Venture further into the cave.

The stink of the troll will probably be bothersome enough to keep you awake, but that’s alright, this cave doesn’t seem to be as small as it originally looked on the outside. You look deep into its dark depths. You might find other problems further into the cave, but really, it will put some distance between you and the troll, and also between you and anything else that might have been arriving at the cave for a good place to rest for the night. While it is dark in there, darkness is really the friend of a shinobi, isn’t it? There really isn’t anything to fear.

You push yourself up and dust yourself off, and then you are off on your adventure, heading a bit further into the cave to find a good place to catch up on your sleep and to get away from the rotten smell of the troll. The shadows on the walls grow as you venture further in until you find yourself completely surrounded by the inky blackness of the cave, not even the light from outside bouncing in far enough into the cave to really illuminate your path enough to see where you are going. You look back for a moment, wondering if perhaps this was a mistake. Maybe heading out was actually the best idea, but really, what was there to worry about here? If you were having trouble seeing with your heightened ninja senses, then there was virtually no chance that anything was going to find you here in the darkness of the cave.

You look from the way you came to the way that you were heading and then back for a few moments, seeming to decide what to do. What you decide upon is that this is probably as good a place as any to sit down and set up camp. It’s far enough into the cave that the smell of the troll isn’t reaching you anymore, and it’s also close enough to the front of the cave that you can still make your way out should you really need to. You flop down against the wall of the cave and close your eyes, welcoming the sleep that you know will soon be upon you.

This is great, and you are glad you picked the cave as opposed to the tree. The movement of the air through the cave makes soft noises, and almost feels warm against your skin. While the sounds might have been frightening if you were a lot younger, it actually seems calming now. You’re also glad that you are on solid ground rather than high up in the tree that would have swayed with the wind. While you’re sure the rocking movement of the branches would have probably been therapeutic, the idea of not falling out of a tree was even better.

As you are about to finally slip off into a nice sleep you hear a sound that is, without a doubt, not the wind. It makes your eyes open wide as you wonder just what it is that you are hearing. You turn your head from side to side, at least trying to figure out where the low moaning sound is coming from. You quickly discover that the sound seems to be originating from further inside the dark cave. Now you find yourself once again in a rather uncomfortable position. You could sit here and wait for whatever it is to come after you. This seems like a logical plan since it lets you prepare attacks and strategies, but the problem is that the origin of the noise might never come this way, leaving you sitting in wait all night and not getting any sleep like was originally the plan. There is also the option of venturing into the cave. That would have been a smart plan, but you wonder if whatever is out there might be waiting for you, just like you were planning on waiting for it.

There are of course other options, such as ignoring the noise, or simply turning and leaving the cave. These options seem to have their problems as well though. If you ignore the noise and it turns out to be something dangerous, it might come looking for you and get you while you’re sleeping. If you turn and leave the cave then you are sure to find yourself in the exact same position that you were in when you were deciding whether or not the cave was a good place to make camp, and really, you aren’t feeling very confident about that tree. With all of these options you find yourself wondering if any of them are truly flawless. The fact of the matter is that you are going to have to decide what it is that you want to do.