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To hell with the trees, the caves are closer and at this point you just want to stop having a bucket of water dumped on your head every five seconds

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To hell with the trees, the caves are closer and at this point you just want to stop having a bucket of water dumped on your head every five seconds. You've already sunk ankle deep into the now muddy riverbank and so you better get a move on before the mud swallows you whole. You motion to the guide, who is surprisingly still alive and mime out that you want him to lead everyone to the caves. Then you grab Salvador by the leg, who Emily has successfully revived by now, and start dragging him towards shelter. The biggest cave entrance looms over you menacingly, like the maw of a crocodile awaiting its prey, almost like a big warning that danger lurks inside-

-but, hey, it's not like you to take a hint like this anyway.

Regardless of the bad mojo the place exudes, you drag Salvador into the cave behind you and then dry heave a bit because *exercise*. After a few minutes of dry heaving (and that one odd mud tasting burp), you are joined by everyone else including Emily who looks like she's been coughed up by one of your aunts' seven cats. Part of you would like to join Salvador on the floor, but the general consensus among the team seems to remain upright and lucid. Everyone also wants to continue and go deeper into the cave, so as a great team leader, of course, you complain first and then grudgingly oblige.

Using the flashlight  you've carried around in your pack until now that is against all odds still working, you shine straight ahead and start walking. With each step you begin to see less and less but realize one thing more and more.

These caves are as cold, dark and empty as Tina Terrence's heart at your ninth-grade prom and that chills you down to the very progenitor cell osteoblasts in your bones.


Head further into the unknown go to 41

Head further into the unknown go to 41

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*osteoblasts: bone regenerating cells in your bone marrow.

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