The atmosphere was tense as one by one the monsters descended down through the trap door.

I had barely slept a wink the entire night. I regretted that now. My body felt stiff, and my mind foggy. While I could use a health vial, nothing really could replace a good night’s sleep.

Some of the soldiers would precede Kiara and me, while the rest would follow us. I would have gone at the forefront but extra measures were necessary because Kiara was with me.

As we reached the horizontal tunnel some of the monsters gasped, while some Skhites made weak jokes it was not very different from their village.

“Who knew this place could have existed below us all along?” Kiara said, reminding me of the forbidden tunnels in the village, that Orka had made his home.

We advanced along the tunnels.

“They are close,” I warned the monsters that were moving ahead. “The last time I found them was just around that turn.”

Everybody was silent, moving on tiptoe. Even though there were quite a few of us in such a small space, yet we made not the smallest noise.

The soldiers were fidgeting uneasily. The idea of the frankesteins created from monster parts scared the living breath out of them.

However, when we took the turn, there was nobody. I could read in the monsters’ iridescent eyes that they wanted me to say the creatures had perhaps left the place after being discovered, and we should return to the castle. But there was no point in abandoning the expedition until the prisoners were found.

“Well, let’s keep searching,” I said. “They can’t be far, can they?”

I kept the ‘they’ ambiguous.

The next turn too led us to another empty section. And the trend continued with every succeeding turn of the tunnel. Insecurity gnawed inside me. A part of me would have been happier seeing the creatures. They were upto some mischief without a doubt. Or perhaps, they had really fled?

“Can you hear them?” Kiara asked me all of a sudden, so that my heart jumped and I was pretty sure that the same happened to quite a few of the soldiers. We had all been silent for too long and her voice sounded eerily out of place.

“Hear whom?” I asked.

“The eviluns,” Kiara said. “The trapped ones.”

How stupid, I remembered only then!

The last time I had been immediately hit by the flood of voices. This time I could hear nothing. Absolutely pin drop silence inside my mind.

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“I… I can’t,” I said to her, perplexed.

Kiara frowned, not pleased with the answer.

I had it at that point. Something was not quite right. It would be best we retreated right then.

“I think we ought to return,” I said, failing to hide the fear in my tone.

Kiara rubbed her chin.

“Let’s keep moving for three more turns,” she said. “If there are three more turns, that is.”

We reached a dead end after two.

“This does not make any sense,” I said, running my hand through my sweaty hair.

The monsters were considerably more relaxed. After all, we were at the end of the tunnel. There could be nothing to worry about right? And I suspected they thought that I had hallucinated when I had come alone to this place, and the Frankesteins were merely products manufactured at my imagination factory.

I went to the dead end and scratched the rocks and the soil with my fingers somewhat miserably. I noticed there were a few gemstones, but they were too dirty and this masked their lustre.

“You know I am wondering now if I just dreamed everything, those voices in my head plus the creatures,” I said to Kiara

“But it obviously wasn’t, otherwise this tunnel wouldn’t exist,” Kiara pointed out.

“Since we have reached dead end, let’s return—”

I couldn’t finish the sentence. Hands shot out from the walls of the tunnel. These hands grabbed the monsters and pulled them ‘into’ the walls. I could have escaped the multitude of grimey fingers had I used a spell, but they were too quick and I barely registered them.

I was pulled into darkness. The last thing I saw was a horrified Kiara, leaping away from the walls as the hands reached out for her.

Once in the blackness, the hands let go of me. I was quickly on my feet though I could see nothing. I transformed into a exotic monster called Visionaire that had large eyes affixed to its small head for better vision in the dark, but it didn’t work.

It felt like I was in Pook’s black void again.

Changing to my human form, I tried to make sense of the place through touch alone, like a blind man. My hands detected forms. Bodies. My monsters.

“Vicky…,” they said in panicked voices, “is that you?”

“Where are we?” I asked them, though inwardly I thought it was a stupid question. How could they know?

However, the next moment, as if to answer the question, the lights switched on.

We were in a really big place, easily the size of a football field. Quite a change to the narrow tunnel we had been only moments ago.

This place looked like an independently existing dimension of some kind. It was bordered on all sides by white gases that frequently emitted colorful sparks. The white gas was the source of the light.

The place was occupied by hundreds if not thousands of monsters. The prisoners. Hope deprived faces with sunken eyes. They were all malnourished, their ribs clearly visible underneath their thin skin. Some sported unsightly wounds with infections. All were dressed in rags. A few walked around completely nude for a lack of clothes.

“Vicky, look!” one of the soldiers said, pointing behind me.

I turned around and gasped violently for there was Kiara, only a few meters away. There were some of my monsters too, who had escaped the hands. Kiara and the others were separated from us by some kind of a jelly-like substance that formed a layer beyond the white gas.

I ran to her, but the jelly thwacked me on the chest.

“Kiara!” I cried. But she did not show any signs of hearing me. Kiara was hopelessly seeking me. It was clear she couldn't see or hear me.

I realized the seriousness of the situation. We could be stuck in this strange dimension for the rest of eternity. My heart contracted and I got cramps in my stomach out of anxiety.

My soldiers brought to my notice that an aged prisoner was approaching, accompanied by a number of others. He walked with a stoop, supporting himself with a crooked staff; his back was lined with countless rows of spines. A Porcupino.