I’m trying something different with this story, something I’ve not done before. I wanted something that touches the reader on an emotional level while at the same time presenting an anomaly that could potentially occur. The ground beneath our feet presents such a challenge. Dark places hidden from view, abandoned mines filled with the voices of the ghosts that haunt it. But what if the ground itself refused to comply to the absolutes we are all familiar with.
Hence the creation of K is for Karst. Karst is a distinct landscape formed by the dissolution of soluble bedrock, typically limestone, dolomite, or gypsum, characterized by features like sinkholes, caves, sinking streams, and springs.
Been doing a good deal of research in an attempt to play the scientific against the unnatural. Hopefully it has the desired effect, but we’ll see, Also if you notice something amiss in the scientific descriptions please don’t hesitate to point it out.
So let’s get back to the story.
Continued from 04/26/2026
While the coffee brewed Madison wandered into the living room and sat in her father’s chair. Flipping through the stack of magazines on the table beside it she uncovered a spiral-bound notebook with a pen stuck in the wire loop. Nothing was written on the green cover to indicate what might be inside, so she flipped to the first page. A date was written across the top of the first page, mirroring the pages that followed, each with a different date. Below the date, lines of her father’s cramped writing filled the first part of the page followed by separate entries as if he were recording his thoughts while documenting what he was doing.
The first page was dated September 17TH 1992
Initial survey results continue to contradict established subsurface models. Void spaces register at depths exceeding known excavation limits by a statistically significant margin. Plus or minus 0.2 m accuracy across three independent instruments. Re-calibration yields identical readings. Instrument drift has been ruled out. Historical bore data, when overlaid, aligns internally but diverges from current measurements as if the volume beneath the site has increased without displacement of surrounding strata.
Voids deeper than permitted by original cut.
Not erosion. not collapse.
Checked again. Same numbers.
Different depth?
Not possible!
Impossible unless volume is
Never mind!
I’ll re-calibrate tomorrow.
Madison stopped reading as a chill slowly unwound at the base of her spine. Her father, the most rational, levelheaded man she had ever known appeared to be unraveling on the page before her.
She flipped to the next page as the coffee pot gurgled in the kitchen signaling that it was done brewing her coffee.
This entry was dated September 17th of the same year.
Acoustic testing presents further inconsistencies. Impulse responses demonstrate delayed returns not attributable to chamber geometry. Echo intervals lengthen without corresponding increases in measured distance. In several instances, reflected signals arrive after the source signal has fully decayed beyond detectable amplitude, suggesting propagation through a medium that does not preserve temporal continuity. I note this without proposing a mechanism, as none exists within current geological frameworks.
Acoustic test: impulse return late.
Not damped. LATE! He wrote the last in capital letters that took up several lines.
Echo arrives after source decay.
Time stamp says it shouldn’t exist.
Tried again.
And again.
No void geometry accounts for this. No chamber shape. Sound behaves like it’s walking a longer way than space allows.
Granite is normal. That’s the worst part.
Same grain, same fractures, same ratios—nothing exotic, nothing altered.
This should not be happening to this rock.
The next entry was dated a week later.
During descent, spatial orientation becomes unreliable. Inclination readings remain stable, yet perceived slope varies. Footfall cadence does not match time stamps. Sounds—breathing, equipment contact—return fractionally out of sequence, as though the environment is re‑ordering events rather than dampening them. No seismic activity has been detected.
Descent notes:
Inclination stable. Instruments agree.
Feet do not.
Slope feels steeper, then shallower, then level while readings remain constant.
Footsteps echo after I stop walking.
Radio distortion is not noise.
It’s timing.
Jimmy is gone! What have I done?
The last shocked her on an emotional level she had not been expecting. The sheer power of that simple statement said far more that the words themselves could convey.
Jimmy was gone.
How?
And he blamed himself for what happened.
To be continued!
Richard Schiver 
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