Chapter 11:

When I arrived at work, after chaining my leash to the chair and giving NemesisGirl my shoes and a pair of panties (I was going to have to pay them to her sometime during the day anyways, so I had stopped wearing them at all. I just carried them in my purse and handed them over first thing in the morning), NemesisGirl gave me an orange spongy ball.

"Hold that in your mouth please," she said.

I took the ball and squeezed it between my teeth. It was not too difficult to keep my jaw closed around it, but it seemed to fill my mouth quite effectively. It also resumed its natural size quite quickly, so even when I opened my mouth, it quickly filled in the extra space. To speak, I would have to pull the saliva soaked thing back through my teeth.

NemesisGirl knelt in front of me and seemed to examine my mouth for a moment. "Say something," she said finally.

I raised my hand to remove the ball, but NemesisGirl quickly shook her head and said, "Nuh-uh!" She obviously wanted me to try to speak with the ball in my mouth.

I had opened my mouth and uttered a tiny muffled sound, but quickly closed my mouth as I felt drool leak out my lips. Embarrassed, I raised my hand to wipe it away, but before I could NemesisGirl had placed her finger on my lips. She had never touched me before in any way. When she did, it felt electric. I froze outwardly in order to camouflage the palpitations that I suddenly felt inside. I felt the desire to kiss her finger. I believe that my lips even twitched and began to purse, but I stopped them short.

NemesisGirl scooped the drop of drool away with her finger. Then she leaned forward and gently kissed my lips, airy and silky, early spring leaves, mint. After a second of shock, I pulled away. NemesisGirl frowned, but seemed to search my face for a moment. She must have found what she was looking for, perhaps it was my confusion. She quickly smiled with a satisfied hum, stood and turned back to her desk.

"That should keep you quiet, I think," she said leaving me hanging with a firm grip on my tethering chair.

<>--+-

NemesisGirl commanded me to keep the ball in my mouth almost all the time while I was in the office. And I did. So rarely had I ever spoken to my coworkers before, that no one seemed to notice when my silence was suddenly a required state. Even Lisianski seemed to play along as she rarely required my interaction until we were riding away from the office on the evening bus.

Two days later, I was spun suddenly in my chair and hauled down the hall, barefoot, tethered, and gagged. NemesisGirl was driving me this time and she merely said, "Time for the weekly team meeting."

I "mmmpfd!" in alarm and reached for my mouth, but NemesisGirl growled softly, "Leave it!"

Oddly enough, Lisianski said the same two words at precisely the same time in a voice a mere two full steps lower.

Others were already waiting when we arrived at the conference room, Ms. Morality wearing a vile visage. NemesisGirl slid me up to the table and then went to sit directly across from me.

BossWoman informed us that the Machete Man was the suspected murderer of a thirteenth victim in the region. All the victims had been middle class women. The only fact that has related the murders together, is the mode in which the victims had been dispatched - a large bladed implement applied forcefully and repeatedly to the abdomen in a hacking fashion.

And speaking of fashion... as a segue... Some fashion companies were beginning to release lines of clothing featuring embedded strips of steel and carbon fiber. These garments were being marketed as Machete Man proof. BossWoman began to show us some images of the various offerings.

"Ooo, sexy!" Worker Bee, an indentured journalist, said. It seemed that most featured particularly tight corsets. One even looked, for all intents, like a full length latex body suit. Few of the garments left much to the imagination.

"We want," BossWoman explained, "to write an article about these garments and I am looking for angles. How should we approach the subject? Of course, three of the manufacturers are advertisers, so keep that in mind... subGrrl, what angle would you suggest?"

This form of questioning was a new tactic. My eyes bulged for a second. I felt blood drain from my face. I slowly shrugged my shoulders and used the gesture to slink lower into my chair as I tried to make the ball in my mouth suddenly dissolve.

