The Scary Waterfall

When I was a kid, I used to play with my little brother Jason in the woods located behind our house. We liked to explore the environment because of our curiosity for nature. Caves, tall trees, bushes, everything we had discovered was pretty average, until that fateful weekend.

It was August 11th, and it was Saturday. As usual, Jason and I said goodbye to our parents, and went exploring. This time, we had decided to go more deeply into the woods because we had more time than usual. After walking for one hour approximately, we found a new place to play with, a lake with a beautiful waterfall at the other side. It was full of fishes, algae and rocks.

After we saw the lake, Jason jumped inside and started swimming and I followed him. Some hours later, we decided to make a race from our starting point to the waterfall, which was at the other side of the lake. So, I started swimming with all my forces, but I never had the talent my brother had, so he initially had the advantage. This continued for two minutes until Jason tried to touch the rock wall behind the waterfall, declaring his victory. But, something was wrong, there was no rock wall, there was a cave.

Twenty seconds after Jason reached the cave I followed him as well. It wasn’t as big as someone would expect, but it seemed to be really deep. Because of our curiosity of what could be inside that cave, we decided to turn back home in order to come back tomorrow with flashlights and other stuff. Overall it was a good day at the lake, but while we were leaving it, I heard something weird coming from the cave, but because of my foolishness I thought it was my imagination, so we kept going home.

We came back the next day, with the equipment, Doritos, and lots of motivation. Our mother, before we departed, said to us to be careful with what we might see, so acted this time with more caution. The waterfall cave was still as we had seen it yesterday, and we entered.

Despite the guidance of our flashlights, during the first ten minutes we didn’t find anything interesting inside the cave. But, we still thought that, because we had already walked a lot inside this humid place, we were not leaving until finding something interesting, so we kept going steadily and motivated, often stopping to eat Doritos and verify If the rope we brought was working well.

I remember that I was very exhausted at some point, so after walking approximately for an hour, I asked Jason to go home, but, as the question ended leaving my mouth, Jason noticed something. He told me that he had found a painting, a really old painting, and showed it to me through his flashlight. The work was in the rock wall of the cave, beside us, and showed a group of people, probably cavemen, worshiping a giant creature. It absolutely fascinated me, so I got out of my backpack a camera I had and took a photo with flash. Satisfied with the results of the expedition, we both agreed to return home.

While we were returning thanks to our rope, Jason told me that he was very excited to tell mom and dad about what we had discovered. I was also excited, but in a different way, I was asking myself, if the creature in the painting really existed, does that mean its bones might be nearby? That would be a huge archaeological excavation to watch. Resuming, we were really excited and amazed.

When we were ten minutes from the waterfall, or the exit of the cave, I realized something was wrong. Unconsciously, I looked on the top of the cave and saw something astonishing, claw marks, FRESH CLAW MARKS. I immediately showed the discovery to Jason and he laughed, saying that it might be something caused by nature. But while I was complaining again, we heard a “meow” a few meters from us.

It was huge, really huge, and it was coming towards us. Jason ran faster than me screaming like a little girl and I also ran as fast as I could. Before I could realize I had passed my brother who was starting to feel tired. The creature was at our back and we were 2 minutes from the exit. When we were almost outside, Jason fell over with a rock, so I made a tough decision and threw myself against the creature, who was screaming very loudly.

The last thing I remember after throwing myself to the monster was me and Jason running in the middle of the woods. I saw my right arm and it was bloody red, with fang marks all over. It didn’t hurt at the moment because of all the adrenaline I was experiencing. During the escape I heard a loud moaning from the cat, which was very far away to my surprise. What in the world happened?

When we reached home, Dad took us to the hospital so the doctors could treat our wounds and then we called the police to tell our story. Jason said that I had saved him and that when I was about to be killed he struck the monster with our backpack and with that we gained the time to escape. The next day the animal control division of the police went to the woods with us, who ditched school that day, and entered to the cave. The team found the painting and the claw marks we told them about, but there was no trace of the giant cat. Nonetheless, more deeply into the cave the division found something disturbing, broken bones teared apart from each other. The scientist who tested the bones said it weren’t just from the cavemen in the painting, it was from people who lived SOME YEARS AGO. Knowing that the monster was real and wasn’t a new thing gave me creeps for ages. Nowadays, ten years after the event, Jason and I have a cat-phobia, but that doesn’t care, because we are survivors.