Dark Water

Early winter, 1975

The soft soil underfoot had become hard bedrock before he knew it. Once out of the woods, he suddenly found himself atop a crag. With the rugged hardness of rock to reassure the soles of his feet, he made his way to the edge and peered over to find a sheer ledge dropping off no more than his own height. Here the woods abruptly ended, and below the drop extended a sloping strip of land covered by fallen leaves. Although there should have been something like a small stream winding its way down the eastern slopes of the mountain, no marsh was visible from this point onwards, nor was the sound of running water to be heard.

It felt like but a short while ago that the noonday sun, reflecting off the water, repeatedly caught the eye. Yet the stream vanished as if swallowed up by the earth.

There was little need to check the map. The underground water that welled up from this stretch of mountains fed a tributary of the River Tama, and upon swelling to much greater proportions, flowed into Tokyo Bay. Beneath the rock that felt so rugged to the soles of his feet ran the groundwater in streams formed of rainwater that had percolated through the hard rock. As Fumihiko Sugiyama thought of that crystal-clear water, something struck him as strangely incongruous. He lived in a high-rise condominium with a magnificent view of Tokyo Bay. He gazed upon the River Tama every day and could clearly remember the colour of the water. The water was quite filthy and could only be described as a dirty blackish gray. He wondered how the unsullied, crystal-clear water flowing from the source could be transformed into such an unsightly mess by the time it reached Tokyo Bay. As he stood atop the tiny crag, Sugiyama wondered how fascinating it would be to observe every subtle and detailed change in the colour of the water as it flowed from the source to Tokyo Bay.

Sugiyama was about to jump down from the low crag when he found himself faltering. It was not that great a drop and could have been jumped easily. Yet he felt a surge of unease. The ground at the bottom of the small cliff was covered with leaves, which made for a strangely uncertain footing. Fallen leaves had frequently caused him to slip in the past while traversing mountainous terrain. Wet leaves stuck to the surface of rocks were a particular hazard because a hiker could easily slip and fall. Although the layers of leaf mould that lay under the leaves posed little problem, the leaves could also conceal a hollow in the rock or a tree root, which were often the cause of sprained ankles. Sugiyama was not concerned about spraining his ankle, however. He had visions of something like a bottomless dark pit lurking beneath the leaves. As he thought of the terrible consequences of jumping into something of that nature, he stepped back from the edge. Behind him could be heard the rustling of bushes being pushed aside. Suspecting that it wouldn’t take Sakakibara much more than a minute to catch up, Sugiyama decided to wait for him on top of the ledge. Sakakibara was out of breath when he arrived where Sugiyama stood. Sugiyama thrust his chin in the direction of the ledge to call Sakakibara’s attention to what lay below. Sugiyama thought his expression would have sufficiently conveyed to Sakakibara his dilemma as to whether they should jump down. However, with a display of characteristic obtuseness, Sakakibara sprang off the edge without so much as checking his footing. He landed with a thud on the fallen leaves below. Due to the slight downward slope of the ground below, Sakakibara had landed on his rump. Sitting there with both arms extended behind to support himself, he pointed his jaw upwards and grinned at Sugiyama as if challenging him to stop wasting time and join him on the double. A man of hefty build and the antithesis of agility, Sakakibara was also a reckless character who had not infrequently provided Sugiyama with hair-raising moments in the past.

‘Are you all right down there?’ asked Sugiyama.

As if prompted by the question, Sakakibara started to rise to his feet, the sardonic smile still visible on his face. At that moment, however, his foot slipped on the leaves, dropping him down heavily again on his rump. Sugiyama laughed out loud. Preoccupied by something all of a sudden, Sakakibara crawled face up to directly under the ledge and started to investigate the surroundings with a look of grave concern on this face.

‘Say, look at this!’

He raised his hand aloft and signaled to Sugiyama to hurry and jump down. Gauging the steepness of the incline below, Sugiyama jumped and landed on his feet; he had managed to keep his balance and only needed one hand on the ground to steady himself. He turned to find Sakakibara now lying on his stomach, his face close to the bottom of the ledge. Right next to Sakakibara’s rotund face gaped a dark hole similar in proportion to his friend’s face. Crawling up to Sakakibara, Sugiyama peered into the hole.

‘Could it be the entrance to a cave?’

Sugiyama’s tone suggested that he was not so much asking Sakakibara as himself. He didn’t want to get his hopes up, only for them to be dashed, so he suppressed the excitement he was beginning to feel. They had hiked the mountainside for half a day now and the only openings had been fissures in the rock, cracks hardly wide enough to insert his arm, let alone his body. Thus, trying not to get his hopes up, Sugiyama found himself believing that this aperture, too, was probably nothing more than the den of some animal.

With an earnest air, Sakakibara began brushing aside the leaves with his hands. At length, a soft, damp patch of earth was revealed, but Sakakibara continued working with his hands. There were signs of the air outside being drawn into the opening. Apparently, a current of air flowed through the inside of the cave. The opening was not small. Sugiyama’s hopes began to rise slightly.

Impatiently lowering his backpack to the ground, he removed a collapsible shovel and began scooping away the dirt from the lower part of the opening. After digging away for less than ten minutes, he managed to sufficiently widen the opening for one man to crawl through. Both of them then took turns crawling halfway inside to examine the interior with a flashlight.

‘We’ve done it! No doubt about it this time!’ Sakakibara almost shrieked with excitement.

Sugiyama finally allowed himself to be convinced. Opposite the opening was an expanse of immeasurable proportions. Air rising up the mountainside was being drawn into the opening. If they listened carefully, they could hear the faint echo of water dripping somewhere in the depths of the darkness.

‘Could be.’

Although convinced that they had finally found what they were after, Sugiyama expressed a kind of reserved ambiguity; it was no simple matter to discover an underground cavern into which no man had ever set foot before.