"Come on, subGrrl! I know that you have an opinion. Share it with us please!" BossWoman said, her eyes a-twinkle, her smile - brilliant. I shrank a little lower. I was going to disappoint her with my silence. My heart was aching. Maybe NemesisGirl was going to make up an excuse for me! I looked across the table at her.

"Yeah, subGrrl, you have all kinds of great ideas, but you always keep them to yourself," NemesisGirl smiled.

Fuck! The bitch was trying to get me fired. I shot her an evil look, to which she merely continued watching with an amused interest.

I sank even lower and placed a hand over my mouth. As discreetly as possible with the entire table staring at me, I opened my mouth and ripped the sopping ball from behind my teeth. After shoving the ball into my lap, I wiped a line of drool off my cheek with my sleeve in a particularly uncivilized manner.

"Great balls!" Ms. Morality exclaimed. "She's got so much gum in her mouth, she can't even talk."

"I think..." I said, clearing my throat a little. "I think it is kind of evil that those corporations are profiting off the acts of a deranged and violent human being."

I looked around at the faces in the room all staring at me like I was speaking a foreign language. Well, NemesisGirl was still smirking and BossWoman was still a-glow, but otherwise... "Besides these outfits look like they would be kind of uncomfortable to wear for long periods of time. They were probably designed by men..."

I looked around the room again searching for the crickets and dropping pins. "That was a joke..."

"If you could curb your feminist rantings every once in a while, subGrrl, you might actually be able to get a man," Ms. Morality scoffed.

I looked at her somewhat confused. "Get a man? I live in an apartment, thus remediating the need to hire landscapers of any sort," I said as innocently as possible.

"Oh! Well, I assume that is why you have started wearing skirts to work every day - to attract a man..." Ms Morality sniped clueless as ever. "I bought the carbon fiber burka just last week," she continued with a proud, snooty smile.

"Interesting angle, subGrrl. I like that," BossWoman smiled and she moved to the next person at the table.

I looked up at NemesisGirl who, when she caught my glance began to tap her lips with a forefinger, apparently indicating that she expected for me to reinsert the ball immediately.

I pretended like I was yawning and shoved the ball back into my mouth.

Chapter 12:

Feminist rantings? Ha! Ms. Morality's insult backfired. I have always thought of myself as a feminist. It felt particularly good that other's associated me with feminism as well. I rode on a particular high for the rest of the day.

I may have even been humming as I began my night's BDSM symbol replacement work, crouched naked, cuffed and gagged, in my small cage. Who knew you could find an emoji of a Wartenberg Wheel?

Afterward, Lisianski let me relax with another erotic story. As fate would have it though, the story was about a female law student with a brilliant future who is brainwashed somehow to disregard the promise of her future in order to be a man's sex toy. I was disgusted! The feminist in me was furious. But as I continued reading and the woman assumed more and more submissive tendencies, I began to feel a stirring of arousal.

It was the realization of that stirring that sent me on a downward spiral into depression.

After all, how can I be a feminist? A feminist is supposed to hold her power and say, "Hey world, here I am! I can do anything!" I, on the other hand, am a complete submissive, eagerly seeking ways to give up my power to others. I'm like the poster child for anti-feminism. If someone wanted to prove by example that a woman needs someone to take care of her. I'd be the first person pointed to. Look at the shambles of my life on my own. I live in a sad, barren apartment only slightly bigger than my cage. I can't even drive. Half my bills are paid late due to incompetent accounting practices. I only feel like I thrive when I feel like someone else controls me. I'm sick. I'm depressed.

After my nightly lashings, I filled my cage with the muffled sound of murmuring sobs and tears far into the night.

Eventually I slept and dreamt of Laysan. We smiled at each other. She pointed at herself, then gently lay her hand on her breast over her heart. Next she pointed at me, smiling.

"I love you, too!" I wanted to say, but I realized that I had that damn ball in my mouth and I couldn't talk. I quickly replayed the same series of gestures that she had. She had the most amazing smile on her face. My heart was melting.

