Something in the dark was wrong. I slipped out of bed, careful not to wake her, and threw on my dressing-gown and boots over bare feet. Someone had passed by our door, I was sure of it. They were moving fast and quietly. Not quietly enough. I recognised a lightness to their step. I could move quietly myself when I wanted to, even in my boots. I gently placed one heel down and smoothly rolled my foot forwards so that there was no discernible footstep. Ahead of me, I heard the door slide open, then shut. I followed the dark shape. It was surprisingly bulky considering the near-soundlessness of its footfalls, hunched and so broad it nearly didn’t fit through the door.
I suddenly realised that there was no way that this could be anyone I had seen in the camp. I followed it as it wound its way through the few tents that had been re-established.
Suddenly, without warning, the thing turned. I ducked back around a corner and held my breath, hoping against hope. I heard those strange, weightless feet pad closer, closer to my hiding place… and felt a strange sense of calm wash over me. It meant me no harm. How could it? After all, it had walked right past my door. I smiled broadly as its shadowed face passed the boundary of the tent corner and looked into its eyes that shone purple in the faint light of the moon.
It did mean me harm. I caught a glimpse of glistening, dripping black teeth and suddenly the pheromone-induced beatific smile fell from my face and I was running, the thing shambling after me with great lopsided strides…

You’ll have to forgive me, my memory is a little hazy. I… I lost it, somehow. Or it lost me. Or lost interest. But in my heart of hearts I knew that the thing had to be destroyed somehow. I crept to the storage building and entered the passcode on the little keypad.
Weapons were a no-go – they were kept in the security prefab, and I didn’t have authorisation for that. Instead, I broke open the foil packaging of a parcel labelled “EMERGENCY” (because it was), and withdrew a plastic flare gun and a brace of flares. That was a start. I searched frantically for anything else I could use, but came up short.
A start would have to do, then.

I fired the first flare into the sky, bathing the camp in an artificial sunrise along with a deafening explosive crack, and quickly reloaded the gun. What better way to draw the thing’s attention?
A hiss told me it was nearby and I spun, trying to catch a glimpse of the figure in stronger light, though every fibre of my body was telling me to run. But no creature was forthcoming. Slowly, the orange glow of the flare above flickered and died, and as it faded, the rattling, snakelike noise grew in strength.
The light sapped its power!
I realised then what I had to do, and ran again. I knew where that thing had come from. I knew how to drive it away.

Sand shifted under my feet as I ran to the edge of the pit, nearly tripping over the body that still lay prostrate before the yawning opening in what I now recognised as a position of worship. The black emptiness seemed to be reaching out as if to take me bodily from the edge and into the depths itself. And we had sent our people into its belly by our own wills!
“Oh, God!” I cried as the revelation took me. Something was alive beneath our very feet! Something no more malevolent than a toad, no more evil than a meteorite, but still so utterly, incomprehensibly alien, so huge that the only word that it fit inside was “God”.
I thought of the last few days. Of the nightmares. Of the edgy, nervy way everybody here had been acting. What happens when you shove sleep-deprived people into an academic pressure cooker?
And Sita. She had been so scared. The way she clung to me, as though I was the only sure thing she had ever known… I wasn’t having the same trouble sleeping as everybody else… I…

The Dark Creature came from behind me and I put my foot on the very edge of the pit and leaped out into the void. That moment will be with me forever. And then the cable snapped and rattled as I collided with it and wrapped my hands around it for dear life. I felt skin burn off my palms but in the grip of the rushing adrenaline I barely noticed.
I looked the damned thing straight in its wet, black eyes and pulled the flare gun from my gown. I didn’t have anything clever to say, so I just closed my eyes and shot the thing straight down. The Creature screamed, an awful, human scream, and I saw suddenly the silhouette of a woman at the centre of it – one of the survey team. It was working! The shadow peeled away from the woman and left her lying flat on her back on the sand. To my shock, I saw her chest rise and fall, as if she were only sleeping.
Now comes the hard part, I thought. I tried to pull myself higher, to climb along the crane arm of the winch and make it to safety, but my strength failed me. No longer under imminent threat of death, the burning pain in my hands no longer allowed itself to be ignored.
There was no way, no way that I could make it to the edge. I cried out, desperate: “Can anybody hear me?”
The answer came loud and clear: “Where are you?” said the voice. It was Sita! I called out again. “Hold on! I’m coming!” she answered.
She didn’t ask what had happened. She knew that this was too urgent. I could feel my hands weakening. She was at the winch controls in a flash.
She cursed, slapped the panel.
“What’s wrong?”
“Controls seized,” she said “Sand in the panel, I guess.”
“Sand in the panel!” I said, incredulous. It was so mundane. So damn mundane!
“If I open it…” she said, haltingly. “It’ll unlock the wheels. You’ll fall.” She looked around. “I’ll get help. Somebody will know what to do. Don’t let go.” She ran off. I was glad when she did.
It meant she wasn’t around when my grip failed and I plunged into the black, gaping void, never to emerge again.

Luckily for me, that deep in the ground there were actually quite a lot of places where water ran down between the cracks in the rocks. It wasn’t dignified, drinking out of them, you know, but it was survival. Where there’s water there’s plants too, and in some of the deeper caverns a kind of blind cave rat, so I haven’t starved. I’m getting ahead of myself. I knew that the fall into the pit was long enough to put an end to me instantly and I closed my eyes and prepared for the inevitable. When I opened them, for some reason, I found that rather than a spontaneous total skeleton bone implosion, I had sustained a mild scraped elbow and a bruised rib.
“Impossible!” I said to myself. I struggled to my feet, all but blind to the miniscule light coming down on us from the skyward opening, a circle of brightness the size of a car tyre. As dark as it was, somehow I could see that the outside of the circle was darker. It took a while for my eyes to adjust to the first level, but the second level remained obscure for considerably longer. I rested in the centre for days, until I was too weak to move. Eventually though the sight came to me, by the benevolence of the darkness, and I was able to explore further. I found the survey team, my dear! They were separated, but I brought them here, laid all out in a line, polished to a shine. They’re all smiling now! They remember you!
I should clarify something. A little bit by way of confession. They were alive, when I found them. But it had been so long since I had found a good rat… I told myself I wouldn’t do it again, but you know how it is.
You know I can’t remember who in God’s name this message is supposed to be for? Someone above, that’s it. Because I don’t know how long I’ve been down here, but it must be pretty bloody long if they’ve sent a rescue team. I’m so flattered. This communicator, it belonged to one of them. Ah, but I killed him, too. So clumsy.
You have to come, whoever you are. I… I don’t feel right any more, in my head. I have these nightmares, these terrible nightmares where I’m being hunted. I’m begging you.
You have to see what I’ve become. I’m so beautiful.