The Cave
At first sight, the hole seems completely natural: an opening into a subterranean world that man knows nothing about. It bears no resemblance to the other cave entrances nearby, where warrior-monks once entered the underworld as a test of their inner strength. To the rare passer-by, it is simply another cave – untouched by mankind, and therefore not worth the danger of exploring.
Unmarked Cave, China
But those who take a closer look will notice something very unusual: a few feet into the cave lies a series of steps, leading down into the darkness. Hand-carved steps; man-made steps. Steps that beckon the unwary into another world. These steps number in the hundreds: they go deep into the earth, deeper than any other man-made tunnel in the world. Only the mines of Africa go deeper, and they offer nothing of value.
The steps spiral downwards; anyone brave enough to venture into the cave would spend hours in pitch black, treading carefully, ever worried that they’d trip and fall to their deaths, never to be seen again. Even worse, they’d spend those hours realising their worst fears: fear of the dark, of spiders, of rats or aliens or ghosts or demons. Fear of being lonely, of dying, and of being forgotten. The ancients designed their structures well: no man, woman or child would be able to descend the Great Stairwell without confronting all of their inner demons.
Those who manage to reach the bottom, after hours of tests that not even the warrior-monks were expected to face, will find something quite unexpected. They will find something that will shatter the beliefs and foundations of history, science and archaeology. If they manage to make it back out alive and well, the things they’ve seen will change the world forever – for the secret of the Caverns of Agartha is simply too great to leave the world unharmed.
Few are those with the curiosity to look into the cave. Fewer still are those who possess enough courage to enter it. Only one has ever had the courage to descend the stairs, and he suffered a breakdown shortly after he returned. The ancients designed their structures well: their hard work has paid off, and their secret remains hidden to this day.
