Man in the Cavern

Before he had become the extraordinary man in the cavern, he had been an ordinary man with an ordinary life. He lived alone, worked out of his house. He did data entry as a freelancer, which would be useless for his career in the future. He learnt how to program on the side as a passion project. Unfortunately, he always thought he was never too good at it. He watched monitors to security cameras for his various employers, stifled yawns as he did. Nothing interesting happened. Before he was approached to become the man in the cavern, he was an ordinary man.

He went to the grocery store on Saturdays, grabbed healthy, organic fruits and vegetables. The first time, he had grabbed too many, and they had become spoiled. He didn’t have a big stomach. He didn’t, absolutely could not eat that much.

Before he became the Man in the darkened cavern, his life was one grey canvas. Fog swirling around it, obscuring most everything in it. Had there not been fog, one would see nothing of interest anyways. Shades of black and white, and grey that blended in with everything else. A dull portrait of a dull man.

He had grown up in a small town in a farming community in one of the great countries of modern civilization. He had glasses from an early age, he had been bullied from an early age. He had not known it then, but the three men who would decide his future, and the future of all living things were growing up in a town not too far away, a few hours ride away from him. The girl who would change everything was a day’s ride away from the four of them. It was a magical place, in a not so magical time.

His town had been drab, cattle and engines the only sounds that punctured the dusty skies. The roads were dust and mud and dirt, and not hard like gravel. It always smelled of milk and corn. It always felt… grey. Then he grew up. And left. Escaped. He had felt this urge pulling him in a direction. Something within him that knew something. He could not put it into words. But the tugging continued. His parents kept on saying no. The tugging within him grew stronger. He pushed. His parents pulled. Then the crash. His father had died one night coming home, drunk. The boy had said some mean things about there man had never learned to love, and his mother had kicked him out. He was happy then. He was happy even when he understood that he would not be coming back. He would not be allowed. It was not till much later that he missed her. Every now and then, in the cave, he would pull up a screen he had rigged to see if she was alright. Nothing would escape, they had told him. A single tear crossed his cheek every time he thought of how that encompassed her too. He had escaped. And found himself unable to escape the drabness of life that cloaked him thickly, wrapped around its tentacles too greedy to let go.

Then He had come to the man. And He had made His offer.