Sun Catcher

Miles from my home beneath Earth‘s surface, in the pitch black, cavernous humidity of the Ice Caves, I found the next ledge by slamming my helmet into it.

“Sun Suits.” I remarked with a labored sigh as I crashed onto my back. The thick, heavy Sun Suit relaxed in a gasp of content on the icy ledge, releasing the putrid smell of salt and a mix of burped dinner. “Not just good for keeping you from turning to ash in seconds; also great for preventing further mental deterioration...” My laughter leapt up the walls like an Underbunny up a hill.

I slipped out another one of “Journey to the Surface of the Earth‘s” products and ran my hand over it in concentration.

According to the Popsicle, the Sun would be rising in a few hours. Peak Sun-Catching time, 6 AM.

Wanting to get to the surface before anyone else showed up, I reached for my backpack and found the soaked leather to my side. As I got up and slung the extra weight around my shoulders, a voice devoured the silence.

“Sun Catcher…” 

The thick insulation of the Sun Suit prevented any chill, heat or wetness from coming through. Regardless, the echoing whisper sent a blizzard down my spine. Bile on my tongue.

“Plenty of sun for us all! Unless you're greedy…but greediness is bad...” I cleared my throat. “Uh...let’s just mind our own business, what do you say?”

No one responded. 

“Not even a laugh, really?” I pulled out my only weapon. Gripping the steel handle of the ice pick, I swallowed down the remains of last night’s dinner. “Look, man, I don’t want any trouble. My Sun-Catcher only gets...” I strained to remember the commercial. “Zero, zero, zero, zero...zero? Zero? Zero...?...Point one percent of it. Cheapest on the market!”

“Sun Catcher…” The voice dripped, hungry and heavy. I imagined a leathery mouth sweating with drool, breath like rotten flesh, lying in wait to devour an unsuspecting explorer.

Just some greedy rich guy. I reassured myself.

Then why would he need to sneak in? I argued.

Something cracked to my left. I turned towards the voice and hacked, hitting air. 

“Crap,” I gasped. Disoriented and holding the pick to my chest like a child holding a teddy bear, I decided to deescalate the situation. “Okay uh... how about I give you a percentage? Fifteen-thousand sound good?“

Silence.

A distant memory of the old Sun legend fractured my resolve. Monsters in hibernation but for one day of the year. The only day the Sun came out. Summer. 

The stalactites up above dripped, teasing my nerves as they plummeted down, crashing against my helmet.

Monsters don’t exist. I think.

I considered tossing my bagged lunch as a peace offering and making a run for it. Human or monster, surely it would be appreciated.

Human or monster… I wondered. No such thing as monsters. Unless you count corporate greed...

“Sun Catcher!” The voice growled. Past hunger, now starving. I jumped, alarmed, as running footsteps aggravated the ground, rushing towards me like an earthquake. I spun around as something hard as rock slammed into me.

Monsters don’t exist.

Heart beat in my throat, I swung the pick in a desperate attempt at survival. A scream that sounded like a dying breath rattled through the cave as my pick crashed into something that cracked like stubborn ice. 

The unmistakable smell of the remains of the bottom of a freezer slammed into my nose. 

I rushed onto my feet, swaying in exhaustion, the bulk of the Sun Suit threatening to tip me over.

My laughter peppered within my helmet. I let out a cry of relief, before my thoughts snapped back to the body inches from me. My smile faded.

Like striking ice. Not flesh.

I shook my head. Things just sound different in the suit. That’s all.

Humbled back to reality, I prodded the thick heap of supposed monster with my boot, holding the ice pick out like a crucifix until my free hand bumped into rock.

“Sleep it off, buddy...” I mumbled, deciding not to risk another attack by checking for a pulse.

I slipped the tool back into my belt loop and climbed.

...

According to the Popsicle, the Sun would be waking up in ten minutes to thirty.

 “Popsicles. Not the best, but cheap!” I laughed. It bounced up the walls of my helmet, to each ear, before it deflated. Early meant more labor. Exactly six AM, or less Sun to catch. Less money.

Groaning, I shrugged off my backpack and tossed it to the side, where it hit the wall with a wet thunk. 

