Going Caving, Part 1 (Cavewoman Bodyswap TG)

By FoxFaceStories

An anonymous commission

John is in a loving relationship with Molly, and believes she is the one. Together, the two enjoy going caving. But after an accident where John breaks a strange crystal, he finds himself starting to swap places with the gorgeous cave woman named Ulka, who lived nearly two million years ago. And each time they swap places, they find themselves spending longer and longer in their new bodies . . .

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Going Caving, Part 1

The cave was serpentine, tight, and with some worrying space. It was perfect.

“Are you sure about this, babe?” Molly asked. “I don’t want to get stuck like that famous guy who died when he got trapped in a tunnel.”

John gave a dismissive wave. “Don’t worry, that won’t happen. We’ve got better equipment we know what to look for, and besides, Jimmy vouches for this hole.”

Molly arched an eyebrow. “Jimmy says a lot of things.”

“Yeah, okay, so he’s pretty full of shit.”

“That’s putting it lightly.”

“But the man knows his caves, doesn’t he?”

She sighed. “Okay, you’ve got me there. But you get to go first. If your big stubborn head can fit through some of these passages, then mine will be certain to follow.”

“Oh, ha ha!”

John kissed his girlfriend on the forehead as she grinned at her silly joke, and then she pulled him down to kiss her more deeply on the lips. Then she spun him around and gave a joking pat on the backside.

“Go on then, sexy! I want to see that backside while we’re tunnelling!”

He winked, wiggled his ass suggestively in a silly fashion, and checked over his equipment one last time. After all, you couldn’t take too many precautions when you were going caving. Still, the two had some experience in this activity, and had actually met as part of a caving experience, their chemistry quickly blossoming into romance.

John was a young man only twenty five years of age. He’d always loved caving, hiking, running, and exploring. The wild spaces of nature were what he enjoyed, and he craved new experiences, often travelling for hours to find them. As a result, he had a slim but fit figure, like that of a runner, and combined with his feathery blonde hair and confident smile, he was not bad looking at all. He had certainly put on the charm when meeting Molly, and while he had a spirit to always be on the move, he had managed to settle down long enough to move in with her, something he was unfamiliar with, but tried to embrace despite the occasional difficulties of having to perform maintenance.

Molly, on the other hand, had not been a traditionally ‘outside’ person for much of her life. She liked settling down, and sometimes chafed with John over this. Still, she adored his passion, and to her own shock, there was something about going caving that did indeed ignite her passion, even if it still made her nervous. She would never, ever go caving without him, but she found it oddly intimate to go through such tight spaces and tricky situations, depending on the love of your life. At twenty three, she was two years his junior, and was significantly shorter than his 6’2 height, being only 5’3 herself. With her mop of curly brown hair and her glasses, she looked more like a librarian than anything else, and so she surprised herself quite often by going along with John. She was intent on this being the last of her caving experiences for a while, however. As fun as it had been, there had been enough close calls with discomfort and danger that even her own personal thrill was being restrained by her common sense. She loved John, but he’d have to do it on his own from now on.

“Okay, in we go,” he said. “Excited?”

“You know it,” she said, not revealing that particular secret.

“Fantastic, then let’s have some fun. This cave is meant to be ancient!”

***

An dark olive-skinned woman ran through the jungle, intent on eluding her predator. It was nearly two million years before John and Molly would ever be born, but only a few hundred feet from where they were set to enter their caving experience. Ulka ran on bare calloused feet, moving swiftly but carefully, the sharp-toothed cat silently stalking her movements. She was clad in furskins, one piece a short skirt and loin cloth around her wide hips, the other containing her full chest. Her long dark hair bounced and flicked with her rapid movements. Spear in hand, she shifted, gazing around for a moment. The many birds of the forest called, but it was the low snarl of her predator that she listened closely for.

There. From the treeline.

She kept her back to it. Readied her spear, determined. She would prove herself capable. She would be a defender of the tribe, not some pretty thing to be bartered away. Her heart beat tremulously, her heavy chest heaving up and down, the same chest that the chieftain, Selkath, desired.

