It was the kind of blackness where it was impossible to see anything, even the faintest hint of your own hand an inch from your face. I had known darkness but never darkness this thick. Like tar. Like a demon’s blood. I lifted my hand and held it in front of my face. Nothing. Just black. Black and an awful smell of grime and poo and urine and mould and rot all rolled into one gut-wrenchingly hideous stench. A smell so revolting that I retched continuously for about five minutes, but brought up nothing. My tummy was empty. Horribly so.

When my stomach felt calmer, I sat up. Trying to breathe through my mouth, I felt the step around me. It was made of bricks. Dust or sand or dry crumbs of soil lay on the brick surface. Steps meant man-made, which meant this was not a simple hole in the ground. This hole was more than that. But what was it? Why would someone dig a hole in the ground, build steps leading down into the earth and place doors on top? The Wizard of Oz jumped into my head. When the tornado had struck, the characters had hidden in the ground. Perhaps this hole was like that. A place to escape terrible weather. But I had never known weather bad enough to destroy a house. England didn’t have tornadoes. I would have heard a gale of that force even through the wooden boards that blocked every window in the cottage.

So what was it?

If I could understand what kind of place I was in, maybe I could find a way out.

Stretching out one foot, I felt the ground in front of me. It was another step. I slid onto it, staying on my bottom. I slid down another three steps until I felt hard, solid ground. To my surprise, the ground was smooth, like plastic. Another clue, yet I still couldn’t work out what type of cage held me its prisoner. Fearful of bumping into something, I got down on all fours and edged forward an inch at a time, feeling the ground with my hands. Every few inches I stopped and felt the air around me, searching for more clues.

My stomach grumbled. Dot’s sandwich was the last thing I’d eaten, but I hadn’t managed to digest that – I had thrown it all back up. My heart began to race; what if Mother forgot to bring me something to eat and drink? I hadn’t drunk anything for ages either.