Terri shivered, turning to look back at the entrance. “Jim?” they called nervously, and their voice echoed in the tight, damp tunnel. “I don’t…I don’t feel good about this.” They didn’t have to explain why; they’d made it clear that while they didn’t exactly believe in ghosts, they didn’t like poking at things for no reason. Why tempt fate?

“You don’t have to come, but I’m sure she’s down here,” he yelled over his shoulder. He took off his glasses and hastily rubbed them on his shirt, muttering about the unidentifiable slime dripping from the roof of the tunnel. “Mitsy!” he called out, making clicking noises and waving the bag of cat treats. Terri hesitated, but the slight catch in his voice spurred them onward. They knew they couldn’t just leave his beloved pet to whatever lurked in this tunnel. The hairs on their arms raised the deeper they went into the reeking sewer tunnel, long out of use but still foul.

They traveled in near silence, tension stewing as Terri’s heart rate slowly ramped up and Jim got more and more despondent. “She’s just down here, she has to be,” he insisted.

Terri’s heart weighed heavier and heavier, and they were just about to say something when the light started flickering. They choked on their breath as they were momentarily plunged into darkness.

“Sorry, sorry, should’ve replaced the batteries,” apologized Jim hastily, and from the sound of it, hitting it with the base of his palm. Surprisingly, it sputtered back to life.

“We should get out of here,” Terri gasped, goosebumps rippling across their skin. When they weren’t met with a response, they called hesitantly, “Jim?”

“It’s…it’s a room,” he said in an almost dreamy voice. “Why is there a room down here?”

“Wh-“ they started, but peering over his shoulder he was right. A doorless stone archway with an odd symbol at the top (like an inverted eye) offered a glance into a space drastically different from the tunnel outside. It was older, most definitely older than the sewer, which offered the question of why it was connected—had the builders of the tunnel found it and built around it?

Had the room connected itself?

“No, Jim,” Terri stated calmly, surprising themself with how firm their own voice sounded, “we aren’t going in there. Mitsy isn’t in there, and we don’t belong there.” They grabbed his arm, like a scolding parent, and turned to go. They’d seen enough horror movies to not get into things they could avoid.

But then something very odd happened.

Jim pulled back, but somehow weak, picked-last-for-kickball Jim was tugging them along like they were weightless. They were so shocked they practically went limp, their second mistake.

The third was not grabbing on to the archway as they were pulled into the room, because the second they were in, the door was gone.

Four smooth, unblemished walls, with a single desk. On it was piled a mound of storytelling devices—quills, scrolls, slates, typewriters, computers, pens, and pencils. Terri realized they shouldn’t be able to see anything at all, but there was a dim light emanating from somewhere they couldn’t pinpoint. It slipped oily fingers over the objects, reflecting off some surfaces while obscuring others. Terri glanced around in a creeping hopelessness, trying to see if they could find something, any way out, even some sort of escape-room-esque clue or riddle that might offer an explanation. They didn’t even realize that Jim had stepped forward until he was running his fingers over the wall behind the desk. They didn’t know how he’d crossed the wide room so fast, but it didn’t concern them. What did was what was on the wall, what had definitely not been on the wall before.

Dozens, hundreds, thousands of tiny faintly glowing eyes, carved roughly into the stone wall, directed at Jim. As his fingertips brushed the first one, the room went blank.

Blank, black.

Not like any darkness you have ever seen, because there is always some sort of light then, slithering between curtains or peeking under the door. This was the complete, suffocating, absence of light. It scorched Terri’s eyelids, and as they cried out, it felt like liquid blackness in their lungs, choking the air out. They could hear no one else, they were completely, totally alone, and they were unraveling, undoing, feeling like they were melting into the dark, into sand or dust or fog. Their eyes burned, tears springing and flowing from their useless irises. They screamed, and the sound dissipated past their lips, barely making a ripple, but the scene changed.

They almost cried with relief at being able to see again, and though it was the same size room, it was drastically different. It was like a slice of meadow, sky, trees, and sun all full of life. There were even animals, skittering squirrels and twittering birds and splashing fish in a tiny, burbling brook. They laughed, but it echoed back in their ears and they were reminded something was wrong.

There was still no exit to this utopia.

The birds were still chirping, and they almost wished they would stop. It was getting loud, too loud, unbearably loud. Every sound seemed to be growing, swelling, pressing on their ears. They tried to cover them, creating a vacuum to block out the noise, but it was like the sounds were in their head, the soundtrack of the valley becoming a cacophony. It was like rockets, and death metal, and trains, and a concert, blending together until their head split from the ache. They screamed again—

and it was quiet.

It was immediate relief, unlike anything they knew. They sighed, although they could tell it still wasn’t alright, and where was Jim?

Still, they knew the rule. They just had to scream. Surely the torment couldn’t go on forever?

