Three Miles Below
There’s no cell phone reception at the bottom of the world. That much I expected. But I didn’t know it was going to be so hot!
No, I wasn’t in Antartica; I was deep underground in the TauTona mine in Johannesburg, one of the deepest gold mines in the world at nearly two-and-a-half miles under the ground. The Mponeng mine, its nearby neighbour, currently held the record as the world’s deepest mine, but that could be about to change.
That’s why I was here. My name is Miles Eaton (a fitting name I guess, considering where I was), and I work for the Guiness Book of Records. Often my job will take me on interesting adventures to see amazing things, but this was a different matter entirely. I was going to the deepest place on Earth. Deepest dry place anyway; Mariana Trench holds the underwater record. But this was manmade. A hole dug thousands of feet into the Earth.
Purportedly, a serendipitous cave-in had unearthed not only a new depth record (rumours are suggesting almost three miles), but something else amazing. Apparently no one even wanted to come back up once they saw it. That worried me a little, but I took it as superstition. Of course people would come back up eventually. Regardless, I had a job to do.
So I ventured deep beneath the surface of the Earth, alone. I was excited, but understandably nervous. And my nerves got worse the longer I descended. The elevator only took eleven minutes or so to reach the bottom, which I suppose was pretty quick for a nearly three mile journey, but still seemed like a long time to be alone in an elevator. I guess I was also used to going only a few floors in a few minutes.
When it stopped I got out and met a man named Francson. He was very pale, having worked in the mines for over twenty years. Not straight, of course, but it wasn’t uncommon for men to spend a month or more at a time down here. We made introductions but he wasn’t a chatty fellow. I reasoned this was because his English was rudimentary. His accent was thick, but not unintelligible, and he was going to be my guide the rest of the way down. Apparently we were only halfway to the bottom. Yes, it blew my mind too.
The second half of the trip down was when I started noticing the heat increasing the deeper we went. At the bottom of the second elevator the heat cooled a bit, then came back in stages, seeming to blow with the wind. The send thousands of tons of ice into these tunnels every day to keep it cool enough to work in.
And there were a lot of tunnels. Hundreds of miles of tunnels. One could easily get lost down here if they didn’t know where they were going. Luckily I had a guide.
After a ten minute walk we came to a group of men – also extremely pale – who seemed to be waiting for us. They all turned at once, and I saw that even their eyes were also pale. The pigment in them had turned nearly white. It was, in a word, creepy.
“We have been waiting for you,” one said, his accent almost unrecognizable. He offered me a cup of what looked like water. “Drink this.”
I didn’t accept the cup. “What is it? I was told not to drink anything down here.”
“It is water, and it is good. Drink.”
Again I refused. “I got my own in my bag here.” I removed my backpack and took out a bottle of water to take a swig.
They looked at each other with blank faces for a moment, and I became worried I’d upset them. While I didn’t want to offend anyone, I was here to do my job, not put my life at risk. There was a bacteria that lived in the water this far under the Earth, cutoff for millions of years. It was a fascinating life form to study – if you were a biologist. I didn’t want to ingest it.
I then retrieved my electronic depth gauge and put my backpack back on, but as I was fiddling with it hands locked around my arms from behind and I dropped it.
“It is custom,” Francson spoke into my ear. “You must drink.”
The man with the cup came forward, arm outreached like he was going to pour it on me. The others watched stoically, reminding me of zombies, and I became very frightened. I kicked out, knocking the cup out of water to the tunnel floor. Then I shoved backwards, sending Francson and myself into the wall. With a cry of surprise he released my arms.
I took off down the tunnel, not knowing where I was going but hoping to find the elevator. I heard shouts in their native tongue, but once voice rose above them in English.
“You will get lost Miles. But let us help you and you will know all these tunnels.”
I took a fork in the tunnel, followed by another, knowing he was right. But I also knew I did not want to drink whatever was in the cup. Why would they want me to do that? Why couldn’t I just do my job and leave?
That’s when the lights went out, leaving me in total darkness. I stopped running, putting my hand against the wall to ground myself. Then I jerked my hand back; the rock was scorching hot.
“We can help you see too,” called the voice. “Just drink the water and join us.”
It sounded closer. They would find me if I just stood here. I don’t know how they would see in the dark but they knew these tunnels better than I did, and they probably had flashlights for emergencies like this. I saw no light coming from behind me but I wasn’t going to take that chance. I dug into my backpack and pulled out my phone. The screen offered me a little light, enough to go by, but I had a light app on it that was much better.
I didn’t run even though I could see okay. I was looking for signs that might lead the way. So I walked, splashing through puddles of water, using my phone like a torch, but found no guidance. The more I thought about it, the more this seemed like a trap. And Francson was in on it. They were waiting for me when I arrived, they must’ve removed all signs of direction, and the power going off? I’m sure that wasn’t a coincidence.
I’m not sure how long I walked, but I felt like I was getting farther from the elevator, from escape. Sometimes I ran into dead ends and had to turn back, but I was afraid to run into the men. I knew I was being followed; I often felt eyes on me.