Ever since his son had been born two and a half years ago, and especially now that his wife was expecting their second child, Sugiyama felt his appetite for adventure ebbing. He didn’t find such a development totally unnatural; with two children to support, he was no longer able to throw caution to the wind in pursuit of adventure. He was almost resigned to never experiencing that ultimate adventure.

A young man just over thirty, Sugiyama was already seeing his youth slipping into shades of maturity, and this fact rankled him from time to time. Of late, he increasingly found himself releasing his grip on the accelerator on his motorbike, conscious of the risk of an accident, when he could go a lot faster and still remain within the speed limit. He’d only begun behaving this way after he’d gotten married and become a father. Such caution would have been unthinkable before. Intoxicated by the thrill, he would intuitively seek out danger and push his luck to the limits. During his teens and early twenties he’d lived for the thrill of living on the edge between life and death.

However, his hunger for adventure had waned once he realized how little he would leave his wife and children if anything were to happen to him, given his meager savings and such. At thirty-one, there was no way he could be described as having had his fill of adventure -there were so many things left to do. It hadn’t helped being stuck in the same old job at a newspaper-affiliated research firm for most of the past decade. Had he avoided getting mired in that kind of rut and been constantly alert and on the lookout for a better position, his footwork would no doubt have been more nimble now. At best, he had learned self-restraint; at worst, he’d become overcautious. The challenge he now faced was whether to let the sight of the cave gaping in front of him be governed by an emotion of self-restraint or by daring initiative.

Sugiyama took the copy of the map from his backpack and entered a rough estimate of their current position. He also took a photograph of the surrounding landscape so they would be able to locate this place again in the future.

Not surprisingly unaware of Sugiyama’s dilemma, Sakakibara was attempting to squeeze his hefty frame through the opening.

It was clear that he fully intended to enter the limestone grotto. They were wearing cotton overalls and had some caving equipment in their backpacks, although not the gear they would need on a serious spelunking mission.

Sugiyama tugged at Sakakibara’s overalls and tried to pull him back.

‘Don’t you think we’d better leave that until later?’

Their journey around the mountainside on that particular day had been meant simply for discovering underground caves, not actual exploration. Sugiyama tried to convey his concern that they had been lucky enough even to find a suitable cave, and that they should now be returning. Yet he did not have the physical strength to pull Sakakibara back. Neither could there be any denying that he was also very intrigued as to what might be inside.

‘There’s no going back now!’

Sakakibara’s tone was aggressive as he wriggled about to shake off Sugiyama’s hand. Sugiyama angrily called to him and stood there tut-tutting in consternation. Yet he also felt something snap inside and found that he was reasoning with himself: As long as we don’t get trapped anywhere deep. As long as we just take a quick look inside. As long as we content ourselves with just that – nothing could possibly happen then.

For ten meters or so into the cave, there was only enough room to crawl forward in single file. In the light of his headlamp, Sugiyama could see Sakakibara’s rump ahead dancing side to side as he crawled forward after him. In fact, Sakakibara’s rump blocked the whole tunnel, making it impossible to see ahead. Sugiyama couldn’t imagine how a man of Sakakibara’s build could ever have become a spelunker. Nor could he imagine whether it had been a good idea to invite Sakakibara on this mountain hike. There was something reckless about him, and recklessness could cost lives.

Sugiyama had known Sakakibara for no more than three years. He had met Sakakibara after joining the Pilot Caving Club in Hachioji. As a member of the Explorers’ Club at college, Sugiyama had taken an active interest in both mountain climbing and marine sports, devoting his youthful energies to rock climbing and scuba diving. With increasingly less time and money to spend on adventure sports once he started working, he had focused on caving as a pursuit endowed with the dual aspects of both land and sea. Rock-climbing techniques were needed to traverse up and down shafts a hundred feet or more in length. Moreover, water was inevitably encountered in caves, given the nature of limestone caves, grottos carved out of limestone by the solvent action of running water. Hence, diving techniques were also required whenever a caving enthusiast wished to explore a current of crystal-clear water that was otherwise impassable. Sugiyama had no sooner taken up caving before he found himself hooked. There was no lack of spelunking sites in Japan, where numerous limestone plateaus could be found. Not only that, but in the mountains not too distant from central Tokyo lay virgin stalactite grottos that could only be described as halls of wonder. Not only was caving an inexpensive hobby, it was also one that fully sated his appetite for adventure.

The epitome of caving lies not in exploring grottos that have already been discovered by others, but in being the first to set foot on the virgin rock of an undiscovered cavern. There can be no sweeter taste for a spelunker than such a moment. It is said that anyone who has savoured such a moment is destined to be forever addicted to caving.

As he crawled forward on his belly, Sugiyama couldn’t help wondering if he was actually in an undiscovered cave. This would be the first time for him. He had been avidly studying the maps for months now. He was convinced that all the signs, whether the local geological features, topography, or sinuous course of the rivers, pointed to the presence of an undiscovered grotto in this locale. The previous evening, Sugiyama had been talking about this to Sakakibara on the phone. With the following day being a Sunday, their conversation had turned to arranging a casual mountain trek to search for caves.

They had set out early that morning, driving for about two hours and parking the car on the side of a woodland road. Several hours had already passed since they had left the car and begun their trek into the mountains. They must have already walked three or four miles from the road. Not in his wildest dreams had Sugiyama imagined that a casual stroll like this would lead to the discovery of a cave. Sugiyama had agreed that, even if they should come across an opening, they would put off going underground until they could organize a fully equipped expedition with other members of the caving club. Sakakibara had humorously intoned the words fully equipped expedition’, as if to suggest with such a grand expression that the likelihood of their ever discovering a virgin grotto was less than zero.

