I was studying near halfway across the world in England researching the relationship between longhorn beetles and ancestral conifers when the sinkhole in the Karst Mountains had been discovered. Found accidentally by researchers, a preliminary expedition had found an immense primitive forest maintained within the crater for ages, 40 meter trees soaring from the amalgamation of stone and soil at its bottom. It was not merely the novelty of this discovery, however, which caught my attention, but the fact that numerous ancient maps of the Chinese region seemed to depict an unnamed civilization within the mountain range, its name often written in an untranslatable script. In the instances where I had seen the title of the city depicted, the characters meant little within our modern ability to translate them. I was, admittedly, passionate about cartography in my spare time to an extent which might seem absurd.

As fate would have it, however, I received word from the university, taking note of my interest in the subject, that a botanist was needed on a second expedition. I accepted in a hasty combination of genuine curiosity and a desire to escape the mundane lab work which had haunted my stagnant career for the better half of the last decade. After all, few would be able to say they were a member of a preliminary expedition to a virtually unstudied piece of subterranean geography. Although, as I would come to learn, I would not be a member of an expedition, but rather its sole surveyor.

Admittedly, I knew little of the Karst Mountains or their surrounding flora, only that sinkholes were not uncommon due to tectonic movement in the region and that there were theories of similar locations existing nearby. There was much chatter amongst the botanists in the Western world regarding the potential to discover new or long-extinct species which had been sheltered by the untraversable terrain and the sprawling pit which housed them. I was excited to spearhead an exploration, though as a bark specialist in England, I had little idea of what I might expect in the depths of the Chinese underground, surrounded by novel dangers of a subterranean camping experience.

I arrived at the Karst within a fluttering helicopter of dented metal and chipping paint which had taken off from a nearby concrete structure hidden within the thick, wavering clumps of mosslike trees and centered between a smattering of small structures in which one can provide evidence of travel fare and locate connecting baggage. The mountains themselves were scattered around a series of lush, flat terrain and a coursing river which cut viciously through the domed rock spires and would be of independent interest had it not been for my preassigned arrangements with the mountains themselves. Each appeared fairly isolated from its brethren as though a moss-draped pustule of stone ripping from the crust of the Earth, surrounded by the lobed fronds of trees resembling towering moss or tropical shrubbery.

The hole itself was enormous in its diameter, spanning the concave earth between several small peaks in the broader range. Despite the difficult environment uttered by its alarming depth, each ledge and crevice in its earthen wall was studded with a plenitude of plant life, verdant flora with names with which I was only vaguely familiar. Though certainly not those rumored undiscovered species of botanist lore, the mere edge of the plummeting fissure was more awe inspiring than any location I had studied in the English countryside. I would descend upon a rope and pulley which my portly pilot was able to secure at the edge of the ledge, while a harness constricted my waist as though I were donning the oppressive corsets of the Victorian era. Before long, a great deal of weighty supplies heaped carelessly upon my spine, I was descending into the sun-dappled land of an ancient world, secured between peaks in the Karsts for as long as any human could tell. And, just like that, I was alone.

The inner regions of the primary area were draped in a cloudlike mist, a carpet of moss and other simple bryophytes and lycopods covering much of the supple black stone which coated the innards of the mouthlike sinkhole. Though there was no means a forest in the particular area in which I landed, the landscape was studded with palms and primitive cycads, several resembling ancestral genera which must have grown for hundreds of years to reach their impressive sizes. There were a series of tunnels, each somehow provided with sunlight through relatively small gaps in the surface, several of which seemed nearly impossible to squeeze one’s way through. However, several appeared more like hallways and reached different “rooms” of the sinkhole, many apparently studded with their own endemic flora and fauna. As the sun had yet to set, I decided to cease in lugging around my “camping” supplies and explore a bit of the ecosystem.

In truth, the verdant denizens of that sinkhole were not unlike what one might expect from a similar forest undisturbed since antiquity. There were numerous tropical aroids, largely unbloomed, many vining or associating in dense bushes of spadelike leaves. Cycads were plentiful, though largely small, and it seemed as though they had been within the same location for centuries, several still sporting shriveling cones from their previous season of fruiting. There were a few flimsy trees, largely difficult to identify on a species by species basis due to the fact that they were young and had yet to flower or seed. I figured they must have been transported by an endemic bird living within the subterranean, though not isolated to the sky, region.