Suddenly the beat burst from the treeline, and she turned quick as the wind from the hot mountains. Already, the great fanged beast was in midair. Time slowed. She thrust the spear upwards, pulling her body down and to the side. With one last split second of confusion, the sabretoothed creature realised its mistake, and it fell upon the spear, impaling it deeply. It shuddered, growled in a violent fashion, and died.

“Good,” she said, nodding. She was partly covered in the creature’s blood, but she had been successful. With a smile and some effort, she hoisted the creature to the side and pulled out her spear, before going to a nearby stream to wash herself.

Ulka was just twenty years old, but already her life had been full of tumultuous events. Her family lost to great clawed beasts when she was a girlchild, she was captured by a tribe in the lowlands, and raised to be one of them. As was the way. All were meant to know the way of the spear, but for the womenfolk it was purely to defend their caves. A last resort. The women had to be protected, from rival clans, from the sharp-toothed cats, and from the great thunderous monsters that ruled the earth. Their role was to cook the food, to weave the baskets, to stitch the furs, and to nurse the children. It was the last that Ulka feared. As she had grown in the tribe, it had become clear to all that she was to be a woman of great beauty and incredible fertility. To her shock, her breasts had grown early, and continued to grow for years, until they were full and weighty, each half the size of her own head, if not larger. Her hips had widened considerably, perfect for bearing children, an act that was often dangerous for a woman. Her rear was just as developed, and her thighs thick and full. Her dark olive skin had little blemish despite the hardship of life, and her face was full-lipped with a proud nose and large, dark eyes. Her wild black hair hung down her back, but she remembered the traditions of her old tribe and what her mother had taught her, and took care of it using the oils of creatures and plants.

But she was not without the scars of such a difficult life. A deep scar ran over her left shoulder, and a small but noticeable claw mark intersected her right eyebrow from a close call with a toothed tiger. Across her left thigh were several marks from the thunderous times, when the earth had split and she had scrambled down a sharp-rocked hillside. But these impacts and scars only enhanced her beauty, informing the tribe that she was a survivor, while also displaying her resilience.

Unfortunately, it had marked her for possession by the chieftain, Selkath. He not a clever man, but was a powerful one, the alpha of the tribe, the strongest hunter. He desired Ulka’s body, and had made no secret of this. Only her repeated efforts to put off the time of his claiming had kept her free of his body, playing other males against each other and demanding increasingly large bounties to prove their worthiness. Because for all of her beauty and evident perfection for child-rearing, Ulka desired freedom. Power. Dominance over her own life. To be forced to become Selkath’s mate and bear his children was not the life she wanted. And so she had to prove she was a hunter.

Which she had.

“Now for pelt,” she muttered in her low, steady voice. She took a knife from the belt at her loincloth, and began to work on skinning the cat.

But then she heard something. A low growl. Several steps. She shot to her feet, grabbed her spear, but her eyes widened when she saw not one but two sharp-toothed cats emerged from the treeline. One gave a growl, and the angered cavewoman returned it. And then she ran.

The cats pursued, moving to flank her. She burst through the bushes, moving with alacrity, not caring how the plant life scratched at her thighs. Her large breasts bounced discomfitingly on her chest, as they always had. She hated their size, but could not pay them heed now. She kept her breath cool even as her heart raced, focusing only on what was ahead.

A cave.

One of the cats growled, launching from the side. She barely managed to avoid it before she ran into a deep cave entrance, the two creatures in pursuit.

***

John wriggled his way forward through a particularly difficult squeeze.

“Agh, watch yourself here Molly.”

“Th-thanks.”

“Doing okay?”

“Yeah,” she replied. “Just . . . finding it a little bit harder than normal.”

“You’ll be okay, watch out for the drop on the right.”

“Thanks.”

The two had been caving for nearly an hour, shifting deeper through the quite beautiful cave. Supposedly, Jimmy had found quite the glittering cavern deep within, and John was intent on seeing it. Molly, on the other hand, was finding this cave dive a little beyond her ability. She was still enjoying herself, but was clearly finding her limit. Her heart pulsed with excitement, but in truth her brain was telling her that she needed to get serious, and make this the last adventure before she got hurt. Her diving skills were not on par with John’s, and even her own enthusiasm could nowhere near match his.

John was not aware of this internal debate going on in his girlfriend’s head, so focused was he on the dive. He grinned, loving the sense of adventure, the sense of the unknown.

