Hello and welcome to the Drapylcast, episode 323. The Drapolcast is a weekly

audio fiction magazine that brings strange stories by strange authors to strange listeners such as yourself.

I'm your host, Norm Sherman.

This week we hit on a lot of different things,

but it all comes down, I think, in the end to that very specific

and very anxiety-splashed sensation of being lost.

Think about the last time you remember being gut-clenchingly disoriented,

adrift in some unfamiliar place, feeling that sense of panic take hold.

Maybe you were just a kid, separated at the mall from your parents. Maybe you were hiking a kid separated at the mall from your parents.

Maybe you were hiking and took a wrong turn,

and all the trees around you suddenly became frighteningly similar.

In the sports of deep cave diving, surely one of the baldiest and most insane things humans

have ever decided to do with their spare time, a tradition has developed.

Cavers, upon reaching the deepest part of the cave, extinguish for a few moments

all their helmet and handheld lights.

Imagine that. A total dense blackness fills the world around you while your eyes strain with the expectation of some spec of light somewhere, anywhere, but to no avail.

You begin to notice your other senses height. anywhere but to no avail.

You begin to notice your other senses heightening, the sounds, feelings often overlooked

to this point, the texture of the rocks at your fingertips, the sound of bubbles from your regulator, your own shallow lonely breathing.

You realize there is no up and no down, no forward and no backward.

Could you ever make it back out in the dark?

Would anyone ever come and help you?

...