Come to think of it, however, there were no birds to speak off. I had seen several ants and miniscule black beetles, but the interior of the sinkhole was almost eerily silent. I found I could hear the mere drop of a leaf as it fell upon the mossy detritus, and the buzzing of gnat seemed to me a symphony of unbearable sound. Perhaps it was then that I should have realized the uncanny nature of the place, but with the spirit of an adventurer shouting through my subconscious, I ignored the call of reason.

It soon came time to rest, and I set up a temporary camp of truly primitive nature within the great uncrowded expanse between the bunches of foliage. I hardly had time to eat my rations, however, for briefly after compiling the notes used to write this section of my account, I found myself unusually tired. In the name of fairness, I will admit that, at the time, this tiredness hardly seemed unnatural. In fact, it is only as I look back on my experiences within the sinkhole that I identify it as any more than a bout of exhaustion caused by entering a particularly difficult section of our Earth.

I had some slew of strange dreams that I cannot recall and awoke to a silent, but pleasantly-temperatured, morning in the sinkhole. Little had changed, though tiny trickles of dew fell from the climbing vines along the igneous edges of the encampment, weaving themselves through the rock as though sewn carefully by a seamstress of the Earth itself. The tiny trickles, which would have been barely noticeable, commanded my earliest attention in the first few minutes of the dawn when contrasted with the otherwise dreadful silence.

For the first couple hours of the morning, I dined on salted, cured meat as well as water with vitamin C hydration powder and left to take samples before collapsing my gear and heaving it through a passageway to yet another sinkhole. I collected fractions of tubers, pressed leaves and encased a variety of seeds in various plastic vials, meticulously labeling them with numbers in glossy black pen which corresponded with my identification notes in my fieldbook. I look back on that morning fondly, for I was truly immersed in the contents of my work, not what they would bring within the vapid throes of my life.

It was not long before I realized that I should move on. It wasn’t so much the eeriness that irked me, but rather that I was enticed by the possibility of almost endless alcoves, their botanical history frozen in time. I gathered my belongings, wrapping the sleeping bag into a tight coil, the fluid vortex at a great sphere’s center. I forced everything into the too-small rucksack I had brought, which was thankfully just barely small enough to fit through several of the one-person tunnels that connected the sinkholes. I threw it on my back, half-jumping towards the final patch of vegetation which crowded the most noticeable gap in the expansive sinkhole walls. It was then, however, that I noticed something.

Already exhausted, though not taking note of it, I peered towards a variegated leaf of a nameless old-world arum and observed its residence. On a particularly colorless section of the vegetation was a crab spider, a squat arachnid with a plump body and a series of spindly legs pulled towards its obscured face, ready to pounce. Its body was a bright cream white, but when disturbed or accosted, the thing grew a shining yellow. This color change was not mere incidental, but allowed for numerous options of camouflage. On white, yellow, or perhaps even pink blossoms. Chromatophores, the cells are called, which allow for rapid transformation in the pigment of the organism. Most importantly, it was the first animal of note I had encountered up to that point, in that silent jungle.

After taking note of a few Hibiscus relatives and a small vine with purplish drupes, I began to force myself through the fairly sizable tunnel, crouched but free of genuine claustrophobia, though quite tired from the small ordeal alone. My creaking fingers bent to fit the veined texturing on the erections of black stone to either side, sliding along the moisture-coated ridges. Before long, I was witness to a new landscape, larger in size but lit by only a handful of fissures that joined the sun, around which small forests of vegetation fought for the nourishment of the brightness.

The darkness was alive as well, and perhaps offered a more rewarding prospect despite its unlimited biodiversity. “Like plants, so men also grow, some in the light, others in the shadows. There are many who need the shadows and not the light.” Carl Jung. The significance of this quote is visible only in the context of this entire account. I certainly was not considering it as my eyes peered over a mass of potential undiscovered subterranean forest, contained entirely within a series of sinkholes buried deep within the Karst Mountains.

My first instinct was to begin surveying the increasingly alien forest, but I knew it would likely be more prudent to set up a camp. I was exhausted. Despite sleeping so deeply the previous night, I could hardly manage to bring myself to arrange my belongings in such a way that I would be spared the burden of setup once the forest was twilit and the stars above the sinkhole had disappeared. I did so, and began to explore the vegetation, forcing my buckling legs and my weary, nodding head towards the well-lit patches of ancient forest, primitive palms growing alongside Ficus and large associations of various begonias. Small pools of water had collected nearby, sporting a small number of aquatic insect larvae which darted quietly amidst the rotting leaves.

