Chatterbox: Inkwell

The man made his way through the dark cavern, a dim flashlight beam his only guide. Every breath he took echoed off the walls and ceiling of the cave, combining with the dripping stalactites to create an eerie athmosphere.

The man was not quite sure what he was looking for in the depths of this deep, dark cavern, or how had gotten there to begin with. The last thing he remembered was walking down the stairs in his apartment on an ordinary wednesdy morning, and then suddenly being transported to this less-than-ordinary location with nothing but a flashlight and nagging feeling that he was missing something. And that thing, whatever it was, he was determined to find.

At some point, the cavern began to become narrower, and the man was forced to get down on his hands and knees and carwl through the tapering passage. For hours, it seemed, he crawled through this tiny tunnel, and after a while he began to lose hope that he would ever find what he was looking for.

"I've lost one thing already, I don't need to lose my hope as well!" the man told himself. "I have to keep going!" 

So he pressed on, and sure enough, a light eventually appeared at the end of the tunnel. Finally, he reached the end and entered a room with a ceiling so high it was impossible to see.

The man stood up, and swept his flashlight around the room for  few seconds before erelizing he didn't need it. The room was very bright. So he pocketed the flashlight nd looked around for the source of the light.

There wasn't much in the room to look at, just a wooden treasure chest and multiple holes in the walls identical to the pasage he had just crawled out of. The man concluded that, since it mde no sense for light to come out of a dark hole, the light must've been coming from the treasure chest. 

The man cutiously approacheed the chest, notcing that the light illuminating the entire room was coming from the gap between the box and the lid. Whatever was inside this chest was the source of all the light, and most likely the objct the man had been looking for this entire time.

The chest had a triangular keyhole, which was rather unusual. The man decided to look in some of the holes in the wall to see if any of them containd the key, but when he reched into his pocket for the flashlight, he found it was no longer a flashlight. It was the very key whe was looking for.

"Odd..." the man muttered. "But not oddest thing that's happened today." So, ignoring the sudden appearance of the key, he stuck it into the triangular keyhole, turned it, and opened the chest.

At first, it was too bright to see a thing. But as the man's eyes adjusted to the light , he saw that inside the chest there were three very small glass balls, each one glowing brilliantly. At once, he knew that they were what he had been searching for. He also knew, somehow, that if he touched them, his wednesday would go back to being ordinary.

He reached out an arm to grab them, but before he could, he heard a very unsettling noise behind him. It sounded like the growl of a tiger combined with the hissing of a snake. Slowly, the man turned around, and what he saw made him drop the key and freze up in fear for a few seconds. Several giant serpents were slithering out of the holes in the wall, staring at him with an unblinking gaze. 

The man thought at lighting speed. The seprents were advancing fast, and they looked hungry. He couldn't touch the glass balls now, for one of the snakes would surely strike the moment her turned around. Finally, he decided he might be able to defend himself with the key, since it's sharp edges almost made it a weapon. 

Without taking his eyes off the serpents, the man bent down to grab the key, but what he grabbed instead was something much better. A sword. 

Not even questioning how a key had managed to become a sword, the man charged at the serpents, striking the first one on the neck. Instantly, the snake dissolved into green dust, which drifted up towards the ceiling and out of sight.

Unfazed, the other snakes continued to advance, lunging at the man with their fangs, but the man had newefound confidence. One by one, the man destroyed the beasts, until none remaineed. As the last serpent turned to dust, the man's sword vanished into thin air. Its purpose was served.

"Well, I suppose now there's only one more ething to do," said the man, wiping sweat from his brow. He walked back to the chest, took one last look at the glowing glass balls, and placed a finger on them.

Suddenly, he was no longer in a cave. He was sitting on an examination table in a doctor's office, surrounded by several people. One was obviously a doctor, and another he recongnized as his wife, Lisa.

"Where am I? What happened?" the man asked.

Lisa breathed a sigh of relief. "Thank goodness. I thought you'd gone completely insane."

The man looked at the docter in confusion. "What is she talking about?"

"Well," explained the docter, "Your wife tells me you fell down the stairs of your apartment. You hit your head pretty hard. You're lucky not to have broken anything."

"You've been talking nonsense for the past hour," Lisa said, "Caves and snakes and swords and whatnot. I thought you'd lost it!'

The man smiled. "Oh, my dear, you're right. I did lose it.  I completely lost my marbles." The man reached into his pocket and took out the small glass balls, which were no longer glowing. "It's a good thing I found them again." 

Just a little short story I wrote to pass the time.