I couldn’t stay inside. The light was calling me, inviting me out to something better. Slowly the strength of the morning filled me. I got up on my creaking knees and reached for the wall. I touched the letters again in that cryptic triangle. It wasn’t a dream.

But wait—I saw other inscriptions in the wall, a foot above the message. The delicate writing was exquisite, not uniform yet orderly, with a natural beauty that made it appear like artwork as much as language. It seemed more like hieroglyphics than anything else human, but exotic and unfamiliar in form, as if it were alien calligraphy. This wasn’t any human language. And yet … what other languages were there but human ones?

I noticed now there were also inscriptions below the English message. Why hadn’t I seen them last night? Scrawled out on crooked and uneven lines, sprawled haphazardly across the wall, this was yet another language. The writing was coarse and crude, devoid of artistry. I reached out and started to touch it, then felt a cold chill down my spine. I backed away. I looked up and down from the elegant language above to this one below, and began to see some similarities. Despite their differences they shared some of the same characters.

I spun around, bracing myself. I had the uneasy feeling that whoever—or whatever—had written the alien inscriptions might not be far away. If they returned, I didn’t want to be there.

On the floor at the far wall, at the bottom of an eerie shaft of light, I saw something—a dark green heap. I moved toward it, cautiously reaching out my hand. Something darted out from under it—a black snake. I drew back, then reached again—it was a backpack with worn and faded leather straps and a battered frame, bowed and rusted. I emptied it, finding handfuls of dust, a dirty gray blanket, an old black plastic water bottle, and a bent rusty nail. Whose pack had this been? Why had he left it here?

I could have used this blanket last night.

I felt repulsed as I recalled the previous night’s wallowing in emotion and defeat and regret. Mom was right, and Sarge was right. It was time to do what Nick Seagrave had always done—take charge.

I pushed aside thoughts of the creatures. I would not spend one more night, one more hour, one more minute in this cave. If I had to fight my way out, that’s what I’d do.

I pushed out the backpack and crawled forward on my stomach through the mouth of the cave—out into the brilliance … cast by a huge red sun.

2

IN THE BRIGHTNESS outside the cave, I forced my eyes open into slits and looked from side to side, then, covering my eyes, above me. No sign of the beasts.