I let my chin drop to my chest. My arms went slack and my hands curled against the floor like wounded creatures. The room was so silent I could hear the air wheezing in and out of my lungs, the rustle of my clothes when I moved, and the pulse of the blood in my ears. Without visual cues, there wasn’t any sensation of movement, or any sound or vibration to indicate how the little room was powered. And anyhow, I didn’t have the mental energy to ponder such matters. I felt pummelled and wrung-out, like laundry that had been immersed in a river and then beaten against a rock. When my knees began to hurt, I lay on my side and exhaled until my lungs were empty. My bones weighed me down like bars of solid iron, and I found myself falling into the swamp-like embrace of an unthinking oblivion…

When I finally re-opened my eyes, several hours had passed and I felt calmer and more lucid. Old habits kicked in, and I found myself surveying the terrain and cataloguing my supplies. So far, I had been reacting to events and moving on instinct; now, I needed to start thinking strategically. Grief could wait.

The bright throat of the corridor had shrunk to the size of a star in the night sky, a tiny pinpoint of light far in my wake. As my eyes began to adjust to the darkness outside my box, I began to perceive other points of light, and from their relative positions, discern something of the shape of the void around me. As far as I could tell, I was suspended within a vast, dark cavern. Thousands of stars lay in an immense concentric shell, each perhaps representing the mouth of a new and unexplored corridor. Did any of them lead back to the surface? Although I had temporarily evaded those who wished to kill me, I couldn’t remain down here indefinitely. My survival suit would continue to recycle my sweat and urine into potable water for some time before it needed to be replenished, but the emergency rations it dispensed were far more limited, and I had already consumed about two-thirds of its stock of tablets. From my days in the military, I knew that as long as I had access to the water in my suit, I could survive without food for at least a fortnight—but it wouldn’t be a pleasant experience.