I pulled the ice pick from my belt. Giving it a kiss for luck, I slammed it into the ice.

As time passed, light began to stream through the dark, illuminating the formation of the cave. Breathing heavily in defeat, I sat back on my knees and stared up at the ceiling. 

Less money, but enough. I decided.

Sunlight glinted off blue. Moisture melted from the ends of stalactites, steady drips to pouring rain. I smiled as it caressed the edges of my helmet, falling down the Sun Suit.

The ceiling of the cave receded back as light trumped rain. I shielded my eyes and slid out of the light, unzipping my ruined backpack.

I pulled out the Sun-Catcher. A tougher-than-glass brick with invisible solar panels all over it. I placed it outside of the cave, urging it through with a few ginger shoves. Twenty-four hours to extract a non-Sun-destroying fraction of the Sun.

That’s gonna be a pretty penny.

Racing against the sun for shade, I huddled into the corner of a rock ledge, watching gold rise from a black horizon. My heart swelled. I blinked tears away, enamored.

Scorching once-frozen surfaces, lighting up the sky in reverie. The Sun.

Warmth wrapped around me, sticking to the outside of my suit like a child around their mother’s leg. Sweat dripped from my forehead as the atmosphere of the suit struggled to keep up with the heat.

“I did it,” I laughed, closing my eyes.

“I did it...”

The smell of cold burning…

My eyes snapped open. I grabbed for my ice pick, blinking the blinding light and sweat from my tired eyes. As they focussed, my heart slipped from my ribs, falling to my stomach.

Human or monster...

Hairless, it’s skin like freezer-burnt ice. Thin, starved, desperate. Milky eyes darted around blindly, white but for veins of light that streamed through like Sun through cracks of ice.

It’s head scouted the sun, like a dog sniffing for food. “I did it!” It cried in an identical voice to mine. “I did it!” It threw its head back laughing, eyes melting down its face, skin shedding with thick tendrils of icy tears.

The stench of decaying flesh trickled through the suit and into my nose. Gagging, I pushed myself into the corner of the wall as its cries reached a crescendo. 

Collapsing onto its stomach, it crawled out onto burnt grass, hands extended towards the sun like a soul drowning in the river Sty. “I did it...I did it...I did it…”

Its voice faded the farther it stumbled on. The burning scent fainter. Each torturous crawl followed a cry of “I did it!” Until, finally, it melted into a puddle.

My back scraped down the wall as I curled into a ball, aching for the dark. 

My head snapped up as one by one, monsters crawled from out of the cave, crying, “I did it!” Before weeping themselves into puddles in the Sun.

I closed my eyes until red dotted my vision and tears tricked down from my face.

At least in the dark you don’t have to see the monsters.  

Monsters...

A haunting, melodic warning came back from the reaches of school memory as I melted into the corner.

People that sneak into Summer don’t come back. Sunlight, Sunlight, it’s so hard to catch.

...

I yearned for the darkness as I traversed back home through the caves.

The Sun-Catcher glowed in my hand, warm, challenging the pitch black cold. Light permeated the cramped space, but for shadows lingering in the corners.

Waiting. Waiting for the Sun.

The dripping stalactites pulsated into a chorus of crying monsters. The same thing over and over again, in voices that shared nothing in common but hysteria.

I did it...I did it…I did it…

Sweat dripped off the top of my nose, into my shocked mouth as I looked down from a ledge. A heap. Melting.

Ice thawed from a monster with a chunk of ice missing in the center of its chest. It smelled like the bottom of a freezer.

The monster opened its mouth. “I did it...” It sounded unsure, voice a whisper. “I did it,” it said again. Stronger.

“No...” I cried.

Its head snapped to me with a loud crack. I slapped a hand over my mouth.

Brown eyes stared back at me. Human.

Yelling, I threw off my helmet and clapped my hands to my eyes. Tears burned falling from my face. Clawing at my skin as the suit grew tight around me, I fell into the shadows, kicking the Sun-Catcher off the ledge.

”No!” I exclaimed, surging forward. I let go of my face and grasped for the Sun.

A cry from below. My stolen voice. “I did it!”

Darkness devoured light as ice devoured skin.

People that sneak into Summer don’t come back.