Wrong Turn

Snakes…

Snakes everywhere.I couldn’t move anywhere, couldn’t step anywhere, couldn’t even so much as speak and they would get me.I was trapped-“Oh.” I sighed.I had been having this same nightmare all week, although the actual “nightmare” element was different each time. This time was snakes, last time was spiders, and the time before that was… frogs. Okay sure, frogs may not be the first creatures most people think of when talking about things that keep you up at night, but I had seen things.Maybe I just don’t like them because a huge one crawled up my shirt when I was a kid. Might be that.I mentally listed off a few ideas on how to exterminate figments of my imagination.‘Flamethrower?’ Too easy.‘Rocket Launcher?’ Too messy.Wait. I could do better.Nodding to myself at the perfect Idea, I squatted down to eye-level with one of the snakes.“We’re going to be friends,” I informed the snake, my eyes daring it to disagree. The reptile’s expression didn’t change much… but then again, they don’t have facial muscles, so it could be smiling, right? I slowly reached out my hand in a placating gesture. It took one look at my hand, then promptly chomped it.… “Really?”I wasn’t startled or hurt, it was a dream after all. I was however, disappointed. I considered crossing my arms to express my disapproval, but quickly realized the issue with that. Begrudgingly, I settled on a frown. The snake just stared blankly at me. “Yeah, yeah. Laugh it up.”Surprisingly, someone else took my advice, as I heard a small giggle coming from off to my side. Turning my head, I was met with a strange sight. A deep midnight-blue unicorn with wings was watching my attempts at snake taming, the other snakes seemingly gone. Its starry (spacey?) mane and tail was slightly darker, and large, intelligent eyes stared back at me. It then spoke in a feminine voice.

"You do not seem much perturbed by this nightmare.” She sounded amused.