Laysan grabbed my hand and placed it on her nude, shaven crotch. Her skin was hot and buzzing like a air compressor on high one room away. I was suddenly suited with a corset of arousal that squeezed the breath from my chest in a muffled grunt. My body began to throb with need and anticipation. Laysan beckoned for me to follow her and began to walk away. I tried to stand from the chair I was in, but realized that I was chained to it. I tried to push myself along in the chair, but this one didn't have wheels and didn't budge a bit.

"Wait!" I wanted to scream, but couldn't. Laysan looked back at me seemingly confused as to why I wasn't following. I struggled with the chains that held me fast and Mmmpfd! into my gag. Laysan frowned, shrugged her shoulders and resumed walking away.

"Wait! Laysan! I need you! Help me!!!"

Chapter 13:

When I awoke I was angry and hot. The arousal that I gained in my dream had not subsided at all. I was so filled with lust, I almost felt more animal and less human. Lisianski always kept me on a tight schedule in the morning, but this time I knew that I could easily push myself over the edge in a minute or two. I'd just have to run faster to catch the bus.

Since I am gagged so often now, it seems that Lisianski had developed a habit of talking to herself. Indeed, sometimes she even sang to herself. This morning she was humming a nameless, tuneless tune.

"Doo di doo dee doo dee doooo."

I was rinsing the soap from my hair remembering Laysan's smile.

"Doo di doo dee doo dee doooo-ooo," Lisianski continued.

Now was the time to make my move. Relief would soon be mine.

"subGrrl is taking down the shower head."

The shower head is connected to a flexible hose.

"subGrrl is pointing it at her legs a-spread," Lisianski sang in the same annoying, monotonous voice.

I ignored her and concentrated on the sensation of water flowing over my sex. I spread my lips a little seeking the best stimulation.

"But, subGrrl's susceptible to my suggestions," Lisianski droned on.

Ohh! I closed my eyes and arched my back.

"Her shower head now sprays out straight pins."

"Yeeoooww!!" I threw the shower head away from me as the shower stall filled with the sound of thousands of tiny slivers of metal ringing off the tile. I brushed my sex, dislodging a collection of pins that had been impaled into my skin by the force of the flow from the shower head and tumbled out of the stall pulling down half the shower curtain. I collected myself off the floor of the bathroom, my crotch still on fire, and looked into the shower. There were no pins at all... just water...

"Doo di doo dee doo dee doooo. Doo di doo dee doo dee doooo-ooo," Lisianski continued to sing unphased. "You better hurry or you'll miss your bus."

Chapter 14:

That very evening, as I rode the bus home, I sat looking out the window, trying to discern which elements of the world were tangible and which had been supplied only for me. Suddenly, I saw her! Out on the sidewalk! Naked and in chains!

"Laysan!" I screamed and immediately slapped my hand over my mouth, craning my neck to see her again... but she was gone. I looked around the bus. Everyone was looking at me with a mild sense of fear and excitement.

"An old high school friend..." I lied as an excuse, pointing out the window.

"Laysan? Who's Laysan?" Lisianski asked.

Oh, shit! I had never said her name aloud before. What had I done?

Chapter 15:

I arrived at my apartment and was bending to stick the key into the lock, when the door flung open. The tall woman from the bus was standing before me and I slowly, fearfully turned my gaze up to her featureless face. Before I could even react, she grabbed the collar of my sweater in a firm grip that included NemesisGirl's collar and leash hidden underneath and roughly yanked me through the door. I was so frightened I could barely manage a muffled "Urp!" before I found myself tumbling across the floor of my apartment, coming to rest at the feet of another faceless woman.

"Carol! subGrrl's home!" my new abuser called out as she slammed my apartment door.

"Oh! Thanks for sending her in, Alice," Carol responded. She stood up from the couch where she sat and hoisted me to my feet with an unnatural strength.

