I opened my eyes and was immediately swallowed by complete darkness. The people around me disappeared. I could feel them and hear their breathing, but I couldn’t see them. We were so far beneath the surface that, for more than 5,000 years, daylight had never found a way to reach this place.
I raised my hand, trying to see its shape and where it was. But the vacuum-black emptiness proved how useless eyes were here. This place doesn’t support humanity’s most common sense: sight.

Instead, it takes hearing to another level. A single drop of water falling from a tiny crack in the rock echoed through the chamber and created an image in my mind so vivid it felt as though it had been magnified ten times.

The longer we stayed inside, the more the darkness affected us. Even images from my recent memories began to fade as they lost their anchors to reality. I tried to bring them back.

What had I seen on the way here?

Long white crystals. In some places, they lay scattered across the floor. In others, they stood like carefully shaped bushes in a gardener’s display. Colorful rocks, illuminated from just the right angle to reveal their natural shades. Water flowing over their surfaces, making them appear even richer. Tons of mineral deposits spread across the rocks, placed there by Mother Nature over thousands of years.

Another drop of water.

So loud.

At this point, the chamber felt like deep space—or perhaps the dwelling place of a god, hidden in a completely different dimension.

Then a thin beam from someone’s smartphone sliced through the darkness. Apparently, the heavy humidity that made breathing difficult and the overwhelming darkness weren’t as enjoyable for everyone as they were for me.

“Well, welcome back,” our guide said with a smile, slowly brightening the chamber with his light. “You have just experienced the Dark Chamber of the Lava Tunnel in Iceland.”