartments. He
reached inside and pulled out his cell phone. He looked at the signal
to find a 'No service' notice blinking back at him. He said a few
choice words and flopped down hoping that he still had a little food
in
his pack. He began to rummage through it and succeeded in finding some
Ritz crackers and EZ-Cheese. He commenced to eating about half the
roll
of crackers.
	Looking around the room, he tried to take inventory of what he
had. It wasn't much. The only thing that seemed to be of any use was
that sword that was still laying in the middle of the room.
"This place
can't be air tight. I would have died an hour ago. Plus that fire
hasn't gone out," he said to himself. He shivered and realized
how cold
he was and decided to use the fire for something. He scooted over to
hold his hands in front of the fire, but the fire wasn't hot. He
pushed
closer until the flames were almost touching his hands, but still felt
no heat.
	"This is too weird," he said. After a moment of
pondering he
thrust his hand up to his forearm into the fire. His shirt caught on
fire and he immediatly fell on top of it to smother the flame. A few
seconds later he sat back up and looked down at his arm. He saw no
sign
of burning on his skin, and felt no effects of the fire. He decided to
try some expiraments.
	Thirty minutes later he had thrown just about every kind of
material into the fire that he could think of. They had all been
consumed by the flames. The only thing he hadn't tried was leather.
"Maybe leater won't burn since it was once skin," he
thought. He
reached over and grabbed the sword carefully by the scaberd.
"Don't
think that it will hurt metal," he said.
	He cast the scaberd, sword and all, into the fire. The flames
erupted out of the fire pit and filled the room. He could see the
source of the new flames was coming out of the sword. He batted flames
back with his jacket and got close enough to pull the sword out of the
flames. As soon as his hand touched the handle of the sword, the fire
died out, completely.
	He stood very still in the complete darkness. "That was
interesting. I'm worse off now than I was before. I wish I had some
fire," he said. The blade of the sword sprung into flames again.
Not
the wild untamed flames of before, but a thin layer of flames.
"HOLY
CRAP!" he said and dropped the sword. When it left his hand the
flames
died.
	He reached down and feeled around carefully not wanting to cut
himself, found the handle and picked up the sword again.
"Fire," he
said. Again the blade came alive with flames. "Now to find a way
out of
here," he said. Not even a second after the words came out of
his mouth
did Crash find himself falling through what looked like swirling
clouds
of blue, green, and purple dust.
	A bright flash of light momentarily blinded him, but he felt
himself land on something hard. He heard the sound of voices, but he
had hit his head during the fall, and was having trouble interpreting
them.
	"Crash! GET UP!" he heard a familair voice say. He
rubbed his
eyes and slowly opened them. He saw Sean holding a long metal pole
that
had the same kind of markings on it as the sword he held had. Then he
saw why Sean was in fighting stance. In front of him eight guys
wearing
flowing white robes were closing in around them.
	"I'm warning you guys, I'm not gonna hold back if you attack
me," Sean said. One of the men smiled and produced a long tooth
shaped
dagger from under one of the folds of his garment. Crash stood up and
shook his head to try to clear the butterflies.
	"Where the heck are we Sean?" he asked. "I
don't know man, but
these guys look for real," he answered. Just then the guys all
dove in
at Crash and Sean.