"This is just a dream," I told myself. "Wake up!"

"How was your day, subGrrl?" Carol asked. Her words were clear and strong as they burst from her mouthless face.

I stared in fear at her for a second. "What...?"

"Oh, who cares how your day was!" Carol slapped me hard on my face and I collapsed to the ground again in pain - my head lying in a fresh spot of saliva and perhaps blood.

Carol grabbed my collar again. "Stay on your feet, subGrrl! Give us a kiss!" She yanked my head up to her face and viciously pressed my lips to the space where her mouth should have been, bruising them, no doubt. I don't believe that I had sufficiently gained my balance before she threw me on the ground again.

Stunned, I started to try and get up. Dreams should not be able to do this, should they? I was hurt and in pain.

"Entertain me while we wait for the others," Carol said as she dragged me off the ground again.

Carol sat on the couch and forced me to my knees before her. She raised her skirt and shoved my face down between her thighs. Not only was she pantyless, but also featureless here as well. There was no labia, no clitoral hood, no pubic hair. There was only a flat expanse.

"Come on, subGrrl! Lick!" Carol smashed my face roughly against her crotch, painfully squashing my nose.

I was searching for any way to avoid getting thrashed around again, so I immediately began to stroke where her labia should have been with my tongue. Her skin felt natural. It gave and resisted as skin should. But the taste was plastic. An image of my childhood dolls flashed into my head.

"Mmmm! That's nice!" I heard Carol moan. I continued to lick as furiously as I could.

After a minute, muffled by cloth and thigh flesh, I heard my doorbell ring.

"The rest of the girls are here, Carol!" Alice cried with jubilation.

Carol had either forgotten that I was between her legs or she didn't care. She stood and began walking, bending me over painfully backwards until my bent legs could pop out from underneath me.

"Cindy! Your hair looks divine!" Carol called out as I started to roll over in order to see how many more of the bitches were arriving.

There were five of them now. Each at least a foot taller than me, thin and featureless. Only their hair and skin tone and voices differentiated them from one another.

"Get off the floor, subGrrl!" Carol said as she once again pulled me from the ground.

"Ow! Please..." I tried to say, but one of the new arrivals immediately swung out her arm and smacked me back down to the ground.

"Good god! Does she always prattle on so?" my latest abuser asked.

I lay in a heap hoping this nightmare would end soon. Unfortunately, it wouldn't.

"Shall we commence?" someone asked.

Chapter 16:

"Well," Carol said. "Let's install subGrrl in her cage. Then I think that Alice has made us a spot of tea!"

I was pulled from the floor by my sweater. Four of the monsters, the Doll Monsters, were around me. They began grabbing handfuls of clothing. Puffs of thread began exploding around me and the apartment was filled with ripping sounds. In seconds, I was naked, but for my collar and leash. They threw my naked, bruised body up onto the table and rattled me feet-first into my cage, slamming the door and applying the padlock.

For a moment I thought that I was finally safe from the abuse, but apparently the physical boundaries presented by cold steel do not matter to ethereal monster dolls. Hands yanked my hair back and my feeding gag was applied and buckled. My hands were locked into their restraining cuffs. Additionally, I felt a belt wrap around my waist and pull me backwards until my butt slammed unceremoniously out the rear window with its curved bar painfully crammed into most sensitive locations.

A hand slapped my ass painfully.

"Oh! She's such a cute little doll, isn't she? Can you hand me that yardstick over there, Jan."

"Sure," Jan said. "My turn is next though."

I heard the swish and I tensed, but it did not help alleviate the pain and I cried out into my gag. The monsters were giggling.

The stick smacked me again and again. Whoever was wielding the stick decided to see how fast each stroke could be applied. It was like my skin was being held to an open flame.

I heard a snap of splintering wood and the strokes stopped, as well as the giggling.

"Oh, Marcia! You broke the stick," Jan pouted.

"Tea's ready!" Alice called as she exited the kitchen area with a steaming pot.