I blinked.Eh, might as well go with it.“Well at least something nice came out of this dream.” A few thoughts seemed to cross her face, which I noticed was oddly more expressive than a human’s. “You were aware this is a dream?” She asked, looking intrigued.“Well yeah. You’re a part of my dream too so you obviously know.” She seemed to silently consider this, a contemplative look on her face.“Anyhow, where are my manners? My name’s Kyle.”A small smile tugged at her lips. “You may call me… Luna.”“Aha! A triple of sevens! We… I have won yet again!” Luna cheered as she held up her cards.“It’s a three of a kind Luna.” I sighed, “And you’re way too good at this.”We had been playing poker for several hands… or hooves in her case. I won the first round, which was apparently “a fluke” in Luna’s words. Unfortunately, that was probably true. I hadn’t won since.“Tis okay Kyle, we cannot all be winners,” she smirked.“Uh huh.”“Well? Up for another game?”“Actually, I think we should try something else. I’m just not sure what’s all possible in this…” I gestured around me “lucid dream thing.”“Well, our sister recently taught us of a new card game, although its name is rather bizarre.”I raised an eyebrow.“It is called ‘Go Fish’, although it does not have much in common with the practice.”I couldn’t help myself. I burst out laughing.“What is so funny?” she demanded, her face in a pout.“Sorry. It’s just that-Suddenly, I clutched my head, cards falling onto the table. Luna stood up, looking at me in concern. “Are you okay?”“I… I’m not sure what just happen-Smack! Face met leather in a very one sided battle as my tour bus hit a second, bigger bump.---“Ow.”“Dude, you were out for almost an hour. We’re almost there.”Ah. Maybe I should introduce myself. My name is Kyle Baker, I’m 21, I work at a fast food place, and I am a bit over a year to getting my electrical engineering degree. I have brown hair and brown eyes. Pretty boring huh? Luckily my friends are a bit more interesting.First off, there’s Neil, both a funny guy and a huge nerd. He does a lot of audio sampling and production, makes references almost no-one can catch, and somehow makes the nerdy-glasses-look cool as hell. He’s usually the one arranging our group’s meetups, like this “exclusive once in a lifetime bus ride”, which has… mixed results. Neil can really bring out the best or worst in an idea, and he knows it.Then there’s Felicia, or Fey as we usually call her, who is probably the only mentally stable person in our group. She does art, and while she isn’t shy, Fey just doesn’t talk much to anyone outside the group. Overly demanding parents inspired her to pull up a flower at recess and put it in her hair, and she hadn’t taken it off since (well, not literally). Come to think of it, that’s probably why she likes art too.And Dave. How to explain Dave? You really don’t understand until you’ve met the guy. He’s the only one of us currently unemployed and coasts it through on a small apartment and a savings account. I would have been more worried, but it’s Dave we’re talking about. He talks the least of us, which is a bit off-putting considering he’s 6’2” and has a voice deeper than any of my professors. When Dave does talk, however, you listen. He’ll sometimes make well-worded arguments, compromises, or give a few needed words of encouragement. Or he’ll say something ridiculously random or stupid. You never really know.We booked an incredibly well-priced bus tour of Nevada for spring break with Neil’s insistence that it wouldn’t go like last time (the driver actually offered us a refund after the fifth time the bus broke down). Sure, it was an unconventional vacation for a bunch of college kids, but we always had fun on our little adventures.I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes. “Where is the next stop anyways?” I yawned out.Neil snorted. “You think I pay that much attention?” Then he leaned in and mock-whispered “Plus the bus driver kinda creeps me out.”Said bus driver, other than looking a bit like an old homeless guy, had been exactly what you would expect from a bus driver. Mostly quiet that is. I thought I heard him mutter and laugh to himself a few times, but then again, who doesn’t? The weirdest thing was probably the beanie, which had the phrase “Life needs a little chaos!” written in messy patchwork on it.“I don’t think I need to remind you who bought the tickets.” I glared at him. “And so far, I have not been impressed.”“Hey! The Area 51 restaurant was nice! And look around, we practically got a private tour!”It was true, the only person outside of our group on the bus was the driver…Okay, he was a bit creepy.The sound of someone fidgeting in their seat shifted my focus to the seats across from us.“Look Dave, the sleeper awakens,” announced a tired-sounding Fey.“That’s nice.” Dave didn’t even look up from his book.An awkward silence followed.…“Twenty Questions anyone?”The response to Fey’s questionable game choice was cut off by the grating of tires slowing down.“Welp,” said Dave “Guess we made it.” He sounded bored. To be fair though, he always did.“Where did we ‘make it’ to though?” I queried, still skeptical of the tour’s quality. A peek out the window didn’t reveal much either, with nothing out one side and a rock obstructing the other.Dave flipped open the travel brochure and started skimming through. Confused, he flipped it over and squinted at one of the maps.“Uhhh…”"The highlight of the tour of course.”I jumped, face meeting leather yet again. The bus driver seemed to just pop up out of nowhere.“Why,” his eyes glinted with mirth “It’s truly a one-in-a-lifetime experience!”Something about his voice was just off. It just held a vibe of uncertainty, as if he were just as likely to be a normal, totally unsuspicious bus driver, as a serial killer.And that was ignoring the little fact I was positive of the lack of creepy old guys next to me a few seconds ago.“Yeah, uh, where exactly are we?” I asked.“Well if you want to know so badly, come outside!” he replied in an all too cheerful voice. “Unless you didn’t want to see my absolute favorite part?” I could’ve sworn he pouted, which was much less adorable on his face than Luna’s.Huh. Don’t usually remember my dreams. I can worry about that later.I glanced at Neil, my gaze again blaming him for this mess. He huffed, then stood up and motioned for us to follow, “Come on guys, we did pay for this.”I rolled my eyes and stood up, stretching the cramps out, and awkwardly hobbled out the door, my friends following me out in only slightly better condition.Dave paused for a second, and spoke to himself “Is it just me, or does he sound familiar?” He shrugged and moved on.---We were still in the middle of nowhere. There was sand, cacti, rocks, and… that’s about it.A lone tumbleweed blew past us as if we needed a reminder of that. Okay, there was more than one, but the point still stands! Tumbleweed? Nowhere-Land? You get the idea.The “rock” blocking the windows turned out to be one of the mesas that dotted the horizon, which we had parked by for some purpose.Driver stepped out of the bus.Yes, I’m calling him Driver. It’s easier than saying ‘the bus driver’ every time I refer to him. I don’t know his real name anyways, and honestly, I don’t want to.Driver spread his arms toward the side of the cliff, where I noticed a large storage door stuck to its face. The blinking sign above it read “Cacophony Cave” in neon letters.“Well what do you think? Quite the sight eh?”“There is no way in hell I’m going in there,” I whispered, crossing my arms.As I spoke Driver walked to the large door and started to open it.“Look Kyle, I’m sorry about this, but what exactly do you recommend we do?” asked Neil, who sounded exasperated. “Run?”Yeah, not a chance out here.“Call 911?”No bars. Too bad. I wanted to post ‘going to cave with creepy homeless guy lol’ on Facebook before I died.Who am I kidding, I don’t even have an account.“We could steal the bus while he’s not looking?” Fey chipped in hopefully.“He took the keys,” said Dave as he walked out from the bus a second time.Neil pinched the bridge of his nose. “Look. I hate to say it, but I really think out best option is to just do the tour.”“I didn’t sign up for this,” Fey grumbled.A clanging noise signaled the cave doors finishing opening.“Well. What are you all waiting for!” Driver called out, interrupting our quiet conversation. “You’re not scared of a lit cave, are you? The whole cave is perfectly safe.”“And there aren’t any …er well, no bats anyhow.”Dave sighed, and spoke words of wisdom, fully accepting Murphy’s law.“This is not gonna end well.”It was, well, a cave.---So far it had gone like any other normal cave tour goes. You look around the cave at stalagmites, stalactites, and holes- all while completely tuning out the boring scientific facts about erosion and how water is the most powerful acid.I’m an electrical engineer, I really don’t need to hear it again.A weird feeling grew the farther we went in. Not a creepy one this time, just odd, as if we were nearing something. At some point Driver had swapped his beanie for a fedora, apparently wanting to look the part as a cave tour guide. At least his way of explaining the science was… interesting.“And then queen Mississippi found Mr. Tiden to be guilty of treason! A completely exaggerated verdict if you ask me. All he did was drown one measly person! And heaven knows Mississippi herself has drowned more than that! Anyways he was sentenced to diversion by cave. He was forcefully fed into here, and that is how this cave was made.”He stopped and stared at one of the stalagmites.“By trapping someone in a stone prison for the rest of their days…”I wasn’t sure whether to be amused or creeped out. Dave however, looked like he’s seen a ghost.“Wait… You’re… but you can’t be!”Driver gave a small, short laugh, and spoke in a slightly lower voice that sent shivers up my spine. “Tell me Dave, have you been paying attention to your surroundings?”“I…”Fey was the one who answered this time.She pointed at wall. “Those stalactites… they’re the same ones we saw ten minutes ago, and we’ve been going down the whole time…”“An astute observation for such a young Feli like yourself.”Driver grinned as if he’d made a hilarious joke, but I felt genuine terror at his next words. “Have you ever heard the phrase ‘That deal sounds too good to be true!’?”“Because,” his grin grew “if you haven’t, I’d be more than happy to show you what it means.”He snapped his fingers and a swirling vortex of death appeared.Okay. On second thought, it looked more like a really spooky portal, but I didn’t have much time to ponder this as I felt myself being lifted up by an invisible force.“Do have fun kids.”The last thing I saw before my vision went black was Driver’s smirking face.