Hey I havent PRed this yet or edited, but I wanted to put something up aside from the little teaser I have. Please give your honest opinions on what you thought was well done or what you think I should improve on. Thanks

--Prelude--(Read like its being narrated. the rest of the story is in first person)

Blake Lambet was a normal guy, he wasn’t too lazy, and he wasn’t too active, if anything was wrong with him at all, it would have been the fact that, as an individual, he had very little ambition.

He lived in a nice little town in the middle of nowhere located in beautiful British Columbia, or BC for short. Nothing interesting ever happened and he was more or less bored out of his mind all the time. Until that fateful night…

Standing out in his back yard on a beautiful moonless night while waiting for his dog Benjie to finish his business, he couldn’t help but look up to the wonderful nighttime sky. To his amazement, he spotted a comet streaking above his head! Where did that come from!? He hadn’t heard anything in the news about a comet! As he stared at it with wonder, he couldn’t help but feel something strange as he looked at the comet, that seemed to be growing larger, or were his eyes playing tricks on him?

It didn’t take long for him to notice that it wasn’t a comet at all, but alas he didn’t figure it out fast enough, as a ball of molten rock and fire smashed down upon his head, (which by the way, was making an Oh Shit kind of face at that point in time) making a crater the size of a baseball field where his house used to be. And he had just installed air conditioning too… oh well.

And that was the end of Blake Lambet’s life in beautiful British Columbia and the start of his story…

“Aaaaaaaaaaahh!”

The scream echoed throughout the dark, damp cave, it was the scream of a man who was about to die, a man whom fate had cheated.

Or so he thought.

***

Finally I ran out of breath and slowly came to my senses. It was dark, too dark to see properly, but there was a faint light coming from somewhere behind me. Taking deep breaths to steady my rampaging heart I finally looked around and tried to focus my eyes, I then noticed that I was lying on my back and it was becoming uncomfortable so I sat up right. Finally I began to see more clearly, but what I could see confused me even more than the darkness.

I was in some kind of cave; the air smelt like damp earth and there were dripping sounds echoing in the darkness. I looked behind me and what I saw confused me even more than my location, there was a football shaped violet crystal, propped up between a stalagmite and a stalactite perfectly like some kind of alter. It gave off a faint light, the only light in the circular, dome like cave.

A lot of thoughts were assaulting me at once, where was I? How did I get here? What’s with that creepy crystal light bulb? The last thing a remembered was coming home after a long day, and my dog asking out, I went outside with him since the gate was broken and he might have made a break for it.

As I was standing there trying not to look at him doing his thing, because he always gave me a glare whenever I looked at him. I saw a brilliant orange comet and then… it hit me, literally, shouldn’t I be dead? Or was all that just some fucked up dream. But if that’s true than how the hell did I get here?!

I stood and found it was hard to keep my balance, like I hadn’t moved for a very long time. wobbling slightly over to the only source of light in the cave I inspected it a bit more closely, using the stalagmite to hold most of my weight. As I looked into to depths of the gem I could just faintly make out a swirling, cloud like substance inside.

My reflection was visible, it was difficult to make out my dark blue eyes or the color of my auburn hair, but I could clearly see my smooth square jaw and somewhat pale skin, though it was tinted violet in the reflection, there were scrapes here and there, but nothing seemed to be broken or gauged out, not that I felt pain like that, but it was reassuring none the less to see I was fine.

Perhaps too curious for my own good, I went to touch the over sized gem but as soon as my fingers brushed against the surface, the swirling cloud, or whatever it was, began to move much faster, and the light increased ten fold.

Quickly, I pulled away but noticed small cracks beginning to form along its previously pristine surface. The room began to rumble and shake, I fell on my butt and covered my eyes to shield them against the sudden bright light.

‘CRSSSSHRRSSHHH! BAAAANG!!’

The crystal suddenly exploded from within and something heavy hit me; it was warm and panting furiously, when I lowered my arms I saw a small Black Lab sitting comfortably on my lap.

“Benjie!?”

The small Black Lab licked my face like nothing had even happened! You could at least act like your surprised you mutt! Wait! Did you just jump out from that weird gem?! I glanced around franticly looking for the gem, it wasn’t hard to find, or rather ‘they’ weren’t hard to find.

Scattered around all over were a bunch of small, faintly glowing shards, two were about the size of a fist, and the rest ranged from the size of a fingernail to the size of my big toe! Benjie finally got off me and started licking his… never mind.

Glancing around I quickly located the pieces and gathered up all the small gems, I was hesitant at first, not knowing if they would blow up again and shoot out my mother, unlikely as that was... I wasn’t taking any chances. finally I built up the courage to touch them again, there no longer was a murky cloud like substance in them, but still they gave off a faint light.

