Limping through the caves my mind lingered in the shadows surrounding the flickering flame of my grandfather’s lighter, the alcohol soaked cotton’s odour slowly fading like my hopes of escape, and I thought of the last time I saw him. He didn’t understand why I had to come here, said it was a dark place.

Darkness isn’t a fear of mine, I told him. I told him that this was just a place, a hunk of land that people forgot about because they didn’t want to remember.

I was right.

It wouldn’t be long now. I would soon be, like this land, forgotten, remembered more for the lighter I took with me into the darkness.

But walking through this growing gloom, I no longer dream of freedom. Let the light fade, I hear. There is more than death here, there is more than nullification here. And as the fuel is exhausted and the light fades away I hear a hum that rattles my bone and calls me deeper. A hum without words and yet within the hum a promise escapes and reaches my ears: “I will not forget you.”