The black moss is soft under my hands, leaving no imprint after I remove them. I know this even without seeing it; I can’t see anything down here in the dark. There are sometimes sputtering torches at the junctions that give off an oily smoke that somehow never seems to fill the passages, but here in the tunnels it’s black as pitch. How long have I been down here? I wonder. There’s no way to tell; I’m hungry, but I’ve been hungry for a long while; thirsty too, but the level of hunger and thirst never waver. I rub my parched throat and wipe away the beaded sweat from my brow. Where was—

A skittering sound comes from down the tunnel and, like an idiot, I turn to face it. Stupid, I think. I can’t see them coming; I can’t see anything. I don’t even know what they’re skittering against; everything’s covered in that thick, black moss. I take a cautious step backward and there’s no reaction, so I take another. Soon, I’m walking down the cramped tunnel again, moving slightly uphill, I think. I came down here like an idiot, because I thought I was a hero like in the stories. A hole opens up in your bedroom wall, just at the far side of your brother’s bed, and you go in to make him stop whimpering all night, to protect him from the monsters he thinks are in there. To make the hole stop breathing at you in the dark.

It feels like that was days ago, but it might only be minutes. That’s probably it, I think. Any second now, I’ll crawl back out of the hole and no time at all will have passed; that’s how it always goes in the stories. I cling to that hope, trying to ignore the chitter in the back of my brain that says I’ll never get out. The tunnel opens up to another junction, three more tunnels stretching off into darkness and a lone flickering torch on the wall. I push past the last trailing moss overhanging the tunnel mouth and make sure to reach up and tear the curtain down so I know which one I came from. I made that mistake at first; that’s why I’m having such a hard time finding my way back out. I didn’t mark the first tunnel, so now I’m just guessing and hoping. I remember the rule about always picking the right-hand tunnel, but this place has to be massive because all it’s done is keep going right and leading me further and further from the way out.

If there even IS a way out, I think and shudder. I bounce on the balls of my feet, trying to psych myself up for another trek, and a sharp hiss from behind me makes me jump. I scramble forward, nearly tripping on the moss underfoot, and spin. There’s nothing, of course. There never is, but that knowledge doesn’t make my heart beat any slower. I let out a shaky laugh and move toward the right-hand tunnel again. I know that the torch could provide light in the tunnels, but the last time I took it down I found that it was clutched by the hand of a boy wearing my pajamas, sealed to the wall by the moss. I haven’t touched one since. I worry that it wasn’t just my pajamas. I worry that it was my face, too.

A skitter comes from behind me and I pause, crouching in the darkness of the tunnel before slowly moving forward again. This next junction will have the way out. I know it.