*Tears in the Darkness

Intro: I attended a workshop on horror at the writing conference I went to last weekend. Though I don't write horror I found the information interesting. This story is an exercise we did. We had to write about our most terrifying experience.

Georgia inched her way along the rocks, her hand stretched out to the side not quite touching the wall of the cave. Her friends walked before her. She could see their figures silhouetted in the flashlight one of them carried. It swung to and fro as they took in the surroundings of the cave. To one side was a dark strip. It was probably a rut, only a couple of feet down, but in the shadows it looked like it would continue to Hades if she fell. The black walls looked wet because of the years of people ran their hands along the rock. Georgia wanted to feel the security of the rock as she stumbled after her friends but instead kept her fingers inches from it afraid of how it would feel.

The voices of her friends echoed in the blackness all around her. There seemed to be noises from behind them as well. Though she couldn't see the other side of the tunnel, the ravine was between her and it, it sounded as if she were in a huge cavern. Only, with every step she took away from the entrance, it closed around her, as if the darkness itself were the walls. Her breath caught in her throat. There was a faint odor to the air that infiltrated her every thought.

"We have to cross up here," Jeremy said, his voice drifting back through the darkness.

She'd come into the cave because he'd said it would be fun. That he and his friends were always coming in here. As she stared down at the bridge she could see they weren't the only ones who came here. On the left was still the ravine. The right side of the bridge was a different story. She could see exactly where it led, to a cesspool of human filth. The green water brooked no argument as to what the teenagers had been doing in the cave for the past several decades. Her stomach roiled at the stench. As her three friends traipsed across the four-foot wide rock divider Georgia remained fixated on the other side.

"Are you coming?"

She gazed between the pit to Hell and the hellish pit and twisted her hands in her shirt. "I can't." It came out in a whisper. Images rolled through her mind. Falling either way would stop her heart.

"Come on, Georgia. It isn't that bad." They flashed the light across the rock path again. The shadows made it look even skinnier and the green water glowed with the brief light.

"I can't," she repeated and backed up. Now the path looked even smaller. She balled her hands in her shirt willing herself to walk across. Telling herself that it would be easy.

"Are you coming?" Jeremy asked. "It's just up ahead."

"We're coming." They turned back to her. "We're taking the light with us. If you want light you'll have to cross."

"Don't leave me," she said, her voice not even making a dent in the ever increasing shadows. "I can't."

The light moved farther away and Georgia stumbled back. Her hand brushed the wall. Moisture coated her hand as her heart froze in her chest. She glanced back at the bridge completely invisible in the dark but the green of the water seemed imprinted on her mind. The rocks from the wall pressed up against her back. The light from the flashlight disappeared around the corner and she sobbed. Covering her mouth with her hands and feeling the residue from the wall against her skin.

"Are you alright?"

A light illuminated her shoes. She looked up as two people walked up to her, flashlight in hand.

Georgia glanced up, her breath coming in ragged gasps. One of them placed an arm around her shoulder.

"Come on, let's get you to the light."

"Georgia?" One of them called. "Where are you going?"

"We're talking her out of here."

As Georgia stumbled between the two people she focused on the beam of light in front of her. It took all of her willpower not to break into tears as the sounds echoed around her. She could hear them talking and a second beam of light removed some of the darkness.

"What is her problem?"

She hung her head; glad her tears echoed only silence.