The Cave

On the eve of her eleventh birthday, Fox Trep gave her family dog to the local kennel. Her father had never loved anyone more than he cherished that dog. He petted it every night on the couch. He walked it three times a day. He even gave it more fresh meat than he gave his own family.  

He spent so much money on that dog.

And Fox gave it away.

She snuck out past midnight and ran down the street. She remembered the dog squirming against her chest. At the shelter she claimed that her family was running out of money. Lie. They took Kurt.

Her father searched the dumpsters, the alleys and the gutters and underneath the couch. He never found Kurt. Fox watched him from afar, white in the face, helped him eventually, moved the couch, threw up the house with him. Returned to the kennel to take Kurt back, but he had already been given to a family living miles away. She dragged her feet back home.

But the absence of Kurt suddenly meant their family had more money, so Fox got her reward in the end. They now had enough money to send her to Regal, a school designed to train the next leaders of their nation. Her dream. To matter. 

She never told her parents she had given away their dog.

That was the first mark against Fox. The first of many mistakes that she built her life on, like a great mound of dirt crumbling but sturdy enough for her to pretend she was reaching the stars. The first of many mistakes that propelled her through school, propelled her to the moment before her final exam. 

The graduating seniors and administrators from all the government-training schools hiked through the woods to The Cave, where they pitched tents and built fires and joked through tight throats and the ever-present shadows cast by looming trees. Firelight danced on down-turned faces, on bouncing knees and mouths flickering in silent prayer. Throughout the day students had been called away in groups of two to complete their final task. No one knew what it was. They weren’t allowed to tell, ever, pass or fail, lest they be exiled. The Cave cast a spell on the students that fell through its mist. If they ever spoke of what they saw, someone high up in government would be notified. 

Exiled. Gone.

The secret could not get out. 

They called them back in alphabetical order.

“Ginny Sand! Joseph Srink!”

A small brunette girl stumbled into the dark after the administrator. A lanky boy followed her.

“I–” Fox bit her tongue.

“What?” Her friend, Tara, hissed. They sat together beneath a tree. Moonlight cast a halo around them, but not a lick of light could reach them through the spattering of branches. “Spit it out.”

“I don’t know what to do!” Fox snapped.

“In the ritual? Well, yeah–”

“I’m going to screw up!” She had no idea what the ritual would entail. There was no preparing for how each moment would go. How she would approach anything, when she knew nothing. “I can’t–”

“Control it? Yeah. You can’t control the world.”

“What if I mess up?”

“Then you’d get over it.”

“You can’t just—” Fox thought of her dad sprawled across the couch, trying to hide that he was crying “—get over it!”

Tara closed her eyes, her head lolled back against the tree. “Too bad.”

“Oh gods I have no idea. I don’t know, Tara! What if there’s a…a monster? What if I chose to kill it but that was the wrong choice and it escapes the fog and comes out here and kills all of you? What if the magic breaks? Like it starts to affect reality? That happens all the time. We can’t predict–it would all–”

“Will you shut up?” Tara chided. “I’m trying to stay calm over here.”

“There’s only one way you guarantee you make the right choice,” Fox said.

“Ya and it's not possible to control every outcome here. Or ever…”

“I’ll try. Maybe I’ll be able to manipulate the fog–”

“Fox.” Tara shot upright. “Please.  The ritual tests your character, and you’re good.”

“How do we know I’m–”

“Close your mouth!”

And for once Fox did. She leaned back against the tree, a fist of leaves trapped between her knuckles, legs folded beneath her. Little campfires sprouted and fell around the camp. Wisps of conversation sometimes reached them, but Fox could never make out what they said, no matter how hard she tried to listen. Not being able to understand made her heart pound in her chest. What if they were talking about her, just behind her back? What would she do then? She would have to plan that out later–”

“Amarisa Trap! Fox Trep!”

Tara raised her brows. “Amarisa? Ruthless. Good luck…”

Fox hurried into the dark after the stalking figure of Amarisa. She stumbled over a root and almost fell on her face, but by flailing her arms in the fall she caught a handful of branches and saved herself, panting, before she scurried on. They climbed a short trail. Moonlight slipped through the canopy to touch random patches of bramble and grass. Fox hugged her arms to her chest.

They entered The Cave, a gaping black hole about a hundred feet up the mountain. No one knew how it had formed. There were magical anomalies all over the world, and The Cave was one of them. If you passed whatever test it presented, you’d get to become a leader of the nation. If you failed, the magic left a permanent mark on your left hand. As they walked, the only sound was the consistent pitter-patter of their feet slapping stone. Fox focused on that. On the pattern. One, two. One, two.

Suddenly the footsteps came to a halt.

