The Last Cavern

It’s always an excursion getting here, but it’s always worth it.
No one, to my knowledge, has ever discovered this place. It’s shielded behind several layers of ancient ice pillars, perfectly arranged as if by some supernatural force so that they totally conceal what’s inside to the unobservant eye. From afar, the opening appears as only a jagged crack in an ordinary crevice of just another ice cliff, unappealing to even the most curious of adventurers; except, it seems, me.
I dart and settle onto my usual perching spot, brushing off a couple blue flakes of ice off my hair. They flutter down onto the loose soil, seamlessly melding into the dirt without a trace. It’s wonderful, how they collapse from their flakes and fractals, into a miniscule droplet of freezing water that burrows into the earth. In time, I drop down and collapse onto the soil myself. I dig my hands into it, slowly, savouring the tender strokes as the crumbs of silt pour over my skin to fill the empty space. The darkness of it contrasts so distinctly with the pale white of my skin. It’s slightly warm to the touch, warmer than me. There’s no soil like this anymore.
I lie flat, and my eyes trace the dark walls, drawn up by the light. A soft silver-blue tint washing down the walls, becoming more pronounced the further up I go. That brilliant aqua shine of the thousands of clusters of razor-sharp sword-like stalactites that descend from the ceiling in their thousands, eager to steal a touch of the warm soil below. It’s irresistible, the magical glow of nature, that’s such a different hue from the synthetic lights of the city. It replenishes me with an unexplainable hope and surge of energy.
This is the only cave left of its kind. We don’t talk about them anymore; we stopped years ago. Those who know call it the Cavern of the Ancients. It used to stretch right from the centre of the continent, branching out in all directions into a vast network of tunnels and caverns, buried deep within the ice. That was all destroyed when the city was first constructed, the crystals synthesized for energy, the soil leached for agriculture. Us humans came along, to a place we swore to never ruin, and did what we have always done.
My eyes flutter shut. The thought always comes to me, and this time I let myself drown in it. Perhaps I could just lie here, forever, and die here. It wouldn’t be too bad. They tell, sometimes, of ghostly creatures who roam in the caves of Antarctica, remains of their magical ancestors that once dwelled here. Maybe I’d become one of those.
Eventually, the time comes for me to go. It always comes, no matter how much I try to deny it.