The Cave.

Chapter 1: The First Phase of Selection

Beth was sitting in her living room, going through the mail when she came across a piece of mail in a very brightly colored envelope. The purple envelope with gold trimming was very difficult to overlook. Usually, Beth would throw away such a piece of unsolicited mail, dismissing it as junk mail. There was something about this one, though, she could not avoid. An intuition, perhaps.

The letter read, "You have been chosen for a free cruise! You will travel around South East Asia for one month.. all expenses included. To be eligable to recieve this gift, you are required to purchase and read " Transpersonal Psychology and Metaphysics". The order form is enclosed in this package, along with some other materials you will require. This seemed too good to be true! A free trip and all she had to do was read some book? The whole ordeal seemed very suspicious, however, it Beth was not going to turn down a free cruise. After all, she had just graduated from college and had a whole summer with nothing to do. Besides, she wanted to take a break before starting to work. This was a great time to get out there and see the world.

As she sat there daydreaming about the possibility of a free cruise, she could not help but pause when thinking about the title of the book she must read. "Where have I heard that title before", she wondered. Then it struck her. Her friend Rose was reading that same book for a class of hers at the University. Looking at the date of the letter, she realized she only had a few days to send in the materials and redeem her prize. She had to get started on preparing for her trip immediately.

The following day, Beth decided to go to Rose's class to request borrowing the mysterious book. The morning walk through school is something she quite enjoyed. Beth and Rose were exchange students studying chemical engineering in Japan. The landscaping of her school resembled that of a classic Japanese garden which seemed almost harmonious with nature. The surrounding buildings were hundreds of years old and were full of history's stories. It was obvious that they had been recently restored, which only added to the brilliance of the scene. This was the beginning of summer and the light breeze and bright sun in the morning filled Beth with a sense of peace that the 30 minute walk to class seemed 5 minutes long.

Rose sat at her desk, mezmorized by the images that were projected on the screen infront of her. She seemed completely unaware of the hundereds of students around her in the auditorium classroom. In fact, all the students seemed to be in a semi-hypnotic state. Beth found this strange, especially since there were no professors or authority figures in the class room. Taking advantage of the fact that there were no teachers in the classroom, Beth took the liberty to call out Rose's name "Rose turn around!"..nothing. Nobody turned around She then proceeded to weave through the rows of students to her friend. No students moved out of the way for Beth to pass. She had to basically climb over the students to get to the front. Suddenly, she tripped over one of the students who had their leg sticking out and fell flat on her face. She felt a slight burn on her forehead and a single drop of blood dripped into her eye. Moaning slightly in pain, she tightened her eye and covered it with one hand. She got up slowly and knocked her knee with a great force on the edge of a chair. When her vision cleared, she realized that nobody paid any attention to her injury. 'What the hell could be so damn interesting that nobody would even turn their head!'

Beth glanced up at the screen for a while and saw the images of two men in their 50s. They resembled the sterotypical weirdos you'd see on the history channel that probably never saw the light of the sun in years, totally mesmorized by thier own theories that they completely lost touch of the outside world. Such men seemed to be in a time warp and wore the kind of 1960s suits that you'd see your grandpa burried with at a funeral. The men spoke in a monotone that seemed it would put someone straight to sleep. Beth was completely perplexed at how such old foggies could have captivated the minds of such young and vibrant students, especially with no supervision. Soon, Beth slowly stumbled towards Rose's desk. She had to practically yell to get Rose's attention away from the screen.. but nothing. Beth noticed the book popping out of Rose's bag and decided she would just borrow it. Afterall, exams were over. How badly could she really need the book. Beth rationalized she would need it more considering the prospect of her free trip and slid the book out of the bag. She walked out of the room taking one last glance at the entranced students..how odd..

On the day of the trip, she hastily threw some clothes and toiletries in a small suitcase and headed for the door. She got in her car and looked at the instructions to the place that she must go. This area that was described on the paper was very obscure and she had to roll down the window and ask for directions several times. She got off the highway into an abandoned little ghost town. It seemed that every sign she passed had been covered with overgown weeds. How she was able to find the docks she had to go to she is still not sure. At this poit, most of her navigation was by sheer intuition.

The docks resembled a scene from a mob movie where drops were made and 'shit went down'. Being a young woman by herself made her anxiety heighten even more. This place seemed such a contrast to the image associations she had, especially judging from the fancy gold trimmed envelope and letter. Surely, this was it. The sign at the end of a weatherd peir read "Golden Cruise Line" under which there was a poster with names, including her name 'Beth Marvin'.

To her surprise, she was just on time. She looked out onto the cruise ship that was heavily adorned in gold and titanium. She wondered how such a beautiful ship could be in such an aweful place. Even in the run-down background of the old docks in a ghost town could not have marred the spectacle of a ship.

Excitedly, Beth went in the ship and registered her name. She almost tripped over herself, as she still had a limp from the large bruise on her knee. To her surprise, there were not many passengers on this tour. Perhaps there were about 40. Beth, who had never been on a cruise ship before, was just so excited to be there that she didn't want to question all the suspicious and strange contexts of her prize. She could not resist but go explore all the areas of this magnificent ship. The "Golden Cruise" ship put the Titanic to shame. And all this was free? Unbelievable. Beth still wasn't going to question it.

Later in the night, Beth was exhausted from just walking around the expansive ship. She lay in bed reading from the book she was required to read.. "Spiritual Emergence" was coined by Stanislav and Christina Grof (1989) in order to describe a gradual unfoldment and appearance of psycho-spiritial categories in a persons life. In cases where this spiritual unfoldment is intensified beyond the control of the individual it might lead to a state of "Spiritual Emergency". A Spiritual Emergency might cause significant disruptions in psychological, social and occupational functioning, and many of the psychospiritual problems described above might be characterized as spiritual emergencies (Lukoff et.al, 1998)." What the hell does that mean?

Beth decided that this book she was reading was bullshit and set it down on the night stand and went to sleep. The slow rocking from the water rocked her to sleep like a little baby. She soon started drifting off into dream land. The sandman had sprinkled magic dust into her eyes and she was almost about to lose consciousness when *Crash*... She was immediately woken up by the sound of lightning followed by a loud scream. Alertness and a slight panick gave Beth a quick chill, and as she shuddered in fear she could see a sizeable puff of smoke come out from under the door. Was this a fire? Couldn't be, Beth could feel no heat. Beth hastily put on her robe and with bare feet ran out to see what was happening. What she saw sent shivers down her spine and the small hairs on her arms and the back of her head stood on end. Paralyzed by fear, she saw members of the ship killing off eachother with thier bare hands and some others killing themselves. "What was the cause of these mysterious fits of madness?" Beth wondered. Her inner questionings were paused as her brain froze in fear. She could not even feel the trail of urine down her leg when a fog engulphed the entire ship. Beth suddenly became faint and almost passed out when she felt a firm hand grab her by the arm saying in a pretentious and somewhat condesceding voice "Let's get these ones to safety"

Next thing Beth knew, she was on a tiny island with a small cave. She turned around to look at the cruise ship. Where did it go? All she saw was what looked like some old pirate ship. Where the heck did that come from?

She was still too afraid to be thinking about the whereabouts of the ship. She was just glad that she was off of it and it was gone! Twelve people remained. She looked up in the sky and lightning was still skewering through the sky and the thunder growled as though the heavens were hungry for vengeance. A trickle of rain turned into a downpouring.