They found themselves in a cavernous dome that was probably formed by a cave-in. Yet no matter how much they illuminated the ceiling with their lights, the beams lacked the power to reach the top, thus preventing an accurate assessment of how high the ceiling reached. It must have been at least a hundred feet above the floor of the cave. The cavern had opened up at the end of the narrow tunnel, and it was not until they stood that Sugiyama and Sakakibara became aware of its immense size. Upon realizing the vastness of the grotto, they were literally dumbfounded. Although prepared to encounter a dead-end, they now found themselves in an enormous subterranean cavern that surpassed their wildest dreams. Limestone results from the sedimentation of the remains of sea creatures. Therefore, this area of land was at some time in the distant past located at the bottom of the sea. Thrust up from the sea, the earth had become land, later to be covered by woodlands. Water erosion had then formed this gigantic cavern of majestic proportions. Sugiyama stared at the ceiling in blank amazement, not so much at the size of the cavern as at the incredible length of time that it must have taken to form. After an enthralled silence lasting almost a minute, both of them started to speak at once.

‘Fantastic!’

There was no other way to describe it. Without a shadow of doubt, they had discovered one of the largest subterranean limestone caverns ever found in the Kanto region. Little could they have imagined that such a massive chamber existed under the mountains where they had been hiking just moments before. Excitement welled from deep inside to suffuse every pore.

‘It’s moments like this that make you realize you’ll never quit caving, right?’ Intoxicated by their good fortune, Sakakibara whistled a cracked tune as he scanned inside the cavern with his flashlight.

His whistling struck Sugiyama as annoying; it sounded out of place. Usually indifferent to Sakakibara’s discordant whistling, Sugiyama now found that it rankled his nerves so much that he was unable to ignore it.

Suddenly Sugiyama felt apprehensive. There was always the risk that, negotiating a constricted passage into an expansive cavern, a spelunker would forget the route taken to get there. Sugiyama took out his compass, took a reading, then entered the direction on his diagram. Yet no sooner had he jotted it down than it occurred to him that he was being quite silly. After all, such precautions were only necessary when you intended to go down much deeper. It was far too hazardous for just two people to enter a newly discovered cave with such inadequate equipment. They should be calling it a day and making their way back.

Nevertheless, Sakakibara had made his way to the edge of the cavern and was shining his flashlight down in search of a route to pursue. He was still whistling. The sound reverberated eerily through the stalactite girded arena.

‘Say, Sakakibara, let’s be getting back,’ Sugiyama called out to his partner, who had his shoulders hunched as he peered frantically at the floor.

Sakakibara finally stopped whistling. ‘Come look at this. There’s a shaft!’ Paying no attention to what Sugiyama had just said, Sakakibara stood there with a triumphant air. He looked even less inclined to leave than before.

On hearing the word ‘shaft’, Sugiyama’s resolve swayed, for he was renowned among the members of the Pilot Caving Club for having the best shaft-scaling skills. Sakakibara and the others were no match.

Thinking he might as well have a look to gauge the value of the find, he casually made his way over to where Sakakibara was shining his flashlight. In the vast bell-shaped cavern where they found themselves, there appeared little else that promised to lead them any further than the shaft where Sakakibara was directing his flashlight. Hanging down like curtains, the walls of the cavern merged up here and there with stalagmites that extended up from the floor of the cavern. There may well once have been a passageway leading somewhere off the edge of the cavern, but it had undoubtedly been blocked off by debris from the cave-in.

Making his way to the edge of the shaft where Sakakibara eagerly awaited him, Sugiyama peered down. The shaft slanted slightly rather than descend at a perpendicular. He could also see that the furthest extremity formed a gentle curve. As shafts went, it was not that deep, and could be negotiated well enough without ropes and a ladder.

Sugiyama had the chills. He was unable to tell whether it came from fear or excitement, although the tingling sensation in his veins suggested more thrill than chill.

‘Well, are you game?’ Sakakibara whispered with a grin, as if he’d read Sugiyama’s mind.

Looking back, Sugiyama once again confirmed their route as far as the shaft, and tried to persuade himself that this was definitely the last move. Once he had managed to reach the bottom of the shaft, he swore, there would be no stopping him making for home.

Entering the ring of light from Sakakibara’s flashlight, Sugiyama pressed his back into the sloping surface and began his descent.

‘What’s it like down there?’ asked Sakakibara once Sugiyama was almost halfway down.

Not responding to Sakakibara, Sugiyama had stopped and was straining his ears to listen. He could hear the faint sound of water dripping somewhere. He remembered hearing a similar sound at the mouth of the cave.

‘I can hear water!’

No sooner had Sugiyama responded than Sakakibara thrust his hefty backside into the shaft.

‘I’m there!’

Sakakibara started down after Sugiyama, and there was no stopping him.

The shaft bottomed out in a gentle curve, which led to another level chamber of pretty much the same shape as the one before. It was a much smaller, bell-shaped cavern. A thin film of water covered the slippery surface of the cavern walls. So closely did the watery membrane adhere to the walls of the cave that you had to touch it to confirm that it was there at all. Percolating in through crevices in the ceiling, the water slid silently down the walls of the cavern to vanish through the floor of the cave without forming a single pool. The spectacle enthralled Sugiyama as he illuminated the area with his flashlight. He felt a surge of joy to think that he was the first person on the face of the earth to have witnessed this sight. It was the kind of moment savoured once in a lifetime, if at all. The power of the moment made Sugiyama forget the oath that he’d made to himself before entering the shaft. The fact that the descending water did not form pools but disappeared under the floor of the cavern suggested that there might be quite an extensive chamber below.

Sugiyama and Sakakibara began searching for a route to that chamber. All feelings of self-restraint now thrown to the wind, Sugiyama was oblivious to anything else. The bait was too tempting, and he was being lured farther down into the bowels of the earth.

In one spot, Sugiyama felt a slight draft of air. A subtle current of warm air came wafting up from some place.

Sugiyama called Sakakibara over and sounded him out. Sakakibara knit his brows, deep in thought. There was no doubt about it; he too could feel air blowing up from somewhere. Yet there was no shaft visible nearby from which the air could be coming.

Baffled as to where the source of the air could be, Sugiyama began moving slowly with the sensation of a faint draft on his skin. He then stood in a depression filled with piles of rubble. At his feet lay all kinds of rocks, both big and small. He used his light to survey the topography once again. The depression where he stood seemed to be shaped like a basin or circular crater. It occurred to Sugiyama that this may have been a sinkhole filled up by a cave-in. If so, all they had to do was remove the stones to uncover a shaft below.

