Unintentional Spelunking

I opened my eyes and looked about me and saw nothing but inky darkness. I cursed under my breath for even attempting to enter the cave with a single working torchlight. It was one of the dumber things that I had allowed myself to do, the other which was to even agree to the stupid dare in the first place.

I could hear the steady dripping of water some where within the darkness. I thought I heard it moving to the front of me, but suddenly remembered that caves often had strange acoustic properties, including teh ``wave guide'' effect that allowed sounds from some where far and deep in the cave to sound as though they were closer than they really are.

A thought came to my mind. Was there any dripping thing I had seen while entering the cave earlier? I knew that limestone caves often had stalactite and stalagmite formations that are from such dripping systems, but I didn't remember seeing them no the way in. Of course, that was a good hour or so ago when I still had a working torchlight and when my sense of hearing was less keen, deferring instead to my sense of sight.

I had some time. I sat on the ground I was standing on and started pondering about the possibilities. The mounting fear was slowly giving way to a cold hard rational look at what I was facing right now. Besides, even if I didn't make any move, I was certain that my friends who came to witness me do the dare would have gone for help since I hadn't come out yet after so long.

The dripping sound continued as though it were mocking me for the indecisive state I was in. The more I reasoned with myself, the more it seemed that trying to find that dripping source would actually lead me deeper into the cave that out of it. With that thought in mind, I decided to walk as far away from the dripping sound instead. but since I was in a cave of darkness with no torchlight, I ended up crawling slowly away instead.

The progress was mind-numbingly slow. I had no more sense of time, and allI hoped was that I hadn't inadvertently make the wrong choice, or fall into some unseen crevice unexpectedly. As I moved along, I thought I saw some moving lights in the distance. I stopped, blinked my eyes hard and looked again.

I saw the unmistakeable cone of light from a powerful torch. I shouted as loud as I could, and was greeted with a replying shout and a general aiming of the torch in my direction.

That was when I realised I was only a hand's width away from falling six feet down a crevice.