“Don’t you just love this?” he said as he entered a slightly wider area and helped her through. “We’re probably some of the only people to explore this cave! Even Jimmy didn’t reach the end of it.”

“It is pretty amazing,” Molly said. She hesitated, unsure if she should tell him this was her last trek, but decided against it. Instead, in this low space where they could shuffle, she planted a kiss on his lips. “And you’re amazing too.”

“Even when I’m always gallivanting off?”

“Even then,” she smiled.

“Good, I’ll remember that the next time you complain about it!”

She gave a light punch to his shoulder. “I have a right to complain! I still want you to stick around for two weeks after this. Just us. Unpacking the place finally. It’s long overdue. We can settle down and enjoy ourselves.”

He shrugged, hit his shoulder on the ceiling, and cringed. “Maybe. I don’t know, Molly. I promised I would, but there’s meant to be some great waves down the east coast -”

She sighed. “Let’s just keep going. We’ll talk about it later.”

“Cool. I’m keen to see this glittering. Jimmy said he couldn’t get through, but I think we can. Reckon he found some crystals?”

“Would be cool,” she said, but her thoughts were still on her otherwise wonderful boyfriend’s lack of commitment to staying in one place. Just two weeks would be nice! Meanwhile, John’s thoughts were entirely on the experience they were undergoing.

“I - I think this is it,” he said, finding a tight space. “Jimmy didn’t have good ropes, but if I shimmy out I think I can abseil down.”

They did so, crawling through a thin and claustrophobic space and abseiling down a vertical rocky shaft. Molly’s heart beat nervously but with a bit of excitement, while he was simply grinning from ear to ear as he crawled through one last tunnel at the end.

“Molly! You’ve got to come see this!” he called.

“Hang on! Just getting my line off.”

She crawled through, he helped her out the other side. She gasped at the sight that greeted her.

They were in an immense chamber, ancient and brilliant, no longer lit by their helmet torches but by the glowing lights of thousands of purple crystalline formations. They pulsed as if alive, their light dancing across the distance walls of the vast cave.

“Holy shit,” she said.

“Holy shit indeed,” John said, beaming. This was what he lived for. The discovery. The exploration. The finding of the new.

And at the centre of the cave was something fascinating. A great purple crystal perhaps the size of football, jagged and brilliant, and pulsing like a rocky heartbeat. He moved towards it, and placed out a hand.

“Hey Molly, take a look at this . . .”

***

Ulka grunted as she tended to a wound. The cats were searching for her, and one had nearly got the best of her. Only by diving into the crawlspace of the cavern had the cavewoman survived. She scrambled and moved, shifted and hurried through the thin spaces, a creature just behind her, another moving through a separate tunnel nearby. She couldn’t tell where it was, only that it was following her, and perhaps readying an ambush. She cringed as she looked at her spear. It had snapped in the cave, and now was just the sharpened rock she carried in her fist.

“Not good,” she muttered, furthering into the cave. She gritted her teeth as she forced her hips and buttocks through a thin pass, groaned as her full chest dragged against the ground. It was not the first time she was frustrated by her body, despite how enviable her fellow tribeswomen found it, or how lustful it made the men of the caves.

“Tight,” she said, but managed to get through.

Unfortunately, on the other side was one of the cats, waiting. She froze. It didn’t, launching at her. She barely managed to raise her spearhead in time to deflect the beast’s horrific claw, but it still gouged her shoulders. She screamed, a ragged cavewoman’s roar as she launched forward, grabbing the beast. They fell to the ground together, and to their combined shock, the ground gave way beneath them.

“AAGGH!!” she cried, and the horrid beast cried with her. They fell many feet into a vast, glittering cave, purple jewels glowing brightly. She bounced painfully, landing on her side. The beast howled, and then made no sound at all.

It took some time for Ulka to stand and check herself over. The beautiful cave woman was not deeply injured, thank the Thunder Gods, but she tore off some spare fur to bandage her bleeding shoulder. Her top had come loose in the fighting, her immense bosom now held up by a single strap over her shoulder. She shrugged.

“Problem for later.”