The administrator stepped aside into shadow. A faint purple glow emanated from deep within a chasm in the floor, spiraling and twisting up the wall and into the stone, in and in, little wisps of purple reaching and reaching for the ceiling. Cold air drifted from the chasm to wrap round Fox’s arms and legs like snakes, drawing goosebumps down her skin, to fill her lungs and press out and out until she felt she was about to explode. She stumbled back–

A strong hand hit the small of her back: the administrator pushing her forward. She toed to the drop and peered into the mist. A thousand shades of purple stared up at her, beneath them all a dim white light like a thousand zipping fire-flies, flickering in and out.

Now or never.

As Fox peered over the drop Amarisa stepped beyond her, tipped off backwards, and fell headfirst. Short brown hair whipped to mask her face as she opened her chest to the chasm and dove into the fog. Clutching her necklace to ground herself, Fox closed her eyes and fell into the abyss behind her. She fell forever, and for no time at all, until the fog was all she could see and all she could breathe, and then everything went white, and she was standing.

A cave materialized around her as the white turned to purple, as the fog turned to mist turned to nothing.

Amarisa stood across from her, her face entirely blank except for the small smile on her lips. It didn’t reach her eyes. She walked to the grand stone table between them, where a game-board sprawled out, blue pieces and red, and little notebooks. She claimed the blue. Fox scanned the room. They were inside a perfect sphere of stone. Not a dent or a crack. Storing that information away, she sat across from Amarisa.

She examined a piece. They were little people, but the faces were entirely blank, the bodies perfect and flat. Hard and unmoving. 

“They’re armies.” Amarisa smiled. “I kill you, I win.”

Fox and Amarisa went to different schools, but Fox had heard the stories of her. One had stood out to her. The story of a war game for a coveted award: ‘Amarisa lured half her team into a trap,’ she remembered Tara saying. ‘But the thing was she had another squad sneaking in behind. They won, but over half the team “died,” and those that died lost their prize.’ Fox had asked if Amarisa had survived. Tara had said, ‘She didn’t even leave their base. She stayed behind in the trees where no one could touch her. It was kind of…genius.’

Fox swallowed.

“Shall we begin?” Amarisa asked.

Fox nodded. Amarisa immediately split her army into three separate phalanxes and began to scribble instructions for them. Fox kept her people together. She only had twenty pieces. Not many, and there was no sneaking, no winning if she lost the advantage. She didn’t want to blunder and risk pieces.

A gust of wind swept through the fog and the pieces flew up in a whirl. Fox gripped her seat not the fly with them, but the wind had no drag on her. When the pieces landed back on the table they had little swords. Each had the words, ‘If I die you lose me’ written in back across their tiny chests. They followed the instructions each girl had written down, and attacked. 

Fox’s army proceeded slowly while Amarisa’s launched at her all at once. A three pronged attack. Fox’s army spread out to protect its flank. Little soldiers battled and screamed when stabbed. Dabs of blood leaked from their porcelain bodies, more and more until the table was stained red. More blood than possible poured from their wounds, dripped off the table, pooled on the floor. Fox watched with wide eyes. Little voices rose until all was screaming and death.

“Is this supposed to happen?” Fox asked.

“I don’t think so,” Amarisa said, but she didn’t sound unsure. “They’re probably just supposed to fall over–”

The wind came again and swept the pieces away and twirled them in the air. The blood remained. Fox clutched her chair, her heart pounding, every muscle in her body tense. Was the game broken? What then? She couldn’t think…The pieces returned, battered and bruised. The dead fell back to where they lay.

But they had faces now.

Bodies. Clothes. Skin with blood in it. Fox picked a piece off her back line. It had the face of Tara. She gaped; the piece titled its head. “What are you doing, Fox?” tiny Tara asked. “Put me down. I belong down there–” Fox closed her fist so little Tara was safe tucked against her palm. 

The walls around her swam. She felt like the world was tilting one way. No. This couldn’t be happening. The fog was broken. It could be leaking into the framework of reality– “Amarisa!” Fox shouted. But when she looked up Amarisa was gone, replaced by a blank porcelain statue, staring right at her. Fox screamed.

“Please be quiet,” Amarisa said. She now sat at another table beside Fox with her own porcelain opponent. A film of gray fog separated Fox from her. 

“If we kill them, it’ll kill them!”

“No–”

“The fog’s broken!” 

“It does seem broken,” Amarisa mused. She turned back to her board and scratched her chin, plotting her next move. Plotting her next move! How could she–Fox tried to pull at her hair, forgetting she had shaved it weeks ago. People could die! “Who knows. It might kill them. Maybe you should try to escape while I play…”

Fox sprinted round the room. Still no cracks. She threw herself against every inch of stone, but nothing gave. She thought about falling from the mist, having failed, because that was better than killing everyone! Maybe she could manifest escaping. This was in her mind? Wasn’t it? Could magic teleport her? Maybe the room was in the fog, and when they fell they were just let in. 

