The Cave

Written by Greg

"And I'll find strength pain. And I will change my ways. I'll know my name as it's called again."

Greg's Notes: I have never actually written anything except for a few songs here and there and half-assed English papers. So I apologize in advance if this is jumbled and senseless. I originally had planned to make it into a recreation of the Odyssey, but I ended up scrapping it and bringing to the table something that's more relevant to my life. I hope you will enjoy it. I'd like to thank the wonderfully beautiful Savvy for giving me the opportunity to write in her collection and for editing my work. You are the best.

“There are no such things as monsters.”

That’s what Jinki used to tell himself as a child. It was what his mother would always tell him when he would hear scary noises in their old, creaky Oceanside house. There was nothing dangerous that could harm him. Just as long as he stayed close to his mother, he would be just fine.

When his mother died at a young age, he couldn’t sleep. His confidence slipped. Suddenly, he found himself vulnerable. His shelter was gone…his comfort had ceased. And instead of being paranoid about everything, he decided to seek comfort elsewhere.

Her name was Park Sun-young. She was the town’s sweetheart, participating in community theater, several service projects, and was the top performing student in the only high school in the tiny square of the map. It was only what was expected of the mayor’s daughter. She lived in the nicest house on the top of the hill, looking over the town. Guys wanted to be with her, girls wanted to be her. But somehow…the only one who could give her the attention she wanted was the weird kid in the back of the classroom with his hoodie covering his face.

“Do you think I’m pretty?” she had asked him one day as she stood before his desk in a pink blouse and white mini-skirt, accented by white heels and her perfectly curled blonde hair.

Jinki stared at her for a solid minute before finally croaking out an answer. “Of course I do. Everyone does. If they didn’t, they would be crazy.”

And that was all she needed. Sun-young immediately took ahold of Jinki’s hand and pulled him from his seat and out the door. When he inquired about where they were going, she cheekily answered, “We’re skipping school. What else?”

Before he knew it, Jinki had become an accomplice to several out of the ordinary things that Sun-young wished to do: skipping school, sneaking into movies, stealing packs of cookies and sodas from the mini-mart, and skinny dipping in the lake. “I need you to be my bad boy,” Sun-young said to him one time when they were making out on top of her father’s desk while he was in a meeting. “All my life, I have just been a goody-goody princess. I wanna know what it’s like to live on the wild side.”

So Jinki transformed into Sun-young’s bad boy. He greased his hair, wore pants with chains, bought a motorcycle, bullied kids, got sent to detention, and started smoking . And even though it was a pretty badass thing to do, Sun-young couldn’t seem to get into the whole smoking thing. “I just wanted to scare the out of my dad a little,” she would say. “I like you a lot, and I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

The only fights they ever got in was over Jinki’s growing addiction of smoking the green. They only stopped when Jinki swore he’d go to rehab and lay off the stuff for good. Only then did Sun-young feel better and continue on with their merry troublemaking.

One night, Jinki was awakened by a rock hitting his window. He opened it to see Sun-young sitting upon the hood of a beautiful black Ferrari. “Come on! I totally took my dad’s car while he’s out of the country for a couple days. Let’s go for a drive!”

They ended up driving at top speed through the empty streets of town. But then they just kept going. Though the countryside, into the next town. They eventually found a path that led deep into a wooded area. They got lost, but they loved it. As the dawn broke, they took each other’s ity in the backseat of the car. They also voiced their first ‘I love you’s.” And then as the sun came up, they lay together in the backseat, tracing fingers over each other’s skin.

“You’re such a bad boy,” Sun-young giggled, her still glossy lips pecking his bare shoulder.

Jinki chuckled before pulling her in for a quick kiss. Then he sat up. “I’ll be right back. Nature is calling.”

As he ran off into the woods, Sun-young lay basking in the warm sunshine and feeling drunk on young love. But when Jinki returned to the car, her mood quickly changed.

She could see it in his eyes. She could smell it on his skin. Betrayal. She pulled away from his touch. She rejected his kiss. She only wrapped her jacket around herself and moved up to sit in the passenger seat.

“Baby, what’s wrong?” Jinki asked, seemingly confused.

Sun-young just rolled her eyes. “I know what you were doing. You told me you were done with that!”

“I am, baby, I just needed—“

“Please, spare me the crap,” she mumbled with a deep sigh. “Just take me home. Please.”