The cat was impaled, dead upon a rock. She breathed easier, let her breathing calm. And then, after several minutes of hearing no sounds of her other pursuer, looked instead to the strange glowing rock in the centre of the cave. UIka had seen many impressive things in her life. Great red anger from the living mountains, blue streaks of fury from the thunderous skies, the migration of the great haired beasts that howled through their long noses.

But she had never seen anything like this. It was a discovery for her tribe, perhaps even a sign. A signal of greatness that would herald meaning to the people of the low valley. An omen that she was destined for something more than a broodmare for the chieftain’s babies.

She reached out.

“Pretty light, what are you?”

She ran her hand across its surface, viewing the myriad of reflections it showed of her. And another reflection, one that was becoming dominant. It made no sense. It showed a man in strange, thick garb. He was light-skinned, like a ghost, and thinner than most men. His hair was a strange light colouring. He looked like no one she had ever seen.

She caressed the part of the crystal that contained his face, and then there was a flash, and everything changed.

***

John’s hand met the rock. There was a thrumming of energy as his fingers slid across its smooth, glassy surface. A roiling of power that fascinated him.

“John, be careful,” Molly warned.

“I am,” he said, fascinated by the strange, heartbeat-like pulsing of the crystal stone. “I just . . . it’s strange.”

Molly had a bad feeling about it that she couldn’t explain. “Should you be touching it?”

He looked her way, raised an eyebrow.

“Molly, it’s just a ro-”

And then he paused, and saw something fascinating. His reflection in the stone was changing, no longer depicting him but instead a woman. Despite the purple of the crystal, her image was clear, as if it were a television screen. She was the most gorgeous thing he had ever seen, and the strangest too. She had dark olive skin, and wore only a two piece fur costume. She had the biggest rack of any woman he had known, like two perfect boulders which were barely contained by her torn fur top. Her face was full-lipped, with a long Mediterranean nose and large dark eyes, and wild shiny hair that tumbled down her back. She had been injured on her shoulder, and as he reacted with shock, she did also.b

And then there was a flash, and everything changed.

***

Molly watched in confused awe as the crystal cracked, and a series of strange images spiralled outwards into the air of the chamber, lighting it even more brilliantly. She saw dozens of strange moving sequences overlapping one another, all of them displaying some sort of . . . cave girl. A young girl watching the demise of her family in some tribal forest. A crack of thunder as she escaped through a rainy night. A netting cast over her as she was captured by a different tribe. The growth through the years as she aged, residing in the series of caves the tribe called home. A full-figured woman with a frankly astonishing astonishing figure, and the lust of the other cavemen as they looked upon her. The hunt of a sabretooth tiger. The crawling through a cave. The touching of a strange purple crystal.

“What the fuck,” she gasped, “how - what!?”

Then there was a bright purple flash, and the lights of the cave went completely dark, just for a moment. She squealed, and someone else screamed. For just a moment, it sounded like there was another woman in the chamber. But when the crystals relit, there was just John, standing over the cracked, still glowing crystal and looking dazed and confused. She ran to him.

“John! Did you see that!? There were all these images in the air - are you okay?”

He turned on the spot, startled, eyes wide. He was looking over his arms in fascination. He twisted about, looking around the cave floor. He said something in a language she didn’t recognise, pointed at a spot in the floor. She had no way of knowing that a deeply confused cave woman now occupied her boyfriend’s body, or that she was saying “where gone?” as she pointed to where the dead sabre tooth should be.

Ulka looked over her body, entranced by the strange fabric she was wearing. Her full chest was gone, and her clothing was now quite intricate. Her wide hips had become thin, but though her life had demanded some muscle from its stresses, she now felt fitter, stronger than ever before. And between her thighs . . .

“John, what the hell are you doing? Are you in shock or something?”

Ulka looked to the other woman, the pale ghost with strange shards upon her eyes, and odd shamanistic clothing. The woman looked about her own age, but her skin was far too pale. She had the power of a magnificent light pouring from her helmet, and it was then that Ulka realised what was happening.

She was in the presence of a Goddess of the earth.

She fell to her knees. “Worship! Worship! Praise!”

From Molly’s perspective, her boyfriend looked to be having some kind of stroke. She grabbed him, tried to stop whatever strange prostration he was making, and it was only after several tries that he indeed stopped.

Ulka was confused. Did the Goddess not want worship? But she had the power of light itself! Only the shamans held the secret of fire. She reached out with her strangely pale arm to touch that light.