It was here that I discovered one of the first animals of significant size, a vibrant green lizard with a saillike crest darting from behind a cluster of gesneriads. It ran, as a reptile would, but stopped suddenly upon noticing something behind me. It froze, in incomparable fear, and began to slowly immerse itself in the leaf litter, clearly terrified of what lay behind me. Yet, though I looked, my eyes darting back and forth, I could see nothing. I simply assumed it must have been a strange reaction to my presence or, perhaps, an atmospheric change. However, I did feel a strange wind brush past me, as though something was moving by. It was the only disturbance in the otherwise stillescent air.

Soon after, I became aware of some markings on my leg. On my ankle were three small suction marks, like an octopus might apply, and though I assumed they had come from the creeping tendrils of a vining plant, they seemed bright red at the skin, as though they had been holding on for some significant amount of time, despite the fact that I had never noticed anything remotely similar. Perhaps I had scraped them in miraculously circular detail movin through the gap in the cavern or, perhaps, some insect had bitten me in my sleep. I knew I should not focus on them but, between them and my almost preternatural fatigue, I became worried that I was braving Poe’s underworld utterly alone.

Though I continued to take samples, grasping branches and pulling apart cones of purplish berries, the blue sigh of something unseen uttered out across the sinkhole. More than likely, I knew, it was the shifting of stone or the movement of a leaf-covered branch, though it combined with each other sign of something amiss to further instigate my fear and paranoia. I found the particular forest or, sets of small forests, to be an unpleasant location in which I was a denizen, and decided I might repack my materials before exiting through a second tunnel, a bit more cramped, and escaping to what seemed to be a lush, brightly lit world of antiquarian organisms.

While assembling my gear, I found myself overtaken by that fatigue once more. Indeed, it was so intense that I merely dropped my pack and collapsed in the moss and igneous gravel. I began to dream in my catatonic state, a red fog collapsing over the sinkhole forest, wisps of cinnabar forcing themselves into my lungs, drawing out from inside me wisps of silvery blue soul. I was unmoving, feeling my skin shrink-wrapped around my bones as whatever unseen presence pulled from me the last essence of my will to life. I awoke, and knew the dream must have been some portent of things to come. My fate, in some obscure and unanalyzed manner, had been evinced in the dreadful realm of sleep. Indeed, it was Poe who said that “those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night.”

Still, there was little option but to continue, for I could not force that curiosity and adventure from my spirit, no matter how exhausted I found myself, two more of those suction marks appearing on my right wrist. I had just begun to explore the full extent of the unviewed sinkholes, and I could see through the cramped tunnel the trunk of some large tree sprouted from within the mossy substrate on the opposite side of the sleek pitch walls. I grabbed a vial of seeds from a nameless begonia.

I forced myself, eyelids drooping, through the cavernous tunnel, scuffing the fabric of my pack which I had, at last, filled with my effects, and felt my skin brush gently against the impossible smooth interior of the doorway. I could feel all the while a presence watching me, invisible eyes forced upon my neck, following me. I hoped I could escape whatever haunted the sunlit interiors of the sinkhole, praying it would not move alongside me to yet another cavern. I knew my trail, and knew I could return if I must. I felt delirious, but still I moved, into yet another location in my terrible journey.

Unlike the other forests and regions of brush, there were a few small sections of vegetation which were associated around a much larger central tree. It was quite old, perhaps a sole example of a tree whose size was able to reach its ultimate limit in the perfect combination of light, rain and fertilizing material. Still, something seemed wrong, the grey, crackling bark of the tree and its golden-green leaves did nothing to mitigate the frightful appearance of its thick, writhing roots, splitting veins in the mossy blackness. I could feel those eyes still, drawing closer.

I was reminded of the words which are attributed to Carl Jung. “No tree, it is said, can grow up to Heaven unless its roots reach down to Hell.” Indeed, I wondered if this tree, contained within the sinkhole, meant I was present in either Heaven or Hell. The sinkhole was rather edenic, but still, was the Garden of Eden not a prison of its own design? An endless realm of verdant pleasure without any of the means which exalt the soul? I was certain I could use a serpent of wisdom. After all, I believe it was the British playwright Anton Wheyersworth who said “Hell does not exist within the fiery confines of Gehenna, but within one’s own mind in its isolation from the One True God.”

