Down in Mammoth Cave, is where his body laid,
The walls caved in, life could not be saved,
No man-made machine could see the things he'd seen,
Mr. Collins, you did not die in vain!
Black Stone Cherry - Ghost of Floyd Collins
Big heckin' scip here. One of the longer things I've ever written. Original draft was last Decemberish and I got a wild hair to go back over it this last week. It might still be a bit unwieldy, but this also feels like the best I can get it. Hope you all like it.
Thanks to Hippo (a year ago!) and BlueJones for giving me crit on the IRC. Hippo also gave me a much better idea for how to handle Floyd. Thanks also to my real-life buddies Carl and Rasheab for proofreading and feedback too.
The image of Sand Cave was borrowed from:
Original Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sand_Cave.jpg
Creator: Nicholas Frost
(The picture of Floyd has been reprinted in just about every book and article on the subject and I can't track down the original photographer. As near as I can tell it's public domain since it's 90+ years old at this point. I'll remove it if there's any evidence to the contrary.)