“No warm,” she muttered.

“What are you saying? John, please come back to me. I’m really fucking scared, okay!”

Ulka cocked her head, trying to understand the language of the gods. This pale spirit did not want worship, and for some reason had given her the body of a male. Was she telling Ulka something? Was she saying this was her rightful form?

“No understand,” she said, but again her words fell without understanding. The other woman approached, holding out her pale hand. Ulka backed away briefly, then held firm. Molly stepped forward, slowly.

“John, it’s me. Your girlfriend, Molly.”

“Molly?” Ulka said, not knowing the word, but recognising that this must be the spirit’s name.

“Yes, Molly! It’s me, Molly. Please, just breathe. I think you had a concussion.”

She brushed her boyfriend’s cheek, and to Ulka’s surprise, it was a wonderful sensation. The goddess or spirit or whatever she was had a short appearance, but she was quite beautiful, particularly her strange curled hair. She breathed, noticing just how strangely deep her voice was now.

“Beautiful,” she said. Something between her legs hardened as she gazed at the gorgeous spirit. It shocked both of them: Molly stepped back as she felt the large erection, and Ulka giggled at its strange feeling. She lowered a hand to touch it.

“So big! So hard!”

“John, stop it! Oh God, what’s happening?”

***

At the same place, but not the same time, as all this was happening, John was experiencing an altogether different kind of confusion. Dazed and confused, the tall caver stood to his feet a little unsteadily. Something felt wrong. Off, somehow. Like all his bones were there, but subtly in the wrong place. A heavy set of weights pulled at his chest, like a couple of sandbags. And his hips felt . . . stretched.

“What - what was that?” he said, only to stop. Something was wrong with his voice. It sounded . . . feminine. Strangely accented. The bright glow of the flash dissipated, and he was able to see again. And what greeting him were two very large, wobbling orbs of creamy brown flesh.

“The fuck!” he cried in that same feminine voice with its odd accent. He scrambled back, tripping over the crystal and landed on the dirt upon his soft ass. An ass that was much too soft, in fact. He gave a squeaky ‘oof!’, and immediately experienced the alien sensation of his new tits bouncing heavily on his chest, pulling at his shoulders. His jaw dropped, his eyes went wide as he beheld the impossible sight before him.

“I’m - I’m a girl? Is this a dream? Molly!? Where are you Molly?”

But there was no sign of her, only a strange furred creature bloodily impaled upon a growing stalagmite.

“Is that - is that a fucking sabretooth tiger?”

He gaped at it, then back at his own body, the one that was most certainly not truly his. It was undeniably female. Very, very female in fact. This body didn’t have boobs, it had tits! Huge brown ones that were now barely contained by a torn fur covering, resulting in a loose cleavage that was shockingly deep. They were huge and round, soft and pert, but that wasn’t even the start of it. Beyond them - and it was a difficult thing to see beyond them - was a tough yet curvaceous female body. It had little clothing beyond another loincloth, and even its feet were bare, calloused on the soles. It had powerful thighs, with a womanly thickness, leading up to a set of wide babymakers that would have had Shakira herself blushing. John brushed some long curly black hair from his eyes, feeling over this impossible body. It had a gorgeous midriff, toned and feminine, and with a waist that was small, giving him a hourglass figure that spoke of great fertility when coupled with his huge chest. He raised himself, grunting at the shake of his strange and huge bosom, and rubbed his backside.

“Jesus, even my ass is huge. What the hell is this? Am I - am I dead? Is this a fucking stroke or something?”

It sounded so wrong to have a voice so female come from his throat, but then it wasn’t truly his throat at all, was it?

John walked around the cave, heart beating nervously as he tried to figure out what was going on. His huge tits bounced, full and heavy, and he cradled them in his hands, trying to ignore the slight ripples of pleasant sensitivity that came from them when he did so. He felt utterly naked in just this - this furkini! He stepped over to the bloody creature impaled on the sharp rock, curious and afraid. It was dead, certainly so, and there was no doubt it was real. A sabretooth tiger, complete with its curving teeth that made it so famous.

“Have I travelled back in time or something? Did the crystal do this?”