I figured I would need that if I ever wanted to get out of this cave, they were, after all, the only light I had.

There were two tunnels that lead out of the room, one to the right and one to the left, two choices... I suck at guessing games... Looking at Bengie, who was sitting there panting like an idiot I said in a somewhat exasperated voice.

“Alright boy, choose a tunnel with that magnificent nose of yours and go get help!” giving him a glare that brooked no argument.

Benjie just tilted his head a bit and then came to sit next to me, If only I had trained you to do something other than eat sleep and wake me up for work and morning walks!

With an exaggerated sigh I chose left, there were only two options, one or both could be right. Benjie followed me, sometimes running up ahead and sometimes staying to smell something interesting, but he kept pace with me most of the time. At least I wasn’t walking alone in the dark, having my faithful, yet painfully useless companion along made me a bit less anxious.

We were probably walking for about an hour when the tunnel split in two, with a sigh I resigned myself to the fact that nothing was ever easy, and if I wanted to figure out where I was and how I got there I had to find the way out. I chose the left passage, because it was slightly elevated and I hoped that meant up and out, what can I say, I’m no miner, and my grades in geography… well I cant even find Africa on a map without labels.

We were walking along like usual, there wasn’t anything to see except stone, and Ben wasn’t much for talking. When suddenly Ben started to growl, I looked at him curiously, hoping that he wasn’t hungry… I know their mans best friend and all, but I was pretty hungry, and he was starting to look delicious.

Something flashed slightly in the corner of my eye and I noticed a slight reflection up ahead, the mystery gem (which is what I decided to call it) reflected off of something. I cautiously approached and Ben slowly followed, but kept on growling for some reason.

The object was on the ground, it looked like a large crystal formation… what is it was this cave and jewels? it's a treasure trove down here! As I got closer to it Ben started to bark and I turned around to shut him up, but before one word left my mouth something hit my abdomen, hard, I quickly looked down and saw the object of my recent stomach pain.

That crystal wasn’t a crystal at all! Sprawled out before me was a meter long armadillo like creature, its shell was made out of that spikey jagged crystal material, it had a rodent like head, but with huge fangs that protruded outside its mouth.

“What the fuck is that!?” I yelled, both surprised and a little ticked off due to getting hurt. When I looked to see how it had attacked me, I saw two well developed hind legs that seemed both powerful and agile. It must have head butted me, what a jerk!

The armadillo creature rolled up into a ball and began rolling towards me at tackling speed! Just before it reached me, it suddenly bounced once, twice and then hit my thigh as I tried to get away from it.

The jagged spikes tore at my jeans and actually ripped them in several places, making shallow cuts along my skin. Thank god for Denim, because it gave just enough resistance to make the wound a shallow one. The little bastard veered off course and hit the wall, serves him right!

It uncoiled itself to catch its bearings. unfortunately for the little monster though, it didn’t have a lot of time, because Ben jumped it from the side and bit down on its whip like tail, hard.

“SQEEEEEER!!”

Praising Ben in my mind after seeing him take action... I guess he really was a protective breed after all! the creature didn’t like being bitten very much and tried to bite Ben, but I regained my composure before it could. I kicked it so hard it flipped over, and then Ben went for its neck. The squealing thing finally died and I was left panting and shocked beyond belief. What the fuck just happened?!

I’ve never in my whole life heard of a rodent that wore a crystalline shell. Especially one that looks like an overgrown armadillo! Ben was busy lapping up the blood and even started eating some of the exposed flesh. I thought I should stop him, but realized my own hunger then, If I wasn’t so worried about whatever that meat would do to me, I might have eaten it too.

With that in mind, I took out one of the fist sized crystal fragments that had a sharp edge to it and cut the creatures tail off. If nothing worrisome happed to Ben, I would at least get a bit to eat... Also, that shell looks sturdy and the spikes were sharp, if I run into another of these little jerks I should be prepared.

Using the loose strips of fabric from my jeans to bind my cuts, and then sat down while I watched Ben have at it like he was polishing off a huge marrowbone. That animal was not normal; I just hoped there weren’t many more of the little bastards.

It took Ben a while to clean out his new chew toy, while he did that, I started to think up what I believed were plausible reasons for my current predicament. The last thing I remembered was a meteor getting too close for comfort, and then, I realized I was screwed. Then blank, nothing, nadda, next thing I knew I was in this odd cave screaming my ass off.

Maybe the impact blew me into a hidden cave or something? but that didn't seem right at all, I should be dead, I knew that I was going to die the moment I realized what was headed my way... "Gaah! nothing makes sense, maybe Hell is a cave and I'm stuck in it!" Ben stopped cleaning out the shell to look puzzled at me but soon lost interest.

"sigh" At least we avoided eating each other.

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