I was exhausted, and turned to sit, but as I moved I could see that which had been haunting me, stalking my every move. It was a great white figure, ghostly and transparent, floating above the vegetation, accented by drops of carmine blood. I fell back in terror, a mix of exhausting and fright nearly forcing me to collapse in a bout of unconsciousness. But as I flailed against the rock, not screaming but secreting from my pores beads of burning sweat, I realized just what I had seen.

It was almost comical, that realization, for no ghost fluttered above in a bout of spectral whiteness. Instead, I had seen the half domed, pellucid flower of a perennial arum, the drops of blood being reddish beetles, their glazed shells crowding near the inflorescence in search of the carrion, a scent only replicated by the ingenious plant to increase the likelihood of pollination taking place on its inflorescence. I sketched a rough depiction in my notebook, though my hands trampled and dragged so much that it appeared as little more than an abstract interpretation of what lay before me.

I was sick, paranoid, exhausted, overtaken by whatever illness or presence had woven its way into my mind and body. I sat there, in front of the arum, curled up and rocking in a state of total delirium. The fright posed by the phantasmal flower had, indeed, expended so much energy that I hardly found a way to move. Something rustled in the bushes, something large, though not physical form could be seen, other than exhaustion-induced hallucinations of brief disturbances in the air. I could see a small patch of black birds sail above the exposed entrance above the sinkhole, but otherwise not a thing moved in that forest, save for wherever the unseen presence seemed to lie, brushing back weeds in such a visible way that I became certain I must have gone insane.

It began to follow me, winding past the trees, rustling the tiniest disturbances in the thick moss coat around its trunk, suddenly splitting a trail in the vegetation quickly, approaching me with great speed. I forced myself into a smaller tunnel, abandoning my pack so long as I could evade the unseen thing which seemed larger than I based on its patterns of movement evinced by the rustling grass. The aureate sun peeked through the tunnel, though I could not see what lay on the other side. Horrified, anxious, sweating with a frigidity unknown to all but the explorers of gelid Antarctica, I made my way through, lightly bruising both elbows on the walls which constricted around me, forcing myself up the winding staircase of the dream’s pearlescent snail shell. At last, the jet-hued rock opened to reveal yet another typical forest. Perhaps, I thought, at last, I was safe.

The illusion of security came with the necessary quality of profound brevity. I could see a vaguely-grey shape slumped upon the black and green, standing out for this very reason. I approached it, briefly free of the watching sensation which haunted my every movement. Initially, I could not tell exactly what I was looking at, though as I kicked away the stems of some pinkish begions, I looked down in perturbation as my mind finally began to process that which lay at my trembling feet.

It was the body of a man, or what was once a man, the skin bound so tight around the bone, so devoid of liquid, that it seemed almost a mummy of Egyptian lore. Its face had been relatively brutalized, presumably by the rock upon which it had fallen, and dried bits of vitreous jelly stained the dehydrated skin which had been pulled taught around the pronounced cheekbones. Several teeth had fallen, and gashes in the lips and chin revealed that the entire contents of the thing, all the flesh within, had been entirely expunged of any liquid, any blood which would have coursed through the veins, now a ribbonwork of frozen blues, protruding slightly from the cinearal skin, woven in wisps of fabric around the skeleton.

I was nauseated, repulsed, terrified, falling back as I felt the eyes above my neck one more. It was Yukio Mishima who wrote that “the special quality of Hell is to see everything clearly down to the last detail.” There was no question regarding the reality of this situation. Perhaps I could have rationalized the watching eyes, the strange movements, the marks and the utter silence. I could not, however, rationalize the preternaturally desiccated body which lay just ahead of me.

I moved in a sluggish manner, taking note of where the tiny breaks in the air and appearance of the plants manifested themselves, ducking as I brought my exhausted body, having forgotten to eat, around the rocks and clumps of vegetation, around the trunk of the great tree and towards yet another fissure in the wall, one which I was not positive would fit me, though without my pack I was confident I could worm myself through if it meant I escaping that hideous presence which had clearly exsanguinated the man who had been there before me, perhaps many years ago. I had no doubt I was the most appealing morsel of prey for that horrible creature, even if I could not see it.

