Kaido no Yume VIII

The path up the hill was steep and narrow, and they went up it paw-in-paw, in pairs: Nyaiya with the youngest kit, Kohath with the eldest, and Maro with the third. Twilight faded quickly, and shortly after dark they reached the end of the path, which led to an enormous cave mouth.

Here they disrobed, folding up the kino cloth and setting it just inside the cave. Then they joined paws again, and walked silently into the cave, which was quite dark.

They went on for quite a long time, Kohath feeling smaller and smaller as he was led onward and downward, as the darkness in the serai hill overwhelmed him with its vastness; and still they kept going. Soon phantom lights began swimming in front of his eyes. His head hurt, straining for sensation; all he could feel was the young tiger leading him by the paw, and he was beginning to doubt even that.

The phantom lights spun together into brightly-colored galaxies and shrank away. Kohath imagined he must be in an enormous room, where by perspective he was just a fuzzy blue pinpoint in an endless space. He stopped short, trembling, afraid of losing his awareness of himself—afraid of the dark.

"I exist!"

Maro lifted him up and carried him onwards.

"Hsst, quiet... It is not too far."

And not more than a minute later, they turned a corner and entered a torchlit chamber; but Kohath was curled up, sobbing with eyes shut tight, and didn't notice.