Both men began quickly shifting the stones, and eventually exposed quite a large boulder. They could feel a more substantial blast of air coming through gaps under this rock. Without a doubt, this was the boulder that was blocking the entrance to the shaft.

Sugiyama and Sakakibara both tried to push the boulder to one side. It tilted to reveal part of a circular opening to the shaft underneath. Releasing their grip on the boulder would result in the boulder falling back to cover up the shaft. Thus, they redoubled their efforts with one more powerful push. With the base of the boulder now facing sideways, they wedged a stone in a niche to secure the boulder in place. Now the entrance to the shaft was completely exposed. Whenever either man moved, stones at their feet would roll down into the opening, bouncing off the stalactites to create a sound that reverberated like thunder. Both men waited until all stones likely to fall had fallen and the commotion had died down. After all, they did not want stones falling on their heads as they descended the shaft.

Sugiyama made up his mind: there could be no turning back now that they had come this far. He resolved to see this through to the end.

Tying a rope round a rock, Sugiyama released the other end, and it fell towards the bottom of the shaft. Although he felt capable of scaling the shaft without a rope, he wanted to take every precaution to ensure a safe return.

‘Wait here.’

The tone of Sugiyama’s command was calm, yet clearly a command. Although the two men were the same age, Sakakibara was Sugiyama’s senior in terms of the number of years he had been a Pilot Caving Club member. It was thus with reluctance that Sakakibara nodded in compliance with what amounted to an order from a junior. Despite their relative positions at the club, Sugiyama far surpassed Sakakibara in terms of caving technique. Given the precariousness of the footing, one of them had to remain at the edge of the opening to make sure that the end of the rope remained in place, and Sakakibara was more suited to this task.

As Sugiyama lowered himself inside the shaft, he felt apprehensive once again. He wondered why, but simply attributed it to Sakakibara’s annoying whistling. The man was looking down at him coolly now, all the while whistling some cracked tune. Sakakibara was all too relaxed, and this gave Sugiyama a nasty sense of foreboding.

Putting his foot on a small ledge, Sugiyama assumed a rest position. He began to contemplate the nasty premonition he had just had. This was supposed to be a virgin limestone grotto, one which no human had ever set foot in until now. Yet an uninvited flash of intuition suggested to him that sometime in the distant past, someone had tried to access this shaft just as he was attempting to now. It was an impression that must have formed unconsciously from having glimpsed some evidence of a prior presence.

He brought his headlamp closer to a stalactite. The longer he inspected the wall, the more apparent became the bizarre pattern fashioned there. Daubed onto the contrasting ochre of the cave surface was dark-gray mud. He stretched out his hand to feel the surface. The pattern was clearly different from the cave surface. He wondered whether it was a motif that someone had intentionally fashioned there. No, he felt sure that wasn’t the case. He concluded that it was more likely to have been a muddy stain on the back of someone who had passed through the shaft just as he was doing now. As this person had been passing through, the mud on his back must have rubbed off onto the limestone wall.

Sugiyama felt his energy rapidly ebbing away. The only reason he’d been tempted to this madcap adventure was the belief that no man had ever set foot in this grotto before. There was all the world of difference between being first and being second. Viewing this as a good a time as any, he called out to Sakakibara. As soon as he shouted, however, a hail of small stones struck him in the face. He immediately covered the top of his helmet with both hands for protection. Once the stones stopped falling, he looked up to see Sakakibara’s blue overall-clad form bumbling about, and then enter and block the shaft.

‘Say, Sakakibara!’ he shouted even louder.

‘Hang on! I’m coming down!’

Unable to contain himself, Sakakibara appeared to be lowering himself down the shaft, feet first.

‘No, get out of there!’

Their ensuing argument over who was going down or up lasted but a few seconds. A sudden shower of small stones was immediately followed by a loud boom, a brief scream, and the horrible sound of crushing bone. Then, as quickly, the shower of stones subsided. The lower half of Sakakibara’s body blocked the mouth of the shaft, preventing Sugiyama from appreciating the extent of the catastrophe that had just befallen him.

‘What’s happening up there?’

He voice began to quiver, for he already instinctively knew that something was very wrong. Sakakibara failed to respond, but a short moan percolated through the gloom instead.

Sugiyama made his way up until he could feel Sakakibara’s feet on his head. He flashed his light up through the gap between Sakakibara’s waist and the wall of the shaft. To his amazement, the space above the mouth of the shaft was no longer open; it was blocked by the boulder.

He was stupefied. He felt the blood drain from his head. As he braved the dizziness, he regretted that they hadn’t properly secured the boulder. With every rock-slide, the boulder had tilted under its own weight to fall back to its original position, encountering and crushing Sakakibara’s head in the process. It was too cruel a punishment to be meted out to someone for simply having deserted his post. Yet Sugiyama could not suppress his desire to curse Sakakibara for his stupidity.

The beam of his flashlight caught the ghastly white of Sakakibara’s jaw, under which the sinews of the neck were strained tight. His head was wedged between the side of the shaft and the edge of the boulder so that Sugiyama could not see the face from the nose up. For some time, Sugiyama just stared in blank disbelief. His legs trembled, and he felt nauseous.

‘Are you okay?’ He tried to say this, but the words would not come out of his parched mouth.

Yet the truth was only too obvious. No amount of talking would make any difference now. Down the strained neck ran thick rivers of blood. Sugiyama was on the point of reaching out for Sakakibara’s foot to check for signs of life, when suddenly Sakakibara’s body arched backwards and began to convulse. The movements were too unnaturally spasmodic to be anything but the throes of death. His eyes transfixed by the horrendous sight, Sugiyama shivered and tasted bile.

There could be no denying that his situation was desperate. It was like being trapped under a manhole capped with a one-ton manhole cover. Sugiyama was a trapped rat.