Then Jinki snapped. He jumped into the car and turned it on before driving wildly back down the path, his hands gripping the wheel. “You always jump to conclusions!”

“I wouldn’t have to jump to conclusions if you didn’t go behind my back all the time!” Sun-young’s voice grew in volume.

“I wouldn’t have to go behind your back if you would just be a little more understanding!”

“More understanding of what, though? I trusted you, Jinki!”

“And I expected you to understand! Since my mom died, I had to find comfort in something!”

“But there are so many things that you could find comfort in! What about me? Are you not comfortable with me?”

“For God’s sake, Sun-young! Why is everything always about you?”

“I’m only caring about you right now, but it seems like you’re not even caring about yourself!”

By this time, they were back on the highway, and Sun-young took a sudden look at the speedometer. She immediately stiffened and slowly reached for Jinki’s arm. She spoke calmly, “Jinki, baby, please slow down.”

Jinki ignored her, pressing his foot harder on the gas pedal. He was high. He felt like he was flying. When she repeated herself and touched his arm, he slapped her away and turned to face her. “No! I’m not going to listen to you anymore! You come into my life and completely change me! It seems like all I do now is live to please you! And I’m sick of it!”

“Jinki, please pay attenti—“

“Will you just shut up?!”

“JINKI!”

And the last thing he remembered of that day was how fast the tree came at him, and the horrid silence that followed.

He woke up three days later, his whole body in pain. Though his blurry vision, he could see casts on his legs and tubes of all sorts in his arm. The faint beeping of a heart monitor rang in his ear with the dripping of an IV. When his vision finally focused, he saw his father sitting in the corner of the room, staring down at a packet of files. The man suddenly looked up, his expression emotionless.

“You’re awake.”

Jinki nodded weakly, when he discovered the pain of only moving. He closed his eyes softly and spoke without much volume. “What happened?”

“You were high on some serious ,” his father said, standing up. “You were driving way too fast and hit a large tree going around a curve. Another driver witnessed the whole thing and called for help.”

Jinki looked over his body again, gritting his teeth in pain. He looked down at his legs, plastered in casts, and trembled. “Am I…am I paralyzed?”

His dad scoffed. “No. But you might as well be, I suppose. The impact of the crash was so great, the bones below your pelvis are almost completely shattered.”

Suddenly, the final memory of the crash hit Jinki like a ton of bricks. He remembered the split second of terror filling up in his body as he saw the tree, felt it crash through the front of the car and pin him back against his seat. He remembers the horrible crash from behind him as something hit the windshield. And that awful, terrible scream…

“Where is Sun-young?” Jinki asked then, that scream echoing through his ears. “Is she okay?”

His father was silent, leaning in closer to Jinki’s bed. “Son…the impact caused her to fly through the windshield and smash her head into another tree. She died instantly. There was nothing anyone could do for her at that point.”

And in that instant, the emotional load of it all overwhelmed Jinki. Sun-young was dead? The only girl he had ever loved just ceased to exist now. And wait…wasn’t it his fault?

“I’ve been working on paperwork all day,” his father said, suddenly serious and in a hushed tone. “The mayor is definitely pressing charges and the whole town is under the impression that you murdered her. It’s his word against yours, so you’re screwed. You gotta get out of here, and you gotta get out of here soon.”

Jinki was terrified. He was being charged with murder? He realized it then. He had ruined his life, just like Sun-young had always warned him…

“So what happened after you left the hospital?” a young man in the front row of the meeting asked.

Jinki smiled and shrugged a little. “I never got the chance to run. The moment I was discharged, the cops were waiting outside for me. I went to court, I was found guilty, and I did some time.”

The young men and women sitting in the room shifted in their seats. Jinki watched over them and sighed. “So, basically, my testimony is just one thing that can happen from continuing to feed your addiction. It’s very dangerous stuff, drugs. So you have to follow the simple steps to getting clean. And you can start that journey right here with us. I’d like to hear your stories…but we’ll have to save them for next week. It’s six o’clock.”

The people in the room made a motion to leave, getting up and picking up their stuff and talking amongst themselves. But Jinki stopped them with a closing remark. “Just remember. There are no such things as monsters. Except for the ones that you create for yourself and allow to control your life. Set yourself free today and get on the road to being sober. I’ll see you next week.”

And Jinki watched every person walk out the door, hoping to God they didn’t end up like him.

Watch the video and listen to the song here.