He ran his fingertips along the wall as he walked toward the light. The surface of the wall crumbled away, falling to the tunnel floor as he moved forward. He raised his fingers to his nose, looking ahead into the light, not pausing for a moment.
The smell as he ran his fingers under his nostrils brought back so many memories. Days spent with his mother in the yard picking strawberries from the patch. Gathering blackberries from the bush out front of the house.
The damp, dank smell of the tunnel mixed with the dirt to bring back a sense of petrichor without the grass. There was no grass to be seen.
He felt it should have been an unpleasant smell, down here, but the mixture of scent and memory made for an overwhelming feeling of inexplicable nostalgia. Inexplicable because he had never been here before.
The light from the stone, glassless windows played on the wall. The wall's uneven surface glimmered a little in the sunlight. It brightened and darkened as the sun played over it, and as the clouds moved across the face of the sun.
He gently placed his fingers on a sun-kissed patch of wall and felt the warm clamminess of the soil forming it against his fingertips. It brought back overwhelming memories of days spent by the local creek on sweltering summer days.
He pressed his fingers into the warm, moist mud and watched the soil curve around his fingertips. He wondered if the sunlight ever dried the wall out, or if it just warmed the moisture like it was doing now.
He dragged his fingers down the wall with movements more deliberate and less tentative than those previously. The surface of the wall smeared and distorted with the movement of his fingers.
He left his mark on the wall but doubted it would remain. For he could see no evidence of another's presence here beyond the existence of the tunnel itself.
Clearly many had been here before him. No one man could have created this opening, this entrance, this channel, on their own. No solitary man was up to that task.
This was a collaboration. A mammoth task. But around him he saw no evidence of man. No evidence of those before him. The tunnel appeared untouched, but simply by its existence it could not have been. He was not the first being to have wandered through this darkened hall.
He moved forward. He was drawn forward without really knowing why. He just didn't feel that moving backwards was an option. A valid avenue to take. The light led him forward. The possibility of what was beyond enticed him. It scared him, but he was hypnotised by the prospect of what may lay ahead.
To be honest, he didn't even really know how he had come to be here. He felt he had some vague sense of 'before', but it was just that: vague. It didn't really make a lot of sense and was just a mixture of sounds, smells, lights, tastes and textures. Nothing solid he could put his finger on.
Not like the warm, earthen tunnel walls his hands continued to gently glide over as he moved forward.
Before he had felt smothered by the dark. Warm, cocooned, safe. But smothered. As he moved forward he felt less so. He felt the air thinning. Less choked with the musty, but homely scent he'd become used to.
He tentatively but optimistically moved forward. He noticed new scents. Ones he couldn't identify. Confusing. Fascinating. Terrifying. Enticing. He felt overwhelmed but knew that turning back wasn't the right way either. His curiosity overpowered his fear. Drove him forward, despite not knowing where it drew him.
The light grew brighter. He saw colours around him now, not just shades of black, white and grey.
He heard sounds beyond what he'd heard before. Previously they were always muffled. Calming, but unclear. A dull aching sound that he'd wanted to draw closer to and hear properly. Like listening in to a conversation through a wall that you can't quite make out.
The sort of muffled conversation that keeps you awake nights as you catch an exclamation, a cry, a sob here and there, but you can't quite make out the context. What it all means. Whether the people you hear are arguing or conversing, happy or sad, excited or angry.
But as he moved closer it felt like a lens coming into focus. A camera zooming in on the scene. It all became clear.