Page 7 of Prison Moon
Shuffling noises filled the silence long moments before Marcy leaned against her back. Careful of where she stepped, she moved forward and stared at the cavern below. It was enormous, the air cool, and she could hear what she thought was the faint sound of running water. The chamber smelled musty with the scent of dirt and mold but something like a sweet perfume mingled with it. She closed her eyes and inhaled, a small tingle rushing through her veins as the scent seemed to fill every ounce of her being and she wanted to roll in it, pull it in close, and bury her face in whatever it was and live there forever.
“What is that stench?”
“Huh?”
“Don’t you smell that?”
“I don’t smell anything bad. What’s it smell like?” A set of stone stairs led down into the cavern below and she turned her head to look at Marcy. “How stupid is it to go down there?”
Marcy studied the corridor behind them, the stone steps, then the twinkling lights high up on the ceiling. “No more than going back out into the jungle and waiting for the locals to find us.”
She had a point. “Shall we?”
With one last glance at the sun-lit entrance, she nodded her head. “Might as well. Lead the way.”
They headed down. Those blue twinkling lights lit the stairs and enough of the wall to see it was wet in places. A few drops of moisture dripped onto her shoulders as they made their way carefully down the stone steps. Halfway down, her first hunch was proven correct. There was water here. The sound of it grew louder with every step they took. When they reached the bottom of the stairs, the cavern opened up into a massive cave and neither spoke.
The entire ceiling and most of the walls glittered with those soft blue flickering lights. There were so many it lit the cavern enough to see from one end to the next. She turned in a circle to take in the whole room. It was massive, the walls made of stone, the ceiling several stories high.
Marcy took a step closer to her and put a hand to her nose. “Something feels off about this place and the stench is making my eyes water.”
Sara inhaled but still smelled nothing offensive. “I don’t smell anything, Marcy.”
Her new friend’s eyes widened. “Are you kidding me?”
“No. Dirt, mold and something—“ She inhaled deeply again. “Decadently sweet.”
Marcy gaped at her. “If you don’t smell that, then something is wrong with you.”
She laughed. “I swear, I smell something sweet …” She inhaled again. “And a hint of some exotic spice.”
“Do you have a brain tumor you didn’t tell me about?”
“A brain tumor?”
“Don’t people smell weird things when they have one?”
“I don’t know but it would be just my luck. As if being abducted by aliens wasn’t enough to worry about.”
As pretty and inviting as those soft blue lights were, Marcy’s earlier assessment about this place was right. It was a bit on the creepy side. The crumbling stone structure, with its climbing vines and weathered facade, gave it a haunting vibe, even more so now that they were inside. The building was nothing but ruins and from the looks of it, hadn’t been used in years, but it felt as if they were trespassing. The place felt—tomblike.
She took three steps further into the massive space and her foot hit a stone that skittered across the floor. The noise was loud and echoed in the silence. The pale blue light above their heads flickered, and as she watched, started to move. “Do you see that, Marcy?”
“Yes, they’re moving,”
Half of the lights suddenly fell away from the other, and as they did, Sara saw them for what they were. They resembled a small moth or butterfly, their tiny wings glowing blue in the darkness. They danced in patterns around the chamber. Their light illuminated the cavern enough to see, so she moved further away from the stairs. When she reached the center of the room, she stared at a mass of curving stone the length of the cavern and nearly as tall. “What do you suppose that is?” She tilted her head back, studying it. It took several long minutes to realize the rounded shape took on an actual form.
Marcy walked around the side of it and started taking a few steps backward until she was halfway across the chamber. “I think it’s a dragon.”
Sara joined her in the middle of the chamber, then smiled. “I think so, too.”
The size of the room made sense now that she saw the dragon statue. He was laying down, his wings curled close to his body. Marcy crossed to the wall near the head of the dragon statue, looking at it with her head cocked to one side. “What do you see?”
“Come take a look.”
The glowing butterflies were attached to the wall Marcy was staring at, so it wasn’t hard to see the chiseled carvings and colored drawings. Dragons by the hundreds filled the wall, some in flight, others standing by what looked like humans. “Is it just me, or does that strike you as odd? They look like—”
“—Us.” Marcy reached out and traced one of the human-looking figures with the tip of her finger. “I would have thought drawings of people on an alien planet would look like—well, an alien. Not human.”