Something echoed from a hole in the cave, but he couldn’t tell where it came from. It looked subtly different in places, yet preserved in others. Like it was slightly out of time, but its entrances and passages had changed.

“I must be. It’s the only explanation. I’ve - I’ve landed back in a cavewoman’s body, or something.”

The thought was so strange he immediately dismissed it.

“No, that’s crazy! It has to be something else. The crystal, it’s psychedelic! It’s giving me visions or something, maybe it was coated in weird mushroom juice and I didn’t notice. Holy shit, it’s gotta be something!”

Another echo, this time accompanied by a growl that echoed in a chilling way. It made him jump on the spot, and he was rewarded by an intense jiggling not just in his chest but his ass as well. In fact, it took several moments for his boobs to stop moving, they were that big.

“How does Molly stand this? But then her tits are less than a fifth of the size of these monsters! Fuck!”

He returned to the crystal. He had always loved discovery, exploration, the sheer joy of experiencing something new. But this was too weird, too unexplainable. The crystal had done something. He palmed his hand over it, trying to discern if there was a way to change back, or end the illusion, or whatever effect was going on.

Instead, he saw a reflection that was all wrong again. While he wore a busty, olive-skinned woman’s form, there in the surface of the glass was him. The real him. He was standing, playing with himself oddly and looking about with amazement while Molly teared up, looking aghast and confused.

“Molly!” he called. “Is that you? Molly, I’m coming!”

He touched the crystal, and there was that pulse of strange power again. The figure in the mirror looked around - both of them did - as the reflection brightened. He’d done something on ‘their’ end, it seemed, because the body that should have been his launched forwards as well to grasp the crystal.

The world flashed bright purple and white once more.

***

Ulka gasped, panting heavily, her large bosom dangling as she found herself on all fours and staring over the crystal. The strange experience with the crystal was finished, and whatever the goddess had been trying to tell her was over.

“Strange,” she said. “Strange.”

It wasn’t the half of it, but it seemed to sum it up all the same. She touched the crystal, which was now quite cracked and only flashing dully. She pulled away a small shard, finding it of interest. She needed to show this to her tribe. It was an omen, that was certain. The shaman would perhaps know something. He had the secret of fire, and many other things. He would know. She took a length of twine from the belt around her fur loincloth and fashioned it into a necklace, attaching the softly glowing purple shard - the brightest of the pieces - around her neck.

“Take with,” she said. “Show to shaman. Will make for prestige. Stop Selkath.”

She nodded in agreement with herself. It was a plan. A growl from a sabretooth was enough to make her move quickly. She backtracked through the tunnels, crawling and cursing her body once more. How strange it had been to find herself a white-skinned male, like a ghost, with a manhood and everything. The feeling of so little weight on her shoulders! It had felt so real it could not have just been a dream.

She crawled out from the cave and into the light of day, covered in dust and some mud. But somehow the crystal around her neck remained clean. Before her, the last of the sharp-toothed cats was dead, two spears embedded in its side. Several tribesmen of the low valley were there, all males but for Mother Grilka, one of their elders.

“You run,” Selkath said. The chief stepped forward, burly, well-muscled. Ulka felt that same pull of attraction to him, one she had indulged in privately when she took to solitary hunts, but never with him. She did not like him, but the attraction was there.

“I go to cave,” she said.

“You kill one?”

“I kill two.”

There was a series of whispers among the hunters.

“This is not so,” Selkath said. “You are not hunter. You are to be mate to Selkath.”

She shook her head. “I have hunted two. Been to cave. Seen great omen. See? See!”

She held up the glowing crystal, and somehow it glowed a little brighter. For a moment, she felt elsewhere, as if she were still in the tunnels, slowly rising out of them, a woman nearby that matched the appearance of that strange spirit goddess. And then the feeling went away, and the tribe before her were wide-eyed, astonished. Selkath gulped.

“We take to shaman,” Mother Grilka said.

“I take,” Selkath said.

But Ulka pulled back, clutching the shard. “Is mine. Spirit goddess show me. She of white skin and crystal eyes.”

Another round of discussion, but the elder Grilka was not to be ignored. Finally, Selkath agreed, though he still looked to Ulka’s body with a deep desire.

“We take to shaman. Read omen. But you will be mate. Stars have shown me.”