He felt he’d been there in the darkness much longer than just two days. He had spent the first few hours after being trapped floundering about trying to find a way out, wasting a good deal of time and energy. Now that he’d been there for a full forty-eight hours, he was huddled up almost motionless by the waterside, resigned to the fact that he had but two options, and only two options. The problem was which to choose. It had occurred to him that he could try pushing up the boulder blocking the mouth of the shaft. Yet he’d already tried to move it and knew just how much it weighed. It had taken every ounce of his and Sakakibara’s energy as they had strained in unison. There was no way he could push that boulder up while dangling in the pit with no foothold. Moreover, Sakakibara’s corpse was dangling down from his trapped head, blocking any space there may have been. The corpse prevented him from even reaching the boulder, and Sugiyama didn’t have the courage to pull Sakakibara’s gradually chilling body down from between the boulder and the shaft’s edge.

Giving up the idea of getting out through the shaft, Sugiyama decided to focus on the opposite direction, making his way downward. In any direction he looked, the interior of the limestone cavern was intricately configured like a labyrinth. It might conceivably be possible to find a way out by a different route. Yet he ended up in a tubular cavern with a radius of about thirty feet. The low portion of the sloping floor was flooded with underground water, forming a subterranean lake. Whichever route he followed ended up at this subterranean lake. He vainly searched every nook and cranny along the edge of the lake for a passageway to another chamber. He realized he was trapped in a sealed cave.

For the past ten hours, he had not switched on his headlamp except to glance at his watch. Although he carried two headlamps, he had long switched over to the spare and could not afford to waste a second’s worth of power.

It was now Tuesday afternoon – half past five. Under normal circumstances, he would have been getting ready to leave work and head for home.

He made it a rule to have supper with his family at least three times a week. No sooner would he open the front door of his home than his son Takehiko would come running up to him. Sugiyama loved to hear his son as he tried to enunciate the words he’d just learned. As he lifted his son into his arms, the boy would utter faltering sounds in an attempt to give his father an account of every little thing that had happened that day. The moments offered great relief and comfort to Sugiyama. The desire to experience the joy of those moments inspired him with the energy he needed to finish up work quickly so he could return home.

Sugiyama remembered that his wife had wanted him to take the oil heater out of storage. He had put the bulky oil heater at the back of the closet and it was more than his wife could handle. It would soon be getting chilly, and all he could think about now was that his wife and son might feel the cold. It was the only heater they had, and he simply couldn’t get it out of his mind. He regretted not having taken it out for them before setting out on Sunday morning. It was very cold inside the cave, although temperatures were supposed to remain constant throughout the year. It was probably under fifty degrees where he was at that moment. Although it was odd that anyone in such a predicament should be worrying about others, it didn’t occur to him that it was incongruous.

Sugiyama felt the urgent need to get out of there, fuelled by an irresistible desire to get back to his family. Once again he pondered all the conceivable possibilities open to him. Although he knew he had covered everything over and over again in his head, there was always the possibility that he may have overlooked something.

He had told his family on the morning of the day before setting out that he was going ‘for a little hike in the mountains’. He had said nothing about exploring limestone caves. Sakakibara had come to pick him up and they had gone as far as the woodland road at the foot of Mt Shiraiwa. There they parked the car and walked three or four miles in the countryside before stumbling upon the entrance to the cave. Sugiyama wondered if Sakakibara had told anyone that he was heading this way. It was unlikely. After all, he had lived alone and had no one to tell. They had made no plans to explore any caves; their original purpose had just been to hike in the mountainside to look for new caves.

Given to worrying at the best of times, his wife would be in quite a state by now. She would no doubt have imagined the worst and called the police a long time ago. Yet how could the police go about searching for them? Their only possible clue would be the car left at the side of the road, although there was little chance of the police even finding the car. Supposing they’d found the car, it was all but inconceivable that any rescue party would come his way. Not only was the limestone cave unmarked on the map, its very existence was unknown.

It was impossible to avoid the conclusion that the chances of rescue from outside were extremely low. The only alternative was for him to find a way out.

Sugiyama could sit and wait for a rescue team or think of some way of getting out by himself. In other words, he had but one real option. Yet any attempt to escape required so much courage it defied the imagination, and this reality was gradually dawning on Sugiyama. He would need courage, and no ordinary courage at that.

Sugiyama may never have thought of a way of escaping had he not discovered the traces left on the walls of the shaft.

A more careful search revealed traces on other parts of the cave as well. The tips of the icicle like stalactites that hung down over the waterside seemed to be chipped, while the flowstone surface was scratched as if brushed by someone’s body. The same kind of damage could be seen in various places around the cave. It occurred to Sugiyama that the interior of the cave had been disturbed by a party of explorers from a caving club or other group. Yet he was not aware of any records of this particular site having been discovered. Caving clubs regularly kept in touch; it would have been big news had any unknown cavern been discovered in the Kanto region.

If the cave hadn’t been disturbed by humans, concluded Sugiyama, it must have been an animal. It occurred to him that a sizeable animal could have strayed into the cave and wreaked havoc here and there. Sugiyama slapped his knee the instant the idea occurred to him. The mouth of the shaft had been blocked by the boulder. This meant that any animal must have crept into the cave via a different route. He could not imagine where such a route could be located. Yet some secret route had to exist somewhere; it was just that he had overlooked it.

Though he vainly searched the periphery of the cavern, he failed to find even the smallest crevice. He was at a loss as to how to account for the evidence.

Turning off his headlamp, he sank deep in thought. Immersed in the pitch darkness, he concentrated his thoughts and began thinking hard. The inside of the cavern was not totally silent. There was the constant sound of dripping water. The drips ran down the stalactites of limestone that hung from the grotto ceiling, and fell plip-plopping on the subterranean lake below. Even in the darkness, it felt like he could see the droplets as they rippled the surface of the lake. The sound amplified the notion of water in his mind until he realized that water was the key to the puzzle. Wasn’t it possible that water was flowing out from the bottom of the subterranean lake? And what were the implications? Opening his backpack and extracting the lens cap of his camera, Sugiyama set it on the surface of the water. The cap began to float from right to left. He tried floating the cap again, but this time in a different place. It moved in the same direction. Wherever he set the cap on the surface of the water, it made its way from right to left. A current of water was flowing at the bottom of the lake. What was more, the current was flowing quite rapidly. Sugiyama finally realized that, although to all appearances the water seemed to be a subterranean lake, it was in fact an underground river.

