Chapter 1: The Arrogance of Forgetting

Chapter 1: The Arrogance of Forgetting

The air at the foot of the Black Coyote Hills tasted of pine dust and regret. Leo Vance felt the familiar grit on his teeth and fought the urge to spit. It was the taste of home, a flavor he’d spent the last six years trying to wash out with stale university coffee and the sterile air of library archives.

“You’re sure about this, Leo?”

Thomas’s voice was a low rumble, steady as the earth under their worn boots. At nineteen, his younger brother already had the gravity of a man twice his age. He stood a full head shorter than Leo but seemed to take up more space, his broad shoulders a bulwark against the whispering wind. Around his neck, a small, beaded leather pouch rested against his collarbone, a silent testament to the world Leo had so desperately fled.

Leo adjusted the expensive pack on his back, the metal clips of his geological kit clinking softly. “We’ve been over this, T. It’s not a sweat lodge, it’s a cave system. A fascinating example of Karst topography, most likely. I need seismic readings, air quality samples, and high-resolution photos of the petroglyphs for my thesis.” He flashed the condescending smirk that had become his primary tool of communication back on the reservation. “It’s called science.”

Thomas’s patient, sad smile was the only reply. It was the same smile he’d worn for years, every time Leo dismissed the stories of the elders as folksy nonsense. “It’s called the Painted Caves for a reason. And none of the stories about it are good. People who go in… they don’t come out the same. If they come out at all.” He touched the medicine pouch at his throat. “We shouldn’t be here.”

“That’s the point!” Leo’s voice was sharp, a professor’s impatient snap. “My thesis argues that these ‘legends’ are sociological defense mechanisms. The ‘Chatterlings’—the so-called Little People who drag you into the earth—are a mythologized explanation for natural dangers. Carbon monoxide pockets, infrasound causing hallucinations, unstable rock formations. I’m going to prove it. I’m going to give our people’s history a foundation in fact, not fear.”

Forgetting, Leo thought, is a kind of science, too. You just have to dissect the memory until it’s nothing but meaningless parts.

Thomas shook his head, his long black hair shifting in the breeze. “Our history already has a foundation, Leo. You’re just trying to build a new one on top of it because you don’t like the shape of the old one.”

The words hit closer to home than Leo would ever admit. Guilt was a poor motivator, but it was effective. “Look, T,” he said, softening his tone, injecting a carefully measured dose of fraternal pleading. “Just guide me to the entrance. You don’t even have to come inside. I get my data, I write my paper, I get my doctorate. I can finally get a real job, maybe help Mom and Dad with more than just thoughts and prayers. Isn't that what we all want?”

He saw the conflict in Thomas’s eyes. The deep-seated belief in the sacredness of this place warring with his fierce, protective love for his arrogant older brother. It was a battle Leo knew he would win. He had always won.

Thomas let out a long, slow breath, the sound swallowed by the vast quiet of the hills. “Fine. To the entrance. But you show respect, you hear me? No loud noises. No taking anything but your pictures and your… readings. This ground remembers everything.”

“Scout’s honor,” Leo said, the smirk returning.

The hike was a tense, largely silent affair. Thomas moved through the tangled undergrowth with a liquid grace, his steps sure and quiet. Leo, for all his modern equipment and athletic build, felt clumsy and loud, his trekking poles crunching on dry leaves and loose scree. He saw the world in layers of potential data—rock striations, soil composition, plant species. Thomas saw it as a living thing, his gaze sweeping the trees not for information, but for permission.

They climbed higher, the sparse pines giving way to jagged, grey rock. In the distance, the rhythmic thud of heavy machinery echoed faintly from the valley floor—the new pipeline project, another scar of progress on an ancient landscape.

“They say the noise is making the spirits restless,” Thomas said, glancing toward the sound.

“They say the vibrations from the drilling could be causing micro-fractures in the rock formations,” Leo countered automatically. “Leading to increased geological instability. Same problem, different vocabulary.”

Finally, Thomas stopped. They stood before a fissure in the face of a sheer cliff. It wasn’t a grand, cathedral-like opening, but a jagged wound in the stone, barely tall enough for a man to enter without stooping. The air that seeped from it was cold, carrying a scent of damp earth and something else… something metallic and old, like forgotten blood. The usual chorus of insects and birds was gone. Here, there was only a profound and unnerving silence.

“This is it,” Thomas whispered, his hand once again on his medicine pouch. He pulled a pinch of dried tobacco from it and scattered it on the ground before the entrance, his lips moving in a silent prayer.

Leo rolled his eyes, busying himself by unstrapping his headlamp. He felt a surge of triumphant energy. This was the final frontier of his past, the heart of the superstition he was born to conquer. He was standing on the precipice of proving himself right, of validating every choice he’d ever made to leave this place behind.

“Alright, I’m heading in,” Leo announced, flicking the switch on his headlamp. A brilliant, sterile-white beam of LED light cut through the primordial darkness. “Wish me luck.”

“I’ll be praying for you, brother,” Thomas said, and his voice held no trace of sarcasm. He looked genuinely afraid.

Leo gave him a final, dismissive wave and stepped across the threshold.

The cold was immediate and absolute, a physical presence that clung to his skin. The darkness seemed to press in from all sides, eager to smother his artificial light. The beam danced across the cave walls, revealing the first of the petroglyphs—faded red ochre figures with impossibly long limbs and wide, staring eyes. They seemed to writhe at the edge of the light.

Perfect. He unslung his pack, pulling out a multi-tool and his high-end digital camera. His heart hammered with academic excitement. He was here. He had made it. The truth, the real, verifiable truth, was just waiting to be recorded.

He took a step deeper, raising the camera to frame a particularly vivid cluster of figures. He adjusted the focus, his finger hovering over the shutter button.

And then, it happened.

A flicker. Not in the cave, not a trick of the light reflecting off mica in the rock. It was inside his own eye, a phantom afterimage against his retina. He blinked hard, shaking his head. Must be the sudden change in light. A pressure headache starting.

He lifted the camera again.

The flicker returned, sharper this time. It resolved itself, coalescing from a meaningless shape into something structured. Something impossible.

Clean, sans-serif letters, glowing with a faint, phosphor-green light, hung suspended in the center of his vision. It was a line of text that had no source, a digital ghost superimposed over the ancient stone. It was clear, unwavering, and utterly insane.

[SYSTEM BOOTING: WELCOME, UNBELIEVER.]