Jeremiah was nervous, being lead to the mouth of the cave. He had just turned twelve, which was the age of adulthood in his village, and when a boy became a man, he was taken to the cave. He would be left there for a day, to find himself and learn about who he was and what he was to do with his life, and return prepared to take his new role. It was a tradition that no one quite knew the origin or age of. But it was difficult to question something that had lasted for so long, and that had such a success rate. There wasn't a single adult in the village that was unhappy with their lot in life.
But that didn't make Jeremiah any more comfortable with where he was going. The people who had already been inside the cave didn't talk much about it, and the kids liked to tell stories about what they thought was inside of it. At times, they attempted to make dares of one another to go into the cave before their day came, but no one ever got any further than the mouth. They were too scared of what would happen if you went in before your time.
The rumors were that entering early would tear you open from the inside out. That the burden of adulthood thrust upon you too early was too much for a child's young mind to manage, and that were they able to even return, they would be incapable of maintaining a position of any worth to the village, and would be banished. No one wanted to be separated from the people that they grew up with. They didn't even know what there was outside of the village. For all they knew, there wasn't anything on the outside.
Jeremiah didn't notice at first that his escorts had stopped accompanying him. He was at the mouth, the jagged rocks like teeth, ready to clamp down on him at any moment and his life before it had really ever begun. He looked back at the men that he had walked there with. They were standing a good ten feet back, watching him go, their faces flat, knowing what it was he was about to experience.
Hesitantly, Jeremiah descended into the dark. The air was heavy and cold, weighing down on him with a dampness that permeated his very being. He felt as though he were walking back through the course of history, back to before men had even found their footing, to when the earth itself was forming. It was dark, but an invisible force seemed to be guiding his feet, leading him deeper into the darkness.
Turning a corner, there was a dim red light in the distance. He knew that that was where he was headed. Whatever was making that light was calling to him, waiting for his arrival, as it had waited for so many arrivals before him.
Deep inside the cave was a monolith, towering in the empty space, made of a solid material that Jeremiah couldn't quite explain. It glowed red, pulsing like a heartbeat, and he felt inexplicably drawn towards it. It called to him, and he could not resist it.
He reached out to it. Put his hand on it.
He saw a flash of life. An entire lifetime in an instant, flooding through his mind. His own life. The life that lay ahead of him. He saw the family he would make. The things he would do. An understanding of everything that he would be.
He woke up in the morning, back at the mouth of the cave.
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