Back when I used to belong to an urban exploration…

Back when I used to belong to an urban exploration group I saw a lot of strange things and been to some quite odd places, abandoned hospitals, drainage tunnels. You name it.

It was back in April of ‘95 I was exploring the networks of massive drainage tunnels in Nevada. I was going solo against the advice of allthe other members of the group, they all warned of flash floods out in the desert and how it was all it would take to wipe me out. But I didn’t care, back then I had more than a little bit of a death wish. So I began the preparations, acquiring maps of the tunnels, stockpiling rashions and repairing any damaged equipment that I would be needing for my expedition.

I left early one fine morning, all my gear packed neatly into a large backpack. The trip to Nevada was easy, as easy as greyhound trips get, and gave me plenty of time to sit and think about the tunnels. I imagined animal carcasses, meeting up with other explorers, I imagined everything including how within the next couple of days I could die the sudden roar of water coming towards me at great speed down the tube and that there would be no way to stop it.

At the Nevada Greyhound station I rented out a locker, putting a change of clothes and all my money in it. In it I also put a letter to the people I know in case something went wrong and I ended up dead. I put the key on a chain around my neck. With that I picked up my pack and walked out to the highway to start hitching up to the first majour opening, a few miles to the north of town.

I caught my first ride really quick, it was some truck driver who wanted someone to talk to and wished that I was going further. “What’re ya doing up in tha middle of the desert?”

I told him “I’m going to explore the drainage tunnels.” He gave me a real odd look, but told me he knew where the opening was and warned be about how fast the rain can come up in spring. I disreguarded his warning though, there was something in those tunnels. I could feel it, everytime I looked at the maps or even thought about them I knew it. My destiny was within those concrete tubes and whether it was my death that awaited me or something far different, I had to do it.

The truck driver dropped me off on the side of the road a little bit later, wishing me luck and waving. I could see the tube silhoutted against the sunset it’s gaping maw ready to eat and destroy me. But not tonight. I walked up to it and stuck my head in briefly just to sniff the dank air it held. Then I climbed up the hill it jutted out of and set up camp for the night.

The night was fairly uneventful, a couple of times a truck downshifting woke me, but soon either the trucks stopped or I grew used to it and slept soundly for the rest of the night.

I awoke the next morning to find a thin layer of frost clinging to my beard and sleeping bag, I brushed it off and repacked everything. For breakfast I had a Powerbar and water. I climbed down from where I had rested the night before and quickly entered the tunnel. It was 7 am.

I decided to set up some sort of camp at 7pm that night. I followed the tunnel until it reached it’s first set of junctions, then pulled out my maps to see which way I should go, this happened time and time again through out the day and although I was sure I knew where I was going and where I had come from (I was marking my course in red marker as I went.) I came to realize much later that something was off about the maps and all that I was doing was slowly getting myself more lost.

About noon I reached a gigantic four way junction and stopped for some water and my lunch, half a powerbar. According to my maps and how I was feeling I had traversed many miles and was if not near at the center of the complex. So seeing as I was a day ahead of schedule I decided I ought to set up camp for the night and explore one of the many smaller off shoots of the main tunnel complex. In one such tunnel I found some slightly broken lawn furniture and evidence of a camp fire. I would have guessed I had spent around half an hour checking out the abandouned camp site, but when I checked my watch I found it to be some eight hours later. I hurried back to camp and found my camp ransacked, well not so much ransacked as carefully re-organized. These are my first experiences with the magic of the old-god Gary Dirin.

When eventually I bedded down I found it hard to sleep, the sounds of animals in the tunnels surrounding me disturbed me and even more the thoughts of who had been in my camp and why had they gone through my stuff plagued me. I fell asleep around 2am, and once I finally I was haunted by awful nightmares and visions. In one I was pursuing a fat, short, bald old man through the tunnels that had been all I had seen that day. Everytime I lost the chase and the funny little man would get away, chuckling in the most demonic laughs I had ever heard.

The next morning I found I had over slept, it was well after 10 and it would take set me back as far as I was ahead of schedule if not further. So once again I packed up all my stuff and headed out. This time instead of marking new lines down on my map I just started following the ones I had made. I was tired, maybe the tunnels were getting to me what matters is I didn’t want to go any further. Soon my lines lead me right into a huge cavernous space I had never seen before, down near the end there was and odd set up of furniture. Odd yet strangely familiar, practically a scaled up higher end version of the lawnchair camp I had seen the day before. Soon a strange booming voice much like that of Patric Stewart called out “How do you like it?”

I spun about and before me stood the odd little man in my dreams, almost hobbit like in stature he spoke in a thick accent. I came to know the little fellow as Garry Dirin, Dweller of the Tunnels. He then gave me some fine food, lead me out and as I walked away he called out “If you ever come back to my tunnels I swear to the gods I will strike you down in your path!!!!” Said with a cheery smile and a wave I parted company from the strange little man called Gary Dirin.
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