Since the beginning of November, two typhoons had swept across the Kanto region, bringing heavy rains. As a result the underground water level was higher than usual, and the route leading out from the cave must have sunk under water. Since the water was flowing from right to left, somewhere down toward the left, he concluded, there should be a tunnel through which the water was draining away to the outside world. The current would not be so rapid if the water had no sizeable hole to drain through.

The more he thought about it, the more certain he felt that there was an underwater tunnel. That was all well and good, but he still had to find some way of getting out. Although he had found a route out, it was not as if he could just walk along it.

Sugiyama could not yet summon up the courage to take the first step. Once taken, there was absolutely no turning back, and he could have no way of knowing what awaited him along the way.

How inexpressible would be his joy upon seeing the light of day! When he had been trekking across the mountainside, he noticed that the river winding along the eastern side of the mountain had suddenly vanished. According to Sugiyama’s compass, east was left. It seemed a fair conclusion that the underground water was flowing into a river on the eastern side. Since they had been making in an easterly direction ever since entering the cave, it was also probable that he was by now quite close to the opening from which the water was draining out.

He frantically tried to imagine the brilliance of the light, how he’d stumble outside into open space from his imprisonment in the cave. He had to invoke his courage by picturing the joy of feeling the light of day radiating down from above. Yet paradoxically, the greater his desire to get out of there, the stronger his fear and anguish, lest what he so longed for should be snatched from him just short of the end.

Sugiyama was a good skin diver. It was quite possible for him to dive into the dark waters and make his way into the underwater tunnel by feeling the water on his skin and gauging the direction of the current. He had no way of knowing, however, how far the tunnel extended. Once on the current forward, there was absolutely no way back. If he found no exit, there was no coming back. If he ran out of air before reaching the exit, there was no coming back. And even if he did manage to find an opening, there was no telling whether it would be big enough for a man to get through. Imagine the agony of flailing about before a tiny opening, fighting for life. All the distress a man could suffer would suffocate him at once in that final moment. The futility, the anguish, the despair, the physical agony…

If he just sat and waited here, he would be spared that agony. Wait? Wait for what? Several years ago, there had been an incident in which a cave explorer had been rescued four days after going missing in some limestone caves in Okinawa. He had apparently dropped his flashlight and lost his way. In that case, not only did the rescuers know which caves he had been exploring, but local spelunkers also turned out in force to search for him. Even then it had taken a full four days to find and rescue him.

Sugiyama wondered which of two options offered the better chance of survival. It was inconceivable that a rescue party would arrive within a few days. Diving in search of an outlet was no doubt the better option in terms of his chances for survival. The question was whether he was capable of facing the suffering that may lie ahead.

Another two days had elapsed. He had now been trapped for a total of four days.

He could afford no more indecision: it was now or never. All he had eaten during those four days had been a box of biscuits that he always carried in his backpack as a precaution. True, he had lost a great deal of stamina, but still had enough energy left to make the dive, provided he waited no longer. However, his strength would begin to ebb dramatically in another two or three days, whereupon he would no longer have any decision to make, but be left with the default option: a slow but painless death. Any chance of being saved would have run out.

Looking back on his thirty-one years, he began to question whether he had lived a happy life, since the life could be snuffed out at any moment now. Although he would have liked to feel satisfied with the years he’d been given, he felt angry at how thoughtlessly he had lived. There was still so much he wanted to do in life. There were all those adventures that he and his son Takehiko had in store, when his son grew a little older. There was so much he wanted to teach the boy. Sugiyama hoped to instil in him the lessons of life born of his own experiences, so the boy could take advantage of the knowledge and lead a more fulfilling life, supplement the knowledge with his own, and pass it on to the next generation. This, for Sugiyama, was the real meaning of human life. Neither could he help worrying about his wife and the child she was expecting. Yet he would have to try to keep his mind free from such concerns for now. There was no end to the unfinished business that crowded his mind, the insurance settlement, the mortgage, who would take care of his elderly parents, and so on. Still, he wanted to convey his will to his son.

In the fading light of his headlamp, he began to write in the blank space on the back of the map. As if trying to convince himself, he penned each letter and each phrase with firm deliberation. He rolled up the finished letter and put it into an empty film case. He sealed the case with vinyl tape, then inserted it into a waterproof pack on which he had clearly written a name and address. As a final precaution, he sealed the pack and tested it in the water. The test revealed that the little package was both buoyant enough and perfectly water-resistant. What Sugiyama had in mind was what would happen if the outlet was too narrow for him to pass through. If that were the case, he would dispatch the letter to his family in the direction of the opening. He felt that there was little likelihood of it ever reaching outside the cave unless he released it immediately in front of the opening. Even if he managed to push it into the tunnel leading out, there was the risk of the buoyant package getting caught up in the countless stalactites hanging from the roof of the tunnel.

Writing the letter strengthened Sugiyama’s resolve. He had to believe that he had a chance. At his best, he could swim about fifty meters underwater without having to surface. With the aid of the current, he could probably cover even more distance. As a precaution against projecting stalactites, he would wear his helmet and keep his overalls and boots on.

Turning his lamp on, he set it on a nearby rock to shine on the left side of the subterranean lake. The light flickered feebly as if it would go out at any second. He gradually lowered himself into the water and waited until he grew accustomed to the cold before submerging his entire body. Swimming over to the left side of the lake, he placed his hand on a ledge and poked his head above water to regulate his breathing. The headlamp on top of the rock was almost out. Sugiyama took several short breaths and filled his lungs with air. The case containing the letter was wedged under his belt so that there was no possibility of losing it. He patted his belt to reassure himself that the letter was still there. The instant he did so, the headlamp went out.

