She stared into the blackness around her; she could see now that the room was not completely dark—faint, pencil-thin shafts of light radiated down from above. She looked up; the flat ceiling looked to be about eight feet over her head, and it didn’t appear to be one solid surface. Dots and dashes of light penetrated the ceiling everywhere, suggesting that the ceiling was constructed of strips of wood with thin gaps in between.

She tucked her taped ankles under her thighs and rocked forward onto her knees, then with great difficulty struggled to her feet, tottering precariously as she fought to keep her balance. Now she knew how Trygg must feel. Standing was difficult one limb short, and it was even more difficult to move—she had to travel in short broken hops, and each time her feet hit the floor a blast of pain echoed through her skull.

With just a few short hops she bumped into a wall. She turned her face to the side and felt the surface with her cheek; it was made of smooth wooden planks. She turned her shoulder to the wall and shoved against it, but the wall was solid—it didn’t budge an inch. She began to hop forward, rubbing her shoulder and arm along the wall as she went, hoping to find a window or a door—some way she might get out. In just a few steps she came to a corner; she turned and followed the next wall, then the next, until she was back where she started again. She leaned her back against the wall to rest, drenched in sweat and breathing hard through her nose. She had hoped to find a nail or a splinter projecting from the wall somewhere, something sharp enough to allow her to cut through the tape that bound her wrists and ankles, but she found none. It was a small, square room, no more than ten feet on a side, and there were no doors or windows anywhere. No way in, and no way out.

How did I get in here?

She looked up again, and this time she noticed bits of dust and dirt drifting down in the blue-white shafts of light like tiny angels descending from heaven. Suddenly she understood: She was looking up at the floor. This wasn’t a room at all—it was some kind of pit.

She slowly slid down the wall until she rested on the dirt floor again. There was nothing she could do other than wait—but she was terrified at the thought of what she might be waiting for. There was no sense letting fear get the better of her, though; she tried to calm herself, deliberately slowing her breathing and trying to project her thoughts to a better place.