Jessica set her foot on the bottom rung of the playset and started to climb as fast as she could. Below her came a wrenching noise, and she glanced down to see the creature tearing up the playset, the unskinned head swinging and bobbing gleefully. It reached up and tore out the rung below her, and she climbed faster, hurling her upper body into the tube just as one of the creature’s hands grasped the last piece of the playset. Jessica scrabbled for a handhold, at last managing to pull her full body inside the tube. She crawled as fast as she could, the pipe shaking with every movement, then stopped to look down. Although some of the plastic tunnel was bolted to the ceiling, there were large portions that were not. This was made for kids, not me. Jessica rocked herself carefully, and the section of plastic below her rocked as well, the plastic segments creaking at the seams. Jessica shivered. Slow and steady. She checked her hands and knees, making sure they were safely in place, then started forward again.

She was in a narrow, unadorned tube, hovering above an empty hallway, lit by a single, exposed florescent light that hummed as it flickered. The hum of the florescent light seemed to grow louder as she made her way cautiously along the fragile plastic flooring, filling her ears almost painfully, as if she had gone deep underground. She worked her jaw open and shut, trying to clear the sensation, but the noise persisted. When she reached the segment of tubing that went into the wall above the door, she hesitated, trying to see inside, but there was only darkness. Jessica took a deep breath, and carefully crossed into the next room.

Silence fell: the humming noise was blissfully gone. The only light was behind her, and bizarrely it did not penetrate into the room, as if it were somehow being filtered out. She looked back and saw the circle of light where she had come, but everything else was in darkness. Jessica blinked, waiting for her eyes to adjust, but all she saw was black. Okay, then. She shuffled slowly forward, feeling carefully and sliding her knees along the support beams that ran along sections of the tunnel. After a few minutes, she came to a turn, bumping her head gently on the plastic, and she felt her way around it with a vague sense of accomplishment.