The Ringtone

Witnessing a person's death in front of you is an enormous test of psychological endurance. I had watched Wu Wei — a living, breathing man ten seconds ago — become a motionless body in those same ten seconds. The feeling was more paralyzing, more hopeless, than any depth of abyss. I felt the numbness spread through my entire body. I sank to my knees on the ground. Then came a sound that surprised even me — a raw, heaving cry that tore out of me before I understood why. Was it for my dead companion? For my own despair? It didn't matter. I needed to let it out. No one could see me here. I could weep as loudly and as wildly as I wanted.

I wept for what felt like a century — wept until the world went dark, wept until I had nothing left — until at last the sobbing subsided into hitching gasps. After a long time I gathered myself and climbed to my feet.

A person has to accept reality. I was still alive, and while I was alive there were things to do. I looked at Wu Wei's body, then around at the surrounding ground: thin soil only below the plants, bare rock everywhere else. I would bury him under the "sweet potato vines" he had eaten.

I dug through his pocket for his Swiss Army knife, cleared a patch among the poisonous plants, and scraped out a shallow grave. I dragged him in and covered him with soil. By the time I was done, my body had nearly nothing left in it. But there was one more thing. I took the knife to the rock floor in front of the grave and carved: WU WEI'S GRAVE. By the last stroke, my hand had gone limp; carving out his life story was beyond me.

When it was done I stood before his grave, and the thought came unbidden: the roots of these plants would grow down through the soil without mercy, and soon they would pierce his body and draw their nourishment from him. He had wanted to eat them; in the end, they would eat him.

"Hahhh—" A heavy sigh broke the silence. The same as the one we had heard from above, only louder now, and closer.

I followed the sound back to the raised rock and swept the flashlight around. Not far from where I stood I found a black hole roughly two metres across. I didn't recall seeing it when I first surveyed the cave — had I missed it before, or had it just appeared?

I jumped down and went over. The mouth of the hole was cut at an angle, upper and lower rims lined with rows of pointed stalactites. Water dripped from the stone tips in a steady rhythm. I braced a hand against one stalactite and aimed the flashlight inside: within the first dark cavity was another, deeper and bottomless. On either side of that inner opening were two stone slabs — and they were moving.

"Hahhh—" Another great sigh, carried on a powerful rush of cold air from the hole's mouth. As it blew I saw the two stone slabs inside tremble and vibrate in quick, repeated pulses.

Then I understood the mechanism. Wind flowing out of the hole set the stone slabs vibrating, producing the sound. And wasn't that the same principle as a human voice? If the two stone slabs were vocal cords, this hole was a giant mouth. The stalactites at the upper and lower rim were the teeth. The raised rock where I had stood before was the nose; the two water pools were the eyes; the black-purple plants were the hair. This entire nightmarish place was a human face.

The dripping from the stalactite tips quickened. My body recoiled instinctively — pulling back from the mouth that was beginning to salivate.

The wind shifted. Stronger than before, and now blowing inward instead of out, drawing the air toward the hole. The "vocal cords" vibrated in response, but not with a sigh this time — with a shrill ringing, like a telephone.

The wind became a gale. I couldn't keep my footing. The current sucked me forward, pulling me toward the "mouth." I threw my hand out and caught one of the "teeth." But the mouth only pulled harder. The ringing grew sharper and more piercing, and under my fingers the stone tooth began to soften.

"Ring — ring — ring!"

I woke up. Not in my own bed — at my desk in the office, fingernails dug deep into the armrests of my chair. The phone on my desk was ringing without pause. Everything in the cave had been a dream.

I snatched up the receiver.

A beat of silence on the other end. Then, after a few seconds, the voice returned — impossibly hoarse, impossible to place as male or female:

"That box. Must not be opened."

I jerked the phone from my ear and hung up.

Why had I received this call again? Why was I in the office? I had no memory of coming in today.

As I sat there in confusion, a message appeared in the company group chat:

Finance Manager Sun: Meeting today at 4:45, regarding the recent work schedule. (2022-02-21)

Today was the afternoon of February 21st.