The next day was eventful, to say the least. I ended up crashing at Ally's house since there was no way I could possibly go home. I woke up with a terrible hangover at around two pm, to a bunch of missed calls from my dad and a trending video of me punching Megan in the face.
I had one of those weird moments people have when they first wake up in the morning where they kinda lay down, just reflect on the day, and think about whatever's on their mind. I thought about what I'd say to Dylan and how I'd apologize; I figured I would just wing that too. I thought about when I'd go home, and how stupid I was for just running away like that. I really regretted how I treated my dad and felt horrible because of it.
In the middle of my sulking, Ally came into the room to talk to me. "Morning, if you're not too hungover, I was wondering if you'd be down to go on a walk." I figured anything was better than laying in my own sorrow, so I was glad to tag along. We walked for about 30 minutes, talking about a lot of things - my mom, Dylan, and even life after high school. She asked me why I had decided to drink so much and mentioned that she had never seen me like that.
I didn't have an answer for her. All my life, I absolutely despised it - from when I accidentally tried it when I was little because it was too gross, to when a drunk driver killed my mom, and most recently, when my dad became an alcoholic. I told her that I just felt so empty and hurt when I saw that Dylan had found someone else, like the one thing I had going for me wasn't. I started to feel even worse when I realized that must be how my Dad felt every day, and maybe it was even worse right at that moment that I ran away. After a few tears and a few hugs, we kept walking.
Sometime during the walk, I accidentally stepped on my shoelace and stumbled a bit. It was at this moment that the same weird necklace I found the night before came out of my pocket. I swore I had dreamt it, which is why the same shocked expression on Ally's face was also on mine. She asked me what that was and if it had anything to do with that weird cave I was wandering in last night. I figured just telling her would make me sound insane, so I did what any reasonable person would do, I lied. I told her it was just some stupid gag gift my dad gave me from one of his business trips. I bent over to pick it up quickly and touched it with the very tip of my finger, when this happened, everything around me suddenly went dark.
I was terrified. "Ally? Ally?!", no response. The darkness stayed for what felt like an eternity, until I saw a fire in the distance. With the help of the light from the fire, I realized I was inside of another cave. This one, however, wasn't as magical as the one from last night; no ancient texts or glow, just a plain old cave. I decided to walk towards the fire with two intentions - 1. hoping that whoever lit it could get me back home or at the very least explain what was going on, and 2. that I could at least find the exit of the cave.
As I walked closer to the fire, I paid attention to the cave's surroundings, finding close to nothing except some handprints on the walls of the cave that looked like something straight out of a museum. I kept walking towards the fire, and as I did, the light kept growing; I knew I was close to the exit. I stopped abruptly as I was getting closer to the exit when I heard grunting sounds coming from the opening of the cave. My heart sank to my chest, and my body got warm; I wasn't just scared, I was terrified out of my mind.
I froze completely out of fear that whatever I heard grunting would hear my footsteps, or that it already had. As I was frozen, followed by the grunting, I began to hear footsteps coming my way. I slowly walked back, hoping, praying the footsteps wouldn't get louder; they did. As the footsteps got louder and the fire got closer, I realized whatever was causing that fire was coming for me. I transitioned from slowly walking back to running back, hoping that I could hide myself in the darkness of the back of the cave.
As the steps and fire had finally reached me; a man with nothing covering him other than a leaf and a scruffy beard stood over me. With the fire still in hand, the man stared at me almost as if he had seen a ghost. I tried to communicate with the strange-looking man. "Hello?? Can you please help me get home??", no response. "I took this necklace from some cave last night. Do you have any idea what it means or why I'm here?" Once again, no response.
As the man was frozen at the sight of me, he began to slowly get up since I figured I was no longer in danger; this was a grave mistake. Once I began to get up, I had alarmed the man. The growling continued, and his facial expression changed from a blank one to one filled with rage. That warm, scared feeling once again returned to my body. The man let out a yell and charged at me. I tried my best to run away, but the man quickly caught me. Once he did, he jumped on top of me. He then tried to burn my face with the stick of fire. I quickly caught it, trying my best to hold it away from my face. He began to yell and scream in my face while I struggled to keep the fire off my face. The fire got closer and closer to my face, so close that I could feel its heat on my skin.
I don't know what made me do it, but just before he could press the fire to my face, something inside me snapped. I used every ounce of my strength to press the fire back towards him. It worked. I burned his face with the fire, causing him to immediately get off me, but it didn't stop there. Once I saw him on the floor, I realized that if I didn't take his life then and let him get up, I would only be putting myself at risk. I grabbed a shard of stone on the cave floor and walked over to him as he moaned and winced with pain. I then did something that I would never forget; I took his life. I pressed the shard into his neck as he groaned in agony. I went deeper and deeper into his neck until I couldn't hear his moans anymore. Once I knew he was gone, something inside me once again snapped, a side of me nobody has ever seen before. I got on top of his lifeless body and began to jab the shard into his face multiple times, creating a bloody mess in the surrounding area, including my clothes and face.
After it was all over, I stared in horror at what I had done, crying over the deed I had just committed. After a while of staring, I found it in myself to get up from the scene and take the fire for myself and walk towards the head of the cave.
Finally, I had made it out, but when I made it out of the cave, I realized that the battle back in the cave was only the beginning of my journey, wherever I was. At the exit of the cave, I was met with a forest filled with multiple exotic animals, things I had only seen in world history books. I didn't know where I was then, but I shortly found out. Every animal in the forest began to run away into the trees of the forest; I once again stood in shock, waiting to see what they were running from. Then I saw it. Running through the forest was a real-life T-Rex, and it was out for blood. It was at this moment I knew exactly what was going on; that stupid-looking necklace had taken me to the beginning of time.