She thought and thought but she didn’t move.

Manifesting escape didn’t work.

When she turned back to Amarisa the other girl was close to winning. She had three pieces left to the opponents one–

“YOU KILLED THEM!”

“Shush,” Amarisa smiled. “It’s probably worth it.” Gore smeared all across her board. Real, lifeless faces, stared off into nothing, eyes bleeding, guts spilled. There was a dot of blood on Amarisa’s chin. Her last opponent died. “Well, that was easy,” she said, then vanished, leaving Fox alone. 

Fox stumbled back to her table. She had ten pieces left to her opponent's eight. She surveyed the damage she had already done. She saw friends dead. Teachers dead. Her mother, drowned in a pool of her own blood. Fox covered her mouth to keep in a sob, not like anyone was watching, but this was a test of character, and it didn’t feel right to sob.

What kind of character test even was this?

“I can’t,” Fox mumbled. She lowered her head.

A gust of wind washed over her as a door opened on the far wall. Fog faded into white light. An exit. She could leave–

She stood and hobbled to the door. Peered within. Nothing but white. Clean, polished white. She had killed ten people. There was nothing through that door. She’d end up a farmer or a member of some village council. All her training would go to waste.

She had killed ten people.

She had already sacrificed ten people. 

She thought of her dad searching for that dog. She thought of her brother crying as she left for yet another year of school. She thought of the girl she had beat during the entrance exam, that would never fulfill her dream. She thought of her mother, dead now, at her hands. What would all that mean if she quit now? Nothing.

She had to finish the ritual.

She had to win without losing a piece.

She hurried back to the table and surveyed her pieces. She set up a medical tent and instructed her pieces to save each other above all else. She only sent her army out in small bursts, just enough to wound an opponent, then retreated. It took hours. Her hand ached from writing so many instructions. The more she fought the more her pieces were injured.

The piece for her brother rotated to the front lines.

Fox starred in disbelief. He was so small. She hadn’t meant to do that–she had just been rotating her pieces to keep them fresh–she hadn’t thought–hadn’t remembered–he swung at a much larger opponent–his sword swatted away–he fell–a blade crashed through his small chest. His father pulled him back. Tara jumped over them to stab the attacker in the kidney.

Two figures fell.

“NO!” Fox screamed. She tried to scoop her brother off the battle-field but an invisible shield blocked her hand. “NO!” She punched the shield. It didn’t give. “WHY NOW?” Little Tara dragged her brother’s body into the medical tent.

He didn’t return for the next round.

Fox collapsed into a fit of sobbing. Six hours and she had still lost him. Her soul ached. “No,” she sniffed. “No, why, no!” 

Six hours.

She was drained.

What more could she do?

She looked up at her table–two opponents left. If she had just sacrificed her pieces like Amarisa. If she had taken any risk, the game would be over. She would have won. But she hadn’t, and if felt now like the fog she constantly breathed was a part of her. Like she had never been anywhere else.

Soldiers died every day.

She could change the world if she got this position. She remembered that fire in her, before she had given away her family dog, the want to do good.

What would she need to sacrifice if she joined the government?

She sniffed. Too late now. Too much already gone. Amarisa might have been right–maybe sacrificing your soldiers was the most painless way to win a war. Fox’s soldiers had grown gaunt and weak. They would be suffering. Did it even matter if she wanted to save them, do the best for them, if she killed half of them anyways? So much work just to save one…

She instructed her pieces forward. They would win this final battle. 

They did win. The Tara piece was stabbed, but she seemed to be doing well enough to survive.

Fox sniffed as the room vanished from around her.

Her feet appeared, bruised toes and little, lowering slowly from the fog. Amarisa dropped beside her. They fell to a blackened cave floor. Fox sighed, wiped her face with the back of her hand, but the ink had stained her cheeks grey. Amarisa tilted her head. “I thought only one won?”

“I–”

“I won first,” Amarisa said. “So I should win.”

“We both won,” Fox whispered, looking at her hand. No mark.

You killed eleven people. She only heard her heart. Only saw her ink-stained hands. Her brother– 

“I…won–?”

“Good for you,” Amarisa scoffed before she strode to the exit. “Maybe it really is broken…” Her steps were so sure, a quick echo in the cave. Fox followed.  

She would never see her brother and mother again. They didn’t die, she learned, but she did lose them. Her brother became a beet farmer across the world, wanting to get away from their government. Her mother left her father and lived with some tribe. Fox moved on to take a high position in leadership and worked day and night to save the people, save them like she had in the ritual, but it drained her very soul and every loss felt like being stabbed in the gut.

She always wondered if Amarisa had made the right choice. 

To sacrifice.

But how could she know? Even if she was intentional every second of every day, she could fail eventually, because she knew nothing. One day magic could spring up and overtake the world. 

She had no idea, and she could never prepare for all of it.