CHAPTER SIX

For two days I did nothing. I had begun to feel the same about the Morlocks as the Elois felt. I found their appearance rather disgusting. The color of their skin reminded me of the little white worms we used to examine in school. I even began to have feelings of fear, which prevented me from sleeping well at night. For this reason, I let Weena sleep with the others, which made both of us more comfortable.

Sitting up, unable to sleep, I looked at the moon and noticed that it was less bright tonight than before. It worried me to think what might happen later in the week as the nights became darker. The Morlocks would surely find this to their advantage and come out in increasingly larger numbers.

As horrible as the thought was, I knew that in order to get my time machine back I would have to go underground. If only I had had a partner, a fellow time traveler to accompany me, I would have been much less afraid. Imagining myself climbing down into the darkness alone made my whole body shake and shiver.

My discomfort with this idea made me avoid the holes the next day, and I wandered farther than ever from the village to see what I might find. In the southwest, towards the end of the day's exploration, I saw in the distance a building much larger than all the others. Because of its light green color and curved rooftop, it seemed almost Chinese in design. I wondered what the purpose of this building could be and planned to investigate it directly, but seeing how late it was getting, I decided to wait until the following day.

However, the next morning I became aware of the fact that, although the green building interested me, it was just another way to continue to avoid doing what I knew I had to do. No, I would not return to the southwest today. It was time for me to go underground.

Taking Weena with me, I walked up the hill to the large ruined building I had found on the day I arrived in this world. The entire way up Weena danced and sang, but when we arrived at the well and she noticed my great interest in it, her happiness quickly disappeared. Putting one leg over the side of the hole, I looked at her and blew a kiss. She ran toward me, but I took this as an opportunity to get over my fear and quickly climbed down. I grabbed onto the metal bars that lined the hole from top to bottom and proceeded downward. Looking up toward the sunlight, I saw Weena's face looking down at me in horrible fear. She began to cry and I stopped and put my finger to my lips to tell her to stop making so much noise. Then, smiling up at her, I continued further down.

The hole was much deeper than I had expected. Soon the sunlight from above no longer reached me and I was surrounded in darkness. The hole seemed as though it had no bottom, and my body ached from the difficulty of the climb. I stopped to catch my breath and rest my arms and back. However, in doing so, the metal bar I held onto started to break from the wall and soon I found myself hanging by one arm. With my feet, I quickly caught hold of a lower bar and immediately started moving downward again. From then on, I told myself that there would be no more resting, no matter how much pain I felt, for it appeared that this ladder had been designed for use by something much lighter than I was. Looking up, the top of the hole had become a small blue circle, and I was glad to see that Weena was no longer there.

The hole seemed to go on forever below me. However, just as I started to doubt my ability to make it to the bottom, I found no metal bar to step on. Feeling around a little with my feet, I realized that there was a large hole in the wall. I climbed into it and discovered a long, narrow passage. Although the passage should have frightened me a little, because it made it more possible that I would meet a Morlock, I was happy to have the opportunity to rest my aching body. The noise of the machinery had grown quite loud this far down, and the darkness now robbed me of all sight. I was nervous, but I was also very weak from the climb and my arms and legs shook from the effort. I needed to lie down for a while and get my strength back, for if I continued on now, I would be helpless to defend myself if necessary. So, feeling about the ground of the passageway, I cleared away the stones and large pieces of dirt that would have hurt my back and made a space for sleeping. Lying there, I found that there was no difference in my eyes being opened or closed, so dark it was down there. Soon my eyes grew heavy and within minutes I was fast asleep.

It is hard to say how long I lay there. I would probably have slept for quite a while longer if I had not felt the touch of a small hand on my face. Quickly, I reached into my pockets for the matches. I struggled to quickly light one and as soon as I had succeeded, I saw before me three Morlocks crowded around me. They immediately jumped back away from the tiny flame of my match. However, it was not from fear that they reacted this way; but rather, like many animals of the underworld, they were used to living in complete darkness, so their eyes were extremely sensitive to even the smallest amount of light. It seemed that this small amount of light made it impossible for them to find me. All that I could see of them now were their glowing eyes looking back at me from far off down the passageway.

They seemed to speak a different language entirely, for after calling out to them in the language of the Eloi, I got no response. I thought about escaping back up the hole, but calmed myself, saying, "You have come this far. You cannot turn back now." As I walked farther down the tunnel, the sound of the machinery grew louder. Moments later I found myself inside a large room; so large that I could not see it clearly, for my match gave off too little light. However, I could see the Morlocks pressed against the walls all around me, trying to get as far away from my match as possible. Behind them, I could barely make out the large shadows of what appeared to be loudly operating machinery. Walking slowly forward, I became aware of the strong smell of fresh blood in the air, and at the same time, a metal table came into view. There appeared to be a meal laid on top of the table. As I came closer I realized that on the plates were rather large pieces of meat, and I wondered what animal could have provided the Morlocks with such portions. I had not seen any animals or pets above ground. There were no longer cows, pigs, or lambs in this time. They had died off thousands of years ago. I assumed that this was the reason that the Eloi ate only fruit. However, seeing that the Morlocks ate meat, I wondered why there was this difference in diet between the two peoples.

Then my match lost its flame and I was again in pure darkness. Right away I could hear the Morlocks beginning to move toward me. I became angry with myself for having prepared so poorly for such an adventure. I had brought nothing with which to defend myself. I had only my feet to run with and four more matches.

Suddenly I felt a hand on my arm and then another on my face. I tried reaching for my box of matches, and grabbed it just in time, for someone was trying to take them out of my pocket. From every direction came these disgusting creatures, pulling at my hair and my clothing. Because I could not get hold of the matches firmly, I shouted as loud as I could. This seemed to frighten the Morlocks a little, for they jumped away. But very soon they came at me again. They were much less afraid than before, having realized how helpless I was. They took hold of me with much more strength than before, and I knew that I had no time to waste if I was to try and escape. I managed to light a match, and tearing a sheet of paper from my little notepad, I was able to make an even larger flame. The Morlocks fell back quickly and I took the opportunity to run back into the little passageway from which I had just come. However, as I ran, the flame died. And again, I could hear the sound of hundreds of feet, like a heavy rain, coming toward me at great speed. Several hands soon grabbed hold of my feet and were trying to pull me back out of the passage. I lit another match and shone it in their faces. I then ran as fast as I could toward the end of the passage. After about thirty meters, I stopped, lit another match, and began to walk backwards, for I could hear the Morlocks getting closer. The flame was almost to my fingers when I found myself at the end of the tunnel. Feeling, blindly, for the metal bars, I managed to grab hold of one, but at that same moment the Morlocks had caught up with me and taken my feet again in their hands. With a firm hold on the metal bars above, I kicked wildly at the enemy below and luckily freed myself. With all of my strength I speedily climbed up the wall, forgetting how weak the bars were, and causing many of them to break off under my feet. However, this accident actually helped me to escape the Morlocks, because one of them, who had decided to brave the light above and chase after me, found no metal bars to hold onto and soon gave up.

I climbed for what seemed like hours. But my fear overpowered my weakness and allowed me to get within a few meters of the top. But then my pain caught up with me, almost preventing me from climbing further. My hands started to shake so much that I feared they could no longer hold onto anything. My head started to spin; I was about to lose consciousness at any moment. Somehow I managed to climb those last few feet and pull myself out of the hole. Before falling on my face, I remember seeing Weena running toward me, crying with joy to see me still alive. And then there was only darkness.

(end of section)