I love caves as a horror theme but I HATE when there are things in the caves. Horror writers utterly ruin cave stories by not realizing that the cave itself is the monster.
It’s fine when caves are a gateway that something is coming through, or the cave is somehow alive and malicious, or if the only monster is what the narrator brings in with themself, but I hate hate hate when writers expect me to be creeped out by spelunkers being menaced by creatures that live inside the cave.
my beloved mutual, I agree that every labyrinth needs its minotaur
but the horror of a labyrinth from the perspective of Theseus is nothing like the horror of a labyrinth from the perspective of the Minotaur… a cave is horrifying because the Earth built it to contain you
“A cave is horrifying because the Earth built it to contain you”
So I was fully on board with both sentiments, cave as the horror sounds cool and monster in the cave is cool, and then comes that line and holy shit that is a new horrifying thought.
I think I’ll put it in a story somewhere
It’s a thought I always have while caving. Looking into a naturally-formed chamber or hallway that has never seen the light of day is eerie—there’s a reason specific chambers end up with architectural names, like “the ballroom” or “the great hall”. The resemblance to human habitation and artefact is uncanny… sprawling, incomprehensible structures in crude mockery of buildings and cathedrals and dungeons, as though designed by some awful alien intelligence that had only dreamt of human needs. Inhospitable doll-houses, lightless, windowless, with oubliettes and dungeons and poison winds and air that robs the breath from your lungs. We refer to our ancient ancestors as “cavemen” but they were no more adapted to the labyrinthine darkness than we are today—we did not spring from caves but from the treetops and savannas with the sun and stars above us. A cave is a mouth, a throat, a digestive system. It is just tempting enough to draw us in—cool and sheltered and beautiful, but it has no real will to sustain us. Green things do not grow in caves. Even the other predatory creatures that shared our caves fell victim to them, when they slipped or strayed or wandered too deep.
