The Cave That Wouldn’t Give Him Back
Some places are never meant to be found. Others, once discovered, do not give you back who you were — only who you were never meant to become.
Michael returned to the exact place where everything had begun: the hidden cave, wedged between ancient rocks, wrapped in silence and legends that had always sounded far too fanciful to be true. During the trip, he had heard whispers — a local tale about an Indigenous woman who had died there centuries ago, her spirit turning the cave into something forbidden, almost sacred. They said its waters held an impossible gift: eternal youth.
At sixty-seven years old, married for decades, Michael never truly believed it. Still, the idea of turning back the clock a few years was tempting. One dip couldn’t hurt. Maybe two. But the moment the water touched his skin, folklore became reality.
Time did reverse — just not in the way he expected.
The spring did not rejuvenate his male body. It rewrote it entirely. The cave did not restore youth to men; it transformed them. And now, irrevocably, Michael was a woman. A young body, sun-kissed, with skin frozen in time, as if the clock had been deliberately shattered.
The shock wasn’t his alone.
His wife never accepted the radical change — not just the appearance, but what it represented: a husband who no longer existed. His daughter, even more unsettled, found herself lending bikinis, clothes, and explanations she never should have had to give. The family was forced to confront not only the impossible, but the permanent.
Back in the city, Michael finally understood the true scope of his second chance. No matter how many times he returned to the cave, no matter how many times he immersed himself in those waters, his appearance never changed. It remained untouched. Unmovable. Locked in an endless summer.
The tan lines on his skin were no longer just memories — they were promises. He had lost an entire life, but gained another, unexpected and provocative, filled with possibilities he had never dared to imagine. And this time, Michael had no intention of wasting a single day.
Youth had not been returned to him.
It had been imposed.
If I ever found that cave I would never return to it, for FEAR that I would lose the presious gift of youth and beauty that the cave had bestowed upon me.
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