I tumbled through, bruised, bleeding, and emerged in a relatively flat, lichen-coated area with numerous small palms and aroids growing up from the twilight-hued soil. I assumed I was safe, but I soon found myself consumed by a sort of loss of energy which turned me nearly instantly unconscious. I could feel something sucking on my arm as I fell into a deep slumber, collapsing and bruising my head, though I did not know it at the time. It was almost instant, the darkness, the rest flowing through my body. It would have seemed merely a result of sleep deprivation under any other circumstances.

I awoke in a dream, which was exactly like the environment where I had fallen, though I could not move a muscle despite perfect sensory awareness. With great haste, I realized I was not contained within the claustrophobic confines of a dream, but truly awake, and truly immobile. A ripple formed in the air before me, and I was certain I had failed to evade that which pursued me.

The transformation which appeared before me is impossible to explain or even assess, though I will try my hardest. The transpiration was, perhaps, material, but otherworldly in the sense that, as Ludwig Wittgenstein said, “the limits of my language mean the limits of my world.” The most effective way to describe it refers back to the example of the crab spider early in the nonchalant beginning of my journey. The creature before me did not simply appear from an invisible realm but changed, the colors of its body progressively appearing in their true form, rather than the mimicry offered by some chromatophores in the creature’s reddish skin. The color was structural, and nearly perfected in its camouflage.

I am sure I will be accused of a complete departure from sanity and some complex environmental psychosis, but I assure you the reality was sickening. After all, it was William S. Burroughs who said that “A paranoid is someone who knows a little of what’s going on. A psychotic is a guy who’s just found out what’s going on.” All my fear, all my paranoia, and the hallucinations upon my skin were vindicated by that which stood opposite me, growing nearer as its bulbous lips salivated.

The thing, I got a good look at it while paralyzed, was vaguely froglike in form, and admittedly not much larger than I. It had a reddish-russett, mucinous flesh which was evidently able to flash patterns and colors at a maddening speed. Its slobbering mouth and undulating vocal sac were devoid of any teeth, and at the ends of its hands and feet wiggled a series of toe-like protrusions, each tipped with a puckering suction cup. Suddenly the marks on my skin became evident. Somehow, through an unknown process, the creature was using me to sustain itself. Miniscule streams of blood ushered from within the most recent marks of its presence, two punctures just below my right wrist.

I assumed my fate was that of the desiccated corpse in the sinkhole over, the creature would come to feed, expunging my blood from within. There was little hope of survival, of escape. But then, perhaps miraculously, I began to silence my mind into an elysian stillicide and draw myself inwards, reaching within to find guidance. Somehow, I began to move, slowly at first. My arms ached and felt impossibly heavy, my legs spasmed. However, as I forced every inch of living spirit into my body, I rose from the ground, frightening the beast which, taken aback, failed to disguise itself among the complex patchwork of the verdant embroidery behind it.

I ran. I sprinted. Every muscle in my body howled, every signal told me to relent, to collapse. Whatever that thing had stolen from me, it was not just blood, it was some abstract form of life force. Perhaps, it was the wisps of spirit lost in the dream. At that point, I could only run.

I had, unbeknownst to the panicking horror, heaved a black section of stone up from within the soil and, reversing my course towards the previous sinkhole, casting myself into the cavern and forcing the rock inside, crushing two of my toes but unlodging them in time for the puckering tendrils upon the creature’s hands to be unable to entrench themselves within my flesh, writhing within the gaps that separated us.

Somehow, by whatever miracle, I have managed to survive, though I am unsure how long I will have before the creature reaches me. Moving deliberately, I have recovered my pack, and my only source of sanity is journaling, writing this account. It is nearly night, and I will need to rest if I should hope at all to escape that very first sinkhole, a task of great physical endurance. I pray that I will escape the tendrils of that subterranean horror as I sleep, and regain my consciousness. I cannot, however, be sure that it is not with me now, though I know that if I am to resist it my power will not come from my forays into the external, but the pale fire which burns within that subtle glow, the blue glimmer of the One God within my soul. In the immortal world of Jesus Christ, “seek the spirit within you which you’ve made to live in this flesh from the angelic generations.”