WHAT CAME BEFORE.
The caves of eastern Tennessee, once inhabited by the indigenous Cherokee tribes, held secrets that transcended time. Arrowheads and pottery served as remnants of a not-so-distant past, but what I discovered in these caves predated primitive technology and surpassed it in unimaginable ways. On a typical Tennessee day, September 17th, 2013, with a cool breeze and mild humidity, I embarked on an exploration that would forever alter my understanding of history. My grandfather’s vast farm and house in a rural community provided access to hundreds of acres of untouched woods and caverns, or so I had believed. Pole Bridge Creek, meandering through miles of forest and marshy terrain, marked the beginning of my ill-fated adventure.
I packed lightly, anticipating a few hours of exploration before returning home before dark. Matches, a pocketknife, an old military canteen, bandages, and a small hammock were my lifeline in the dusky wilderness. As I ventured two miles into the creek’s first bend, I stumbled upon an outcropping with a large pile of river rocks, oddly arranged and seemingly untouched by nature. As I approached, I realized its significance. Beyond the rocks lay a cave nearly 8 feet high and 4 feet wide, beckoning me to explore its depths.
The walls of the cave were adorned with intricate paintings depicting deer, bears, rabbits, and the daily lives of the indigenous people. However, some of the depictions were unsettling. They featured large, red-haired beings with ancient Cherokee words above them. Their eyes, almost entirely yellow and pupil-less, glowed eerily as if the glyphs were alive. The word “Yahni,” which was unknown to me, was inscribed above these seemingly worshiped beings, accompanied by offerings of deer, boar, bears, squirrels, and what appeared to be children.
As I delved deeper into the cave, the paintings took a darker turn, revealing a macabre history that sent shivers down my spine. It seemed that these beings existed long before the Cherokee people, perhaps even centuries ago. But what were their origins? Bones. Large, malformed bones littered the landscape of the cave as the cavern opened up into an expansive room. Femurs six feet in length, hands with eight fingers, and largely elongated skulls with large, sharp teeth were found in shallow gravesites. What could these belong to? No human being could fit these proportions, and even if they could, the anatomy didn’t make sense.
I crouched beside one of the skulls, brushing away a thin layer of silt with my hand.
It was warm.
Not sun-warmed. Not the trapped heat of a sealed cavern. Something else—something faint and lingering, like a heartbeat that had slowed but never stopped. I jerked my hand back instinctively, wiping it on my jeans, my breath suddenly shallow in the suffocating stillness.
The cave had gone silent.
No dripping water.
No shifting rock.
Not even the echo of my own breathing.
Then—faintly—something like a whisper.
I turned slowly, raising a match. The flame flickered violently before steadying, casting long, trembling shadows across the chamber. The walls had changed. The animals were gone. The Cherokee figures—gone.
Only the red-haired beings remained.
They were taller here. Distorted. Limbs stretched beyond proportion, bending in ways that made my eyes strain to follow them. Their yellow eyes had been carved deeper into the stone, gouged rather than painted. The word appeared again and again:
Yahni. Yahni. Yahni.
Beneath it were jagged markings—frantic, uneven, desperate.
I didn’t understand the language.
But I understood the warning.
A sudden rush of cold air tore through the cavern, snuffing out my match. Darkness swallowed me whole. I scrambled, striking another match with shaking hands.
When the light returned—
The bones had moved.
The long femur beside me had shifted several feet, a trail carved through the dirt behind it. Something had dragged it.
Something still inside the cave.
I didn’t stay.
I ran.
The tunnel stretched longer than I remembered, twisting where it should’ve been straight. My shoulder slammed against stone more than once as I scrambled toward the exit. Behind me, something moved—not fast, not chasing.
Following.
A slow scrape.
A pause.
A breath.
I burst out of the cave just as daylight began to fade. I didn’t stop running until the woods swallowed the entrance behind me.
I told no one.
By morning, I convinced myself it had been my imagination. A trick of light, stress, maybe even some forgotten burial ground warped by time.
Then the dreams began.
At first, they were vague. Shadows between trees. The sound of water moving somewhere unseen. But each night, they grew clearer.
I was back in the cave.
Walking deeper.
Standing in that chamber again.
Only now, the bones weren’t lying still.
They stood.
Tall shapes just beyond the edge of light, their yellow eyes fixed on me.
Watching.
Waiting.
Then came the sleepwalking.
My grandfather noticed first—mud tracked through the house, the back door left open in the middle of the night. I denied it. I had to.
Until I woke with red clay beneath my fingernails.
Until my boots appeared by the door, soaked and stained.
Until I woke with dirt in my bed.
Not dust. Not loose soil.
Thick, red clay—heavy and damp, smeared across my sheets, pressed into my skin like something had tried to pull me down into it.
I measured the distance.
From the house…to the creek…to the cave.
Two miles.
I started forcing myself to stay awake. But exhaustion always won. And every time I slept, I returned.
The evidence grew.
More clay.
More scratches.
One morning, I woke to a small stone resting on my chest.
Smooth. Worn.
I recognized it immediately.
It had been part of the pile covering the cave entrance.
The last night, I stayed awake as long as I could. Lights on. Back against the wall. Eyes open.
I must have blinked.
Just once.
Because suddenly—
I was standing in the woods.
Barefoot.
The air was colder than it should have been. The trees felt wrong—closer, watching. My body moved without me, carrying me down a path I didn’t need to see.
I already knew where I was going.
The cave.
The rocks had been moved.
Not scattered.
Arranged.
The same jagged markings from inside.
Yahni.
The entrance stretched open, darker than the night around it.
And from within—
The whisper.
Only now, I understood.
Not words.
Meaning.
Clear. Heavy. Ancient.
You came back.
My foot crossed the threshold.
The earth inside was warm.
Something shifted in the darkness.
And this time—
It reached back.