She grunted annoyance, then swaggered on ahead, her wide hips swaying from side to side, as if to tease him. She could not stop her breasts bobbing, but did her best to keep her chest out proud. She had killed two cats, and those that went into the cave would find just that. Not that they could return for some time. The tribe’s centre was a week’s journey away with their heavy catches of two greater predators. But now with the crystal, perhaps she could have all the time in the world.

***

Molly hugged the utterly confused John, who was trying to regale the sheer insanity of his story.

“It just . . . it felt so real, Molly! Like I was some sort of cavewoman.”

“You were making weird cavemen sounds,” she said. “But a woman? Jesus, did you have a stroke or something?”

He shook his head, chuckling. “I don’t think so. I’d not be able to talk like this otherwise. I think the crystal is a little psychedelic with its effects.”

“I did tell you not to touch it.”

“Yeah, that you did.”

They shared a chuckle, both still coming down from their respective concerns.

“Did you look hot?” Molly jested.

He grinned. “Mega hot. Like, unrealistically so. I had tits out to here.” He gestured, and she whistled jokingly. “Big hips too. It felt so real. And there was a sabretooth tiger corpse.”

“Maybe you just interpreted that pile of whatever there,” she said, gesturing to a mount on the floor.”

John stopped in his tracks. Right where he remembered the sabretooth had been, there was indeed a mound that looked ossified. It was impossible to tell, but it did look a little like fossilised bones preserved by cave water slowly drying. But there should have been more if he truly travelled through time, though the place did have a timeless quality . . .

He reached out and snapped off a piece that looked like a tusk, followed by one that looked like part of a bone.

“Uh, vandal much?” Molly said.

“Just curious.”

Molly shrugged, but was still hugging herself a little with unease. “Can we get out of here, John?”

“You’re not going to let a little weirdness pull you out of it?”

“John, I love you, but I was scared shitless. I thought I was going to be trapped down here with a medical patient! I want to go home.”

He was about to argue, but he saw the concern on her face, and the fresh tracks of tears that were still slowly flowing in the aftermath of her panic.

“Okay,” he said, “we’ll get out of here. I’ll just get my gloves. I want to keep a piece of that weird crystal.”

“Don’t let it shock you again or whatever!” she said. She was worried it might happen again, and once more she was annoyed by her boyfriend’s preference for pursuing needless danger rather than listening to her. She bottled it up for now, and seconds later John had a small crystal shard in his hand, one that he placed in a zip pocket.

“We’ll head now. Get some fresh air.”

“Thank God. Don’t go thinking you’re a cavewoman again.”

“Oogie boogie barg!”

She shook her head. “Don’t joke. Please.”

“Sorry.”

They began to make their way up, slowly and more carefully than before. As they ascended, John shivered as a strange pulse hit him. For just a moment, he felt like he was elsewhere, standing before a circle of tribesmen, one particularly powerful individual in his late twenties or early thirties before him. He was female again, with his large bust and everything, and this cavewoman he was inhabiting also had a shard of the crystal.

And then the flash ended, and he was back in his body. Back in the cave.

“Anything wrong?” Molly said.

He shook his head, put on a smile. “Nothing,” he lied. It was just a residual effect of the weird crystal vision. He wasn’t going to freak her out again.

They continued to climb out of the cave, until they exited into the open air. Everything was normal again, and for Molly it was most definitely her last involvement in such adventures. In fact, it had just about soured her on even the parts of caving she actually enjoyed.

“From now on, two weeks of just us,” she said. “We can finally fully unpack and relax.”

John nodded, though he wasn’t entirely sure. There was a surfing experience that was supposedly hitting next week if the weather charts were to be believed, and his buddy had invited him to go rock climbing for several days. He could deal with the aftermath later, for now he simply felt at the strange crystal and those odd bone-like remnants in his pockets. The memory of being that cavewoman stuck with him. It had felt so real, realer than any hallucinogen he’d ever taken.

He decided not to say anything as they packed their gear and left, instead engaging in frivolous and light-hearted conversation with his loving girlfriend. He even asked if she could drive, just to allay her worries over his condition.

“Everything will be just fine,” he said, reassuring her. And it was. For five days. After which he found himself the cave woman once again.

To Be Continued . . .