They felt a small tickling on the back of their neck, and they reached back to find small, glittering grains. Sand? They brought it in front of them to examine it, and their heart skipped a beat as it hit glass. The room was stone around them, but as they explored the surface desperately with their hands, it was glass all around them.

They tried not to panic, but they were rather claustrophobic. They opened their mouth to scream, but were forced to spit out sand. With a growing sense of dread, they looked up to see a steadily growing trickle of sand. They looked down, and gasped in a few grains as they behold their body, encased up to their waist. Because of the small space, they hadn’t even tried to move—They blinked, and it was up to their torso. Their arms were locked in the shifting flecks, unable to move their hands. They tipped their head up, desperate to not get it in their mouth, and closed their eyes. It grated roughly on their chest, then their shoulders, and then it finally happened. They didn’t dare scream, for fear of swallowing sand. They felt it tickle their chin, then weigh against their lips, and they finally caved, opening their mouth to let out a howl of fear. They spluttered and choked, the sand was in their eyes, their mouth, their lungs, it was a part of them—

And then it was gone.

But the pressure wasn’t relieved. They opened their eyes to see the same murky room, but half-filled with water. It had waves, like the ocean, and a tiny pipe at the top. The water was rising. They took a deep breath, then ducked underwater to see if there was any way out. As they were submerged, they looked around, and they were met with the contents of the desk drifting slowly towards them. They reached out and grabbed a book, and it said, in a frantic, scratchy black hand, the same five words over and over again: _Head, shoulders, knees and toes_

Before they had time to question the children’s rhyme, their lungs began to burn, so they surfaced, gasping in some sweet, cold oxygen. They eyed the ceiling and, deciding that they didn’t like where this was going, decided it was time for the next room. Maybe that one would have an exit, they told themself.

They screamed.

They definitely did, the sound echoed off the walls and met their ears.

They waited, and waited, and—

They opened their eyes to see a roomful of water.

No, they thought in a panic, no, this can’t be right. They tried again, and again, the terror becoming more and more real, until they were genuinely pleading, just like they had been before. Still, there was no answer.

They looked up hopelessly, up, up, at the pipe stretched far above. There, silhouetted against an eerie light, was a feline figure. Its ears flicked as it gazed down at the struggling person, then it stretched, and walked out of sight. It looked back once, flicking its tail as if beckoning to follow.

Mitsy.

They knew, as they paddled, losing strength as the water slowly rose, that by the time the water got to that pipe, Terri would be unable to follow.

They were thrown against a wall by a wave, a rag doll in the current. They cried out in pain, bubbles escaping their lips. They struggled to the surface, only to be slammed under by another foamy torrent. Again and again, they were pulled under, until they were drifting to the bottom. They held their breath, but their lungs were burning, and curiously, their nose itched.

Their body was panicking, but they were drifting, but they were bursting with a thirst for air they couldn’t reach. They finally cracked, sucking in water through their mouth, swamping their lungs, blurring out, then finally through their nose. They were dimly aware of a burning enveloping some of their limbs, but more presently, the way the room was rippling and spinning and fading to black. A tiny pinprick of light, like a way out, appeared at the top of the water, but Terri was too far gone to recognize the pipe at the top, or the hand on their leg pulling them upwards as Jim’s. No, all they knew was sl…ee…p.

They were first aware of the bright lights, then the beeping, then the cord attached to their arm. “Wh-“ they started, and their eyelids fluttered. They heard a purring, and as they shakily opened their eyes, they let out a hoarse rasp of a laugh as they pet Mitsy. “You gave us some trouble, girl,” they laughed, and surveyed their surroundings. “The hospital?” they asked wonderingly, and the full force of remembering shattered the peaceful scene. “Oh,” they gasped.

“You’re awake!” cheered a friendly, rosy-cheeked nurse. “We were startin’ to wonder if you would ever wake up.”

“What…happened?” croaked Terri, stroking Mitsy behind the ears as she nuzzled into their palm.

“We found you and your friend Jim in the old sewers. Had water in your lungs, and seemed to have some chemical burns on your—“

“Head, shoulders, knees, and toes,” blurted Terri, both since they could feel it and because they _knew._

The nurse let out a startled laugh. “Yeah, I suppose you’d be able to feel it. Any idea what caused it?” Terri shook their head, figuring that was easier than the truth. It was like they felt something ease at the lie, like something that had been stirring went back to sleep. They had provoked something that shouldn’t have been touched, and they would never do so again.

“It’s the darndest thing,” hummed the nurse as she checked Terri’s vitals. “We can’t seem to figure out what the burns are from, but with neither of you remembering, I guess we’ll never know!”

“I guess not,” shrugged Terri, but their mind was on an old children’s song.

_Head, shoulders knees and toes_

_Eyes and ears and mouth and nose…_