A Curious Friend

Torben opened his eyes, cracking the dried tears only to reveal a world surrounded in pitch black. He wasn’t sure if he passed out from the pain, or if fear overcame him to the point of unconsciousness. Unsure of his whereabouts, nor how he lost consciousness, he realized, he still lived. Whatever terrible fate he awaited never came.

                  “I’m still here, I’m still here,” he thought. At first, he regretted the good news. Then a foolish confidence infiltrated the phrase.

                  “I’m still here, I’m still here!” This time, with the realization that the dread of future events did not consume him. Whatever lived in the darkness did not kill him, and he still had a fighting chance. He couldn’t see anything, surrounded by the visually deafening blackness. He held still, listening for any evidence of the voice following him, yet he heard nothing. Only the dull ambience of the open caverns. He could hear distant noises, unsettling noise, although nothing directly around him.

                  “Move, move, move you fool,” he thought, paralyzed by fear. He reached out into the darkness, the muscle fibers aching with the extension of his arm, as if waking from a deep sleep. It hurt to move. Some from the bruises and scratches, some from his cramped, contracted muscles. He reached out and felt the floor in front of him. He could tell he sat on secure ground.

                  “What would Ella do?” Torben said to himself.

Though Ella never treated Torben with much respect or kindness, Torben looked up to her. He wished he could be as confident and as skilled as Ella. She never seemed to tire of bravery, adventure, a challenge, and she always seemed to have a solution whether she planned it out or generated a solution out of sheer spontaneity.

“What would Ella do?”

Torben thought again. He had nothing with him. He left his pack at the surface and lost his sword somewhere in the fall.

“What would Ella do?”

                  “Step one, determine what you have to work with.”

                  Submersed in the pitch black, Torben couldn’t see anything. He would hold up his hand in front of his face, only knowing it existed by feeling it connected to his body.

                  “Determine what I have to work with. Start with surroundings,” he thought as he outstretched his hand to define the surrounding darkness.

                  He knew he sat on solid ground, and it seemed to stretch out a fair distance around him, which he would soon explore further. Luckily, his desire to define his surroundings identified a low hanging ceiling, avoiding another blow to the head. His mind conjured a claustrophobic, trapped atmosphere. With several deep breaths, Torben fought the negative thoughts away, focusing only on what he knew to be real.

                  Upon further exploration, he came to understand that he backed himself into a small nook inside a much larger room. As he felt his way around, he discovered the room opened much farther than he expected. He felt great relief in the ability to stand, although now he faced the fear of a much larger, undefined, unknown in front of him. The darkness could contain anything.

                  “Define your immediate surroundings, determine what you have to work with.” Torben said to himself.

                  Before defining the larger part of the room, he returned to the edge of his immediate location, hoping to find some clue, or form of a path, to give him direction. He found more nooks in the room, possibly parts of a very large shelving system. Some appeared to be intact while rubble and loose rock buried or covered others. Torben felt along the ground and along the wall to help size up the room. As he felt the rubble, he could tell large blocks of stone had collapsed and shortened the width or height of the room. He decided to find out if the rubble in his way blocked an exit. Torben found holes in the rubble, stretching his hand as far as possible into the holes, most ending in compacted rubble, although some opened to a space that might fit an entire person.

                  In this moment, the pitch black aided his search. If Torben had light, the holes he reached in would be dark, or otherwise ominous lairs of the unknown. Since Torben now lived in a world of utter darkness, nothing seemed uniquely ominous because everything felt ominous.

                  Torben bent down low, feeling for any openings large enough to climb through. The thought occurred to him that depending on the structure and size of the pocket, it could operate as a shelter should any ill willed creature come after him. He found a large hole in the rubble. He stretched out his arm, feeling around the empty space. The area behind the rubble felt open with a flat surface. He tapped around with his hands when he heard the clang of metal.

                  He retracted his arm, thinking something already occupied his shelter. Then his sensory memory corrected his premonition as he recalled his fingers touching something. Something metal. Possibly a handle. He realized it might be a tool, or something to help him feel around the darkness, or even used as a defensive weapon. He reached his arm back in, stretched and stretched as his fingers could barely reach the end of a cylindrical shaped piece of metal. A little further and he grasped a handle! He pulled the heavy piece of metal through the opening of the debris. Of all the bad luck he faced, he struggled to accept the truth of what he found.

                  A sword.

                  Torben didn’t believe it at first. The sword wasn’t his lost sword. He knew right away that the found sword felt heavier and crusted in dirt and dust. A different type of weapon. He created a sensory map of the object in the darkness, feeling with his fingers around the edge of the handle. It felt long, with a slight curve and intricate work. His fingers traced the length and circumference, feeling the detailed work when his fingers came across what felt to be a loose part at the base of the hilt. He kept fidgeting with the oddities at the base of the handle. When he depressed a section on the handle, he heard a click and pop within the loose part of the handle. Torben twisted the base of the hilt a quarter turn, then grasped the flattened ball at the base and pulled it out. A thick spike like dagger hid in the sword's handle. It was cylindrical in its design, coming to a sharp point, unlike the thin sharp edge of a typical dagger.

                  “How strange,” he thought. He slid it back into place, twisted it, and it clicked securely into the handle.

                  He felt further along the handle. Even the cross bars felt like a work of curiosity. Like the handle, the blade was covered in crusted dirt. Rubbing through it, it seemed in good condition, still intact, somehow avoiding extreme corrosion or damage. The sword seemed to be rather long, quite longer than any sword he’s used in the past, yet it felt very light. The blade also curved unusually compared to the swords Torben was familiar with. Surprised to find one sharp side and the other side thick and rounded, Torben tried to create a mental image of what the curious sword looked like. As he followed the blade to the end, it surprised him to find the blade had a large hook at the end. The blade came to a sharp point, then curved back around to another sharp point, with a cut-out section creating a hook like design on the upper end of the sword.

                  “This is the strangest sword I’ve ever seen,” he thought to himself.

                  Then, with a small chuckle, he recognized he still hadn’t seen it.

                  “Enok would laugh if he heard that.”

                  Torben felt like himself again. He smiled. As he sat in amazement, he struggled to believe that in the depths of his despair; he found a symbol of hope. Torben brought the sword in close to his chest, grasping it in a hug. He found a friend in the darkness. Only a moment before, he wallowed in despair, expecting his life to end. But now he had hope. He grasped the sword tighter, cleaning off the crusted dirt and dust, pulling it in close, shedding a few tears of gratefulness. Though the sword could not guide him, give him advice, or laugh at his jokes, the sword gave him a sense of security.

                  “I’ll call you dark blade, because you gave me hope in the dark.”

                  An unseen smile cracked on his face. He felt the strength to move forward. Torben wondered where the others might be, whether they still sat at the surface or came looking for him. He laughed, thinking about Ella’s reaction to the sword he found. Wherever this sword came from, he could tell it was crafted from a very fine metal to be preserved so long in such circumstances. He smiled, thinking of the attention he would get from Ella with his strange new sword.

                  Again, he thought of Ella in this situation. He now understood his basic surroundings. He found a weapon of all things and knew he could protect himself. What would Ella do next?

                  “C’mon my dark friend, we’ve got work to do.” Torben spoke to the sword.

                  He did not want to dull the blade of the sword any more than necessary, but he knew he had to take the risk of mapping out the darkness. He stretched out his arm, sword in hand, and began poking around, looking for walls and boundaries. At first, he only discovered empty darkness. Then a clang and a spark. The sword hit into a wall of stone, the flash of the spark giving a small burst of light with a slight odor. The light burned into his visual memory.

Torben knew exactly what Ella would do.