“There you are.” Bending over, I picked up my jumpsuit, pleased to find the binoculars hidden beneath the tattered garment, now stained in frightening clusters of my own blood. After carefully checking the clothing for any insect stragglers, I dressed and began to feel a little less vulnerable.

The location of the jumpsuit indicated the cephaloped had brought me into the cave this way; had it purposely left in the opposite direction? Assuming it intended to feed me, why had it not brought me to the food? Was it afraid that I might again be exposed to the dangers of the forest? Dream or no dream, the ants had nearly made me their breakfast and I had experienced the agony of every bite; that the forest held other unexpected threats, I had no doubts. Still, why had it rescued me? Was I a curiosity, a diversion, or had I become its pet?

I followed the passage another half mile until it twisted up ahead. Rounding the left bend, my ears were assaulted by a rush of rapids as the cavern dropped several hundred feet in a steep three-level grade. Feeling the rocks taking a toll on my bare feet I debated whether to continue on. My eyes followed the course of the stream, which appeared to slow, disappearing into a section of tunnel that seemed different.

Using the binoculars, I confirmed my suspicions … the new passage below was bleeding daylight.

It took me twenty minutes to negotiate the descent, another five before I found myself standing before the entrance to a grand chamber, the arched ceiling towering six stories above a shallow pool of water that glistened emerald green. The cavern ran on perhaps another five hundred feet before narrowing to an exit cloaked in curtains of mist, backlit by a brilliant haze of sunlight.

I sloshed knee-deep through the waterway, each stride releasing cascading ripples of sound and light up the walls of the chamber, my jaunt accompanied by a bizarre echo of raindrops. Pausing to listen to these random splattering sounds, I looked up, expecting to find a rooftop of dripping stalactites … discovering instead a colony of giant bats! Thousands of the creatures hung inverted in a cloud of twitching bodies, the raindrops—bat droppings.

My heart pounded heavy in my chest as I continued moving toward the light at a snail’s pace, praying the demonic mammals would remain asleep. The force of the stream increased as I neared the mist-enshrouded exit, my eyes gradually adjusting to the daylight.

My God …

The thirty-foot-high arch ended in a dizzying precipice, the stream bleeding over its ledge to become a waterfall that plunged a thousand feet onto the rock-strewn beach below. That I knew the beach was doubly unnerving: I had crossed the seemingly endless plain spread out before me days ago. The cave where I now stood was situated within the cliff face I had scaled my first night in la-la land.