And then suddenly Indigo was gone, and then a bright light was shining in my face. I blinked and found that the light was not shining directly at me, but at a glancing angle into the passage, so that I could see what was ahead. Indigo was on his belly facing me, his collar-light glowing blue; the end of the passage was ahead.

I had a moment of relief before I looked at what his flashlight was revealing and my blood went cold.

Parts of the passage, Indigo had warned us going in, were so narrow we would need to crawl on our bellies. So far, I had stayed on my hands and knees—hunched and compressed, but still able to crawl.

The passage ahead looked like it was barely six inches in height. There was no way I could fit.

Quint hit my back again. “Sean? Sean, don’t stop!” She pushed me again, but I couldn’t move, blocking the passage for all of us. Oh, God, I couldn’t go back either; how would I ever navigate that S-bend backwards? I was stuck here; we were all stuck here, trapped and powerless.

Light hit me like a splash of water. The Indigo Minister had shone his flashlight full in my face, jolting me out of my state. My breath was coming very fast, but I didn’t seem able to slow it.

“Turn your head sideways,” Indigo said. I wondered, detachedly, whether the language he thought in was Sister Standard, or flashes of light.

Then the sense of his words trickled into my brain, and, “Are you joking?”

“You move forward or you die.”

I was going to die. There was no air in this tiny tunnel anymore. Indigo’s expression tensed up, like he was angry, and then he stretched his arm out into the tunnel. I stared at his hand, only a few feet away from my face, and thought: That was the hand that killed Leah.

Quint shoved at my back again, shouting something I didn’t listen to. I didn’t let myself think anymore. I laid down on my belly, reached out, and grabbed the Indigo Minister’s wrist. Then I kicked and squirmed forward, aided by the relentless pull of Indigo’s grip on my wrist. I had to turn my head to the side to fit through the tiny opening. Metal scraped my cheek.

And then my head was free, and my shoulders. I pulled my arm from Indigo’s grip so that I could pry myself out, frantic, metal scraping my back and legs. I was shaking and cold where I had been too warm in the closeness of the tunnel before.

“Sit over there,” Indigo said, directing me to a mostly-empty corner of the room; it looked like we had come out into the remains of an ancient bathroom. I saw cracked sinks and stall walls fallen over like cards.

Quint was still in the tunnel. I shouldered next to Indigo and lay on my belly, peering into the gap at Quint’s white, horrified face.