I heard a light flopping, slapping sound at one point. It sounded like it was right on top of me. I realized with a laugh that it was my shoelace, come undone. I stopped to tie it up and discovered the clear goo all over my shoes. Was it from the water I’d walked through? Everything else down here was pretty dry. It made me ill to think this goo was in the water they wanted me to drink.
“You will not leave this tunnel again, unless you drink the water.”
The words seemed to come from right behind me, scaring me half to death. I ran, afraid of being grabbed any second.
The next thing I knew I was sliding down a steep bank. I landed and rolled in some grass, dizzy and discombobulated. My phone had flung from my hands and landed a dozen feet away.
Wait, grass? I groggily sat up and looked around. What looked like grass, but thicker and glowing white faintly, was all around me. Small glowing things were floating through the air as well, little wisps of light, but they were high above me and I couldn’t see them. The fact that there was a large amount of space above me gave me pause. I was in a large cavern. Was this what they had found?
A creature with a bluish-green glow to it rolled up to my feet. I saw no eyes but thought it was studying me. I was a new creature to them too, I imagine. I long red tongue suddenly darted out of its mouth and stuck to my shoe, which began sizzling. I figured I should go grab my phone so I could have a better look around, see what I’m dealing with. And most importantly, find a way out.
That’s when I was blindsided and tackled to the ground. I felt hands all over me, holding me down. In the dim light my phone was giving off I saw the shadow of a face hover above mine.
“You will drink the water. You will join us.”
“Let me go!” I shouted, struggling against them. “I won’t drink it. What do you want? Just let me g-” Something was jammed into my mouth hard, splitting my lip open. I tasted blood as I bit my teeth around what felt like a flat rock. I mumbled around it, unable to close my mouth.
Then the man above me began making guttural, gurgling noises, and after a few seconds a warm, frothy liquid splashed over my face, dripping into my forced-open mouth. He was vomiting on me.
I struggled more violently that I ever had in my life, but it was futile. They weren’t letting me go. They took turns throwing up into my mouth, holding my nose so I’d have to swallow if I wanted to breathe. Had I known then what would happen to me I would have chosen to suffocate.
Once they’d purged their stomachs they let me go. I ran to my phone and grabbed it, then ran far from them. They didn’t pursue me as I crawled my way up the treacherous incline to the hole I’d fell through. When I was alone I grabbed my water bottle from my backpack and poured some on my face, and drank some. Then I forced myself to throw up, hoping to eject what they’d forced into me. After, I wandered the tunnels, lost and alone, until my phone battery died. I curled up on the dirty floor and cried myself to sleep.
When I awoke, I could see. Not well; it was like looking at an x-ray or something. But I could navigate my way. Even stranger: I seemed to know where I was. The tunnel was somehow familiar to me – maybe I’d been here before? I studied my surroundings and made my way back to the huge cavern. All the creatures that dwelled within were no longer foreign to me. It’s not like I knew what they were; I just seemed to recognize them. I knew the cavern had been isolated for a very long time, as had the animals that dwelled within. It was a self-contained ecosystem. We made all of it. I mean this one organism did. Over millions of years it created, evolved, and nurtured this environment. It was astounding, if you thought about it.
All the men were gone, but I no longer feared them. I felt we had an understanding now. I looked out at the glowing grass, spreading as far as the eye could see, yet feeling it was so small, compared with what was outside it. We were intruders, I suddenly realized, us humans. A loud noise had interrupted a world that had been at peace for longer than the entirety of human existence. I wasn’t sure how I knew this, but it just seemed obvious now.
The longer I sit here writing this the more it becomes apparent: I’m infected. They put the worm in me, the bacteria. The only thing alive down here. It was everywhere; in the dirt, the water, the rock. And it was harmless. But in the cavern, the sealed hollow rock – like a geode – it flourished, evolved. We didn’t even know…sorry, it didn’t even know there was anything outside, on the other side of the rock. Then man blew his way into their world, destroying everything they knew
But now we knew there was more. More outside, and we want – there I go again – they want to see it. It’s infected us all, knows what we know. There’s so much! How can there be so much more?
That’s why it needs me; it wants to see the sunlight. The miners, they’re no good. They’ve adapted to the darkness. But someone like me: I can see the sun, I can protect them with my tolerance for the surface life. They will be safe with me. I will keep them safe.
No! I must stop this. If you’re reading this then my plan worked. I’ll send this journal up alone on the elevator, then break it. Don’t fix it; follow us down; seal us inside – we’re already doomed. Bury this place for the rest of time.
I must hurry, before it takes complete control of us. I think they know. We all know what goes on down here. Maybe we can still kill myself. I don’t want to be a part of us. Maybe I can throw myself into the elevator gears after I send it up. Kill two birds with one stone.
To be a bird would be nice. I would like to try flying. We must stop writing before we lose control.
The Chris Effect 
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