That's one big pipe

"Come here, I want to show you something." Mike pulled Haley along by her hand, and she walked the walk of the reluctant into the damp cave. She had a bad feeling about this.

The farther from the entrance they got, the more darkness she expected, but it remained light. Looking around she searched for the source of the light, noticing small mushrooms growing from the cracks in the walls that glowed with soft white light. Surely that wasn't enough to light the whole cave, though.

"Look, over there." Mike said, pulling on her hand again, and she stumbled after him.

They stopped on the edge of a large precipice, and peered down into the blackness, like stones facing a well.

"That's one big pipe." Mike said, and Haley rolled her eyes.

"It's not a pipe, it's just a big hole in the ground," she said, wondering how Mike could function on a day to day basis if he couldn't tell the difference between a pipe and a cave.

"What, like the Grand Canyon?"

"Did you really just say that?" she asked, folding her arms over her chest in an attempt to ward off the chill dampness of the cave air.

"Oh come on," Mike said, slapping her on the back with a laugh.

His laughter stopped when she lurched forward, wind milling her arms in an attempt to keep her balance, but the pull of gravity was stronger than she was and she fell over the edge.

Haley hoped for an Alice in Wonderland kind of experience; talking cats, hookah smoking caterpillars and singing flowers would be an awesome ending to this fall, but since she wasn't slowing down, she wasn't banking on such good fortune.

She couldn't help but envision every gruesome possibility of her demise; smashing her head on the rock wall, being impaled on a stalagmite or being eaten by whatever animals made this cave their home. None of these sounded very pleasant, but she hoped for something quick.

What she wasn't expecting was the sudden stab of pain that lanced through her body when it hit freezing cold water. It closed in over her head, giving her an instant headache, and she thrashed her numb limbs. Following her bubbles, she fought her way up, breaking the surface and gasping in lungfuls of bitterly cold air.

She could hear Mike shouting down to her, his voice scared.

"I'm fine, Mike. Just get a rope quick, I'm freezing down here!" she said as she tread water, unaware of the eyes that watched her from the depths.