Was she dead? Was I too late? Those thoughts crawled through my mind like twisting centipedes.

As time went on, it began to feel as though it truly would go on forever. I was no longer walking down this massive never-ending hallway but falling through it and spiraling through the darkness. Or so it seemed.

I walked.

It was days or minutes; I cannot tell you for sure. One thing I know is that a nasty blister formed over the back of my right heel. It made me wince with every terrible step within that inevitable march.

I've said it before, but I really felt my mind slipping all the time. I heard sounds that weren’t there, I saw things that weren't there, and sometimes I felt emotions run through me that weren’t even my own. I grew angry. At Alice. At myself. At this place.

The further I went, the more that that cavernous subterranean lair's scent became unbearable. I idly wondered if there are any sulfur deposits. I checked the stone walls with one of my flashlights and the beam scanned its smooth surface. I can imagine some large powerful hands eroding them so that they were just so.

In my overwhelming boredom, I attempted to blow out one of the candles along the walkway. I bent down, cupped my hands around my mouth, and pushed air out. Its light was gone. I watched it. It stayed flameless for a few moments and then flickered back to life. Peculiar. Though that's the least interesting thing I'd seen.

Just as I was about to lose my nerve and shout into the open hall, it ended. Or in the very least, the light did. There seemed to be an exceptionally fine mathematical line where the candles on either side of me ceased and there was only darkness ahead. Coming from the recesses of the darkness in front of me, I heard a familiar noise. It came sliding, slicking towards me, slowly at first, then picking up speed. It was slithering and growling. It was the creature that I had crossed paths within the initial chamber. I knew it! Focusing my flashlight ahead with my left hand, I reared the baseball bat in my right. I saw this horrendous creature for the first time as the light illuminated its shining surface and could not believe that I had been so cavalier to its presence before. If all cosmic entities were contrived from any one place it surely was from this.

Its flesh moved aqueously; unlike any living thing I have ever seen. Its eyes lolled and moved to every feasible point with stunning speed. Its mouth was wide and circular and seemed to never close, for it breathed and heaved from some gaseous organs deep within. With each arduous breath it sighed out, came that growl. The thing's oval head stood upon a neck about two feet long and its six or seven misshapen limbs wriggled all about, never touching the ground. Its bent and awkward body sat upon a lower half most like that of a slug. Its body glistened from some unnamable moisture. The horror slid along the polished floor, leaving a mucus trail, coming towards me. It was an amalgamation of the very worst things.

I was frozen, watching it come at me with my flashlight focused on it.

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All its eyes focused on me.

It growled or breathed as it approached. I dropped the flashlight, backing away and readying my bat. I felt its hot breath. Its mouth seemed to move and try to form something adjacent to words, but the musculature of its jaw could not afford this.

I swung while closing my eyes and felt the end of the bat meet something like cartilage. A spray of hot liquid showered my face and I spat and squinted through it. The thing had toppled onto its side. I had demolished several of its eyes. It squirmed and thrashed, and I stepped around it to look at its face. It stared up at me. The horror's eyes were watery. Again, the things mouth seemed to try and form something akin to words. It groaned. I brought the bat down over its head until its face was flush with the ground and its limbs ceased their spastic twitching.

This gave me some newfound courage in the face of all this adversity. Striking the creature down brought me pleasure in knowing that I was indeed capable of fighting back against whatever force had taken my sweet Alice from me.

She was alive. She must have been. God if she weren’t, I would set about eliminating every breathing thing in that awful underground labyrinth.

I wiped my bat against my pant leg, cleaning it, and found my flashlight on the ground. Walking into the dark, I heard more slithering, more groaning and growling. I glanced over my shoulder, expecting that that dead creature had somehow revived itself somewhere near the candle path. It lay there still. Those noises were coming from the darkness in front of me. I walked into it with my light cutting through the unseen. I struck out in the dark several more times, tearing the horrors down in their places with a flash of the light and a thud of the bat. I did not stop until I couldn’t hear anything, save my own heaving breathe.

Scanning the immediate area around me, the creatures lying there resembled no singular form. I was surprised at myself.

I looked back over my shoulder at the candle pathway and I could barely see them in the distance. There was no other choice; I sure as hell wasn't going to turn back. Thinking of walking that long hallway again sent sharp pains down my legs. I pushed on with my trusty bat at the ready.

Steadily, I heard rushing water and moved warily. There was a river? There was a river. The stone floor beneath my feet almost fell out from under me and I had to point the light down. There was a gentle stream. The sound was so normal. It was something I might have heard on the surface world and this whipped my senses into a frenzy. The water below looked calm.

I searched around in the darkness and found a post attached to the edge of the stone floor. A rope was tied there. I followed the rope line with my light and saw it was attached to a dinghy in the water.

"No way." I said.

That haunting, bodiless voice came back. "You must, you know."

"Why? So, the water can turn into lava? So that a kraken can swallow me whole?" Something about getting in a boat and putting my fate so entirely in the dark magic of that place did not set well with me.

"You must save her." It laughed. "You must save her before it's too late!" The voice said this in mock panic.

I looked down at the dinghy as it bobbed in the water and bounced against the edge of the floor with a thonk. I sighed because I knew it was right.

The bodiless voice chuckled again. "I know you will."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yes. You will."

I stepped into the small boat and began rolling the slack of the rope. "I'll kill you." I pushed against the stone floor and watched as the stream pulled me further away. I gathered the rope and put it in my pack, sitting down. I was grateful for being able to rest properly. "If you don't give her back to me, I swear I'll kill you."

I knew it heard me.