As if this had been his cue, Sugiyama began diving down along the line of the ledge. About six feet down, the current became more vigorous, assailing his face and almost ripping his helmet off. His groping hands found the opening to the tunnel. The water around him was rushing into the tunnel. It was just as he had guessed. His will firm, he entrusted his fate to the current.

Summer 1995

The troupe of twelve pitched base camp on the gentle slope that fronted the entrance to the cave. They were members of the S. University Explorers’ Club led by Takehiko Sugiyama.

Although they had been particular about selecting a shaded spot to pitch their tents, no sooner had it passed three in the afternoon than the tents were being directly exposed to searing sunlight. With faces bathed in sweat, the club members shouldered their equipment. Their load consisted not only of caving gear; they also had their full diving equipment to carry, which was no joke. The cars were parked on an empty stretch of ground near the foot of the mountain, about a mile and a half downhill from the camp. Each club member had had to make two roundtrips to carry their two sets of gear uphill.

The screeching of cicadas was so loud that normal conversation was out of the question. The club members devoted their energies to setting up base camp rather than conversing. Their preparations were progressing ahead of schedule. Takehiko gave a satisfied smile as he saw how adroitly the members were handling the preparations. Putting down the tackle he was carrying, he took a brief rest and stretched his back.

The dark mouth of the limestone cave gaped right in front of them. The opening to the grotto had been made wider than it had been back when his father had arrived here two decades earlier. The impenetrable darkness that lay beyond the opening, though, was exactly the same as what his father had witnessed. For Takehiko, the cave was a place that he’d felt destined to visit sooner or later.

Now known by the impressive name of White Rock Caverns, these limestone caves discovered by his father had been visited by dozens of research teams. Until the year before, plans had been made to develop the caves into a tourist attraction under the aegis of the local village administration. However, the plans had been abandoned for the most part. Not only had the project been opposed by local environmental protection groups, but the estimated costs of building roads and other tourist infrastructure had been staggering. Thus the limestone caves had been left untouched. The general public was not allowed to enter the caves. The district forest office granted admission permits only to such official groups as research teams.

The caves were only a three-hour drive from where Takehiko lived. He could have come whenever he wanted. Nor had he lacked specialist friends; he could have dived into the subterranean lake where his father had died whenever he chose.

Takehiko had intentionally kept putting the visit off. Hardly a day had passed during most of his life without him picturing that subterranean lake. It had even figured in his dreams. He had long lost count of the times he had woken in the middle of the night, gasping in panic at the water and darkness as they closed in on him.

At this time in his life, he faced no hardships worth mentioning. It occurred to him that the time had come.

Once summer vacation was over, he would have to cut down on activities with the Explorers’ Club, and devote himself instead to completing his undergraduate thesis and finding a job. The following year would see him a busy, gainfully employed member of society. He felt that his visit must happen now or never.

Takehiko had just turned three years old when his father’s body had been retrieved from the bottom of the subterranean lake. Children of that age do not even understand the meaning of death. That muscular, vital body he had hugged every day had been there one moment and gone the next; the only sensation he had had was that something familiar had suddenly vanished.

Six months after the two men encountered tragedy in the cave, a local exploration team had chanced upon the body of Sakakibara, the friend of Takehiko’s father. Immediately after the grisly discovery, the team had also discovered his father’s body while surveying the underground lake. Thus they had finally resolved the incident involving the two men who had gone missing about six months earlier. Even after the team had removed the boulder, Sakakibara’s decomposing body had remained dangling there. As the team turned their flashlights on Sakakibara’s corpse, they had been aghast to see the calcified back of his crushed skull cleaving as one to the limestone.

The police had explained to his mother that his father’s death was probably due to temporary derangement caused by being trapped so long in the darkness’.

What the police meant was that his father had become so mentally confused that he’d drowned himself in the lake. Cases of suicide by drowning are apparently not uncommon among desperate people marooned or adrift at sea for a prolonged period of time. Takehiko’s mother refused to accept the conclusion offered by the police, although there was no use in contesting it; it was a point of personal rather than criminal bearing. She did, however, doggedly insist that her husband had not been the kind of man to panic in a crisis. She understood her husband’s personality better than most.

The club had completed its preparations for diving in the cave by eleven the next morning. Takehiko and five other members would be the first to dive, while the other six members remained on standby. All team members, including the two female members, were certified scuba divers and had plenty of experience diving at sea. Only three members of the team, however, had cave-diving experience. It was the role of the captain, Takehiko, to initiate the remaining nine members into the mysteries of cave diving.

After a meticulous check to ensure that all equipment was working properly, the six divers lined up on the bank of the underground lake. Takehiko once again ran through the most important points to keep in mind:

‘Avoid using your fins as much as possible. If you disturb the sediment, you’ll end up with zero visibility. If you panic and try to surface, understand that there’s nowhere to surface. The only thing is to avoid panicking. Have you got that? Do not panic, whatever you do. Remain calm at all times. Approach any crisis with calm. Okay?’

Nodding in response, the other divers inserted the mouthpieces of their regulators into their mouths without a fuss. In addition to the lights fitted onto their helmets, all divers carried powerful searchlights. Each diver was tied to the lifeline at a uniform distance from the next diver. Their air cylinders were not fixed to their backs. They were to clasp their cylinders to their breasts if the need arose. The ability to move them this way prevented them from getting in the way in such a constricted environment.

The presence of the divers brought a distinctive aura to the cave as the beams from their twenty-odd lights reflected off the surface of the lake and illuminated the walls of the cavern. They were fitted out with so much equipment and so many lights that they literally dazzled. Takehiko’s father had been unadorned with such gear when he made his attempt on the tunnel. If he could see them now, he may well have smiled at the somewhat excessive array of equipment.

The prolonged rainy season had caused the subterranean water level to swell. Takehiko silently dived beneath the surface of the abundant waters of the lake, leading his fellow explorers on their way.

No sooner had he gone under than he became aware of the oval opening to a tunnel, about three feet across, in the left wall. He noticed countless little bubbles moving toward the opening and being drawn in. It had to be a tunnel that led to an outlet. In an attempt to relive his father’s experience, Takehiko held in his breath and let himself be directed by the current towards the tunnel, reminiscent as it was of the viscera of some enormous monster.

As he shone the beam of his underwater light in front of him, he could see that the stalactites hanging down from the ceiling made the passageway impracticably narrow. Although the current did provide enough thrust to keep moving him forward, he soon found himself colliding with the projecting limestone if he left everything to the momentum of the current. He discovered that it required considerable adeptness to avoid the projections just above his head and the stelae jutting out from the sides. He could only make his way forward by plowing frantically through the water with his hands, while vigorously moving his flippers up and down. Even with frontal visibility, it was almost impossible to move forward without colliding with the stalactites.

Takehiko lightly closed his eyes in an attempt to recreate what his father must have experienced. Yet no sooner did his eyelids shut than he had to open them again. The instant he closed his eyes, he was overcome by an intense fear as the power of his imagination transformed the stalactites into massive daggers. No matter how many times he tried closing his eyes, the sense of imminent danger forced them open again.

It occurred to Takehiko that it would have been impossible for his father to make it through the tunnel uninjured. He must have suffered innumerable lacerations to his head and arms. As Takehiko pictured his father tenaciously swimming onward in pitch darkness, unable to breathe and bleeding from his wounds, he was overwhelmed by a surge of emotion so intense that he used up all the oxygen in his lungs.

Just as he was about to give up hope of getting any further without breathing, the tunnel suddenly became wider, as if funnelling out. Looking up, he saw what appeared to be ripples on the surface of the water. A space seemed to have opened up between the ceiling of the tunnel and the water. Takehiko surfaced and took a breath of air through his mouthpiece. He was sure that his father would have also surfaced here to refill his lungs.

He pondered how he could possibly describe the majestic sight that greeted his eyes. From the gently curved ceiling hung down countless stalactites like so many straws. They descended to almost touch the top of his head, as sharp as a mass of downward-facing needles. The stalactites were up to several yards in length. Yet, sadly, Takehiko’s father had been unable to see this impressive spectacle.

A little further ahead, the tunnel once again narrowed to much the same constricting proportions as before. The gap of air between the ceiling and surface of the water disappeared. Takehiko decided to try holding his breath once again. The current began to slope slightly downwards, whereupon the flow of water became swifter. Yet he didn’t feel this merited much concern. In his excessive preoccupation with duplicating the conditions that had beset his father, Takehiko had forgotten to take due consideration for his own safety. There was a dramatic surge in the speed of the current, and, to his complete surprise, he found himself swallowed up in a waterfall. No more than ten feet tall, it was tiny as waterfalls go, tumbling him in the water only twice. Yet in the impact of rolling, he lost the searchlight he was holding in one hand and struck his back hard against a rock. Carried along by the current, he skidded jerkily along the tunnel. He could hold his breath no longer, and was on the verge of taking another breath when he saw a vertical line rise up about a dozen feet in front of him. Pressing his back up against the wall of the tunnel, he began to draw near to the line. As he drew closer, the true nature of the line became clear. It was a fissure in the rock, measuring about eight inches across. Water was gushing through this crevice and flowing out. This was the outlet! Through a layer of water particularly aerated with bubbles, he could clearly make out the faint light of day seeping through. Inside the fissure, the water on its way out mingled with the incoming light. With his back pressed against the rock by the surge of water, Takehiko thrust his hand into the strip of light from his contorted position. Through here it had been that his father had cast his last words.

A year after the news of his father’s death had reached the family, the film case containing a copy of the map had been delivered to the Sugiyamas. On the reverse side of the map were words that testified to his father’s final deed. It was a letter from his father, likely written immediately before he died.

There could be no doubt that water linked this underground lake with Tokyo Bay. The water flowed first into a tributary then into the thicker line of the River Tama, which emptied itself out into Tokyo Bay. Yet, what were the chances of a letter delivered this way arriving to the addressee? Surely it could only be described as a miracle. And yet, the sublime strip of light making its way through the aperture had the power to make one believe in just such a miracle.

They had found the letter in their mailbox. It had been delivered in the film case, although the package bore no sender’s name, thus making it impossible to determine who had found the letter or when it had been found. They could only imagine that it had been discovered by a resident of the Okutama area; else it had become entangled in the nets of a fisherman plying the stretch of sea near the mouth of the Tama. Whoever the finder, he or she had taken the note from the film case and read it, and appreciated the importance of the message to the family for whom it had been intended. He or she had also been kind enough to send it to the Sugiyamas.

The letter said:

Without a shadow of doubt, it was his father’s handwriting, every letter imprinted firmly. The letter was proof that his father had been prepared to meet his death.

It was clear why his father’s body had been found near the outlet below a subterranean lake. Knowing that there was no way out, his father had yet sought a way and tried the submerged tunnel; the attempt could end in failure, but at least he’d send his son a letter willing him a fearless determination to survive. He had not addressed the letter to his wife. He’d wanted to convey to his son – then too young even to read the letter -the message to be strong.

The letter had proved an invaluable source of strength to Takehiko. He’d read it over and over again. When life called for courage, he recalled his father’s words and the difficulties he’d tried so hard to overcome. Takehiko had had only two and a half years with his father and now hardly even remembered those days. Yet the darkness that his father had faced pursued Takehiko into his dreams, making him gasp for air. Every time he awoke from the dream, he felt only more determined to be strong. Because he had the letter, there was nothing he feared in life.

He thrust his arm into the crevice up to the shoulder, and slowly pulled it back. If the opening had only been twice as wide, his father’s wish would have been granted; he’d have emerged into the radiant light.

Takehiko strove to imprint the sight before him in his memory, so he’d never forget. And he said in his heart, ‘Dad, I got your will.’