They suspended their abuse of my flesh, but, still, I fought for my life through sugar tears and swollen sinuses. I moaned into my gag and spewed snot until it hung thick and viscous across the bars of the cage door. And when I settled and found that they, the Doll Monsters, had settled too, I listened to them talk about me as though I were sentenced to die. Their tense was past.

"Poor subGrrl," Cindy moaned. "She was overflowing with so much promise. It just shows how debilitating various special conditions may be."

"Ah, but she was quite an entertainment throughout her life," Carol responded. "I remember, she must have been in the first or second grade... They made her sit on the wall at recess for an entire week. The girls were chasing the boys, trying to kiss any that they caught. subGrrl did not understand the rules though, and the teachers grew angry when they found her chasing and kissing the girls instead."

The monsters howled in laughter as I too remembered the recess wall and how I sat sadly not fully understanding what I had done wrong. I felt that there must be something wrong with me. Something unnatural.

"Remember that seventh grade pool party she attended?" Jan giggled. My face went further white and my cheek sunk in my cage until it grazed the bottom pad between my manacled wrists. "She had left her house wearing a one piece swimsuit, but it concealed from her parents a bikini beneath. She felt so bold at the party, finally attired as the coolest girls were. But, then she dived into the water and surfaced topless. Her loving classmates threw her missing top far out of the pool and refused to retrieve it."

"Oh, yes!" Marcia laughed. "And that's when she became saddled with that nickname! Flatty-cakes! Ha ha!"

"But nothing has matched, nor been as precious as her multiyear crush on her college roommate," Jan screamed with glee. "What was her name? Heartless?"

Tears sprung afresh from my eyes and fell more thickly than any physical abuse could have spurred. I moaned and willed my ears to go deaf.

"She and Heartless were drinking at a bar... excessively... subGrrl suddenly confessed her love for Heartless and to her surprise and sheer happiness, Heartless admitted that she was bi-curious. subGrrl was so giddy after a tender kiss there in public that she even confessed her thrill for bondage."

"Oh, yes!" Cindy continued the story excitedly. "But like a fly to cat-ripped mouse flesh, came a boy attracted by their drunken, erotic kiss. Before they knew it they were escorting him to their house for a three way tryst. Unfortunately, subGrrl had consumed too much and passed out in the car on the way home. Leaving subGrrl in the car, Heartless and the boy upturned subGrrl's room to find her bondage stash which included many secret, intimate, and embarrassing things, but particularly, several pairs of handcuffs. They returned to the car, tightened the seatbelt over subGrrl's unconscious body and secured her hands to the headrest and her ankles under the seat. They left her there all night, forgotten as they went inside and fucked like rats."

My skin had dissolved and every beat of my heart thrust a small wave of blood from an open, hot wound, out the door of the cage and across the table until it finally pooled around the sugar bowl.

"Heartless and the boy eventually became engaged, didn't they? I guess there is a certain justice that subGrrl had peed an overfull bladder of alcohol into the bucket seat in which she was secured," Carol mused. "Poor, poor, subGrrl!"

The monsters laughed on.

Chapter 17:

A sound disturbed the tea party. It was not particularly loud, but its frequency was disturbingly low and rumbled the foundations of the apartment. The Doll Monsters all stopped laughing and looked around for a second.

"Sounds like the Etheryords have been released..." Carol said. "Let's hook this bitch up."

The monsters all jumped to action, tossing the contents of their cups and then the ceramics themselves about the apartment. They began to rip the clothes from their bodies disrespecting the utility of traditional fasteners like buttons or zippers. Even their hair turned out to be wigs so easily doffed leaving hairless, featureless plasticine-looking humanoids.

I lost track of which was whom as they began to scurry around my apartment. The sound of ripping clothes continued though they were all now naked and I wondered what it's source was until I saw a seam split randomly across the carpeting in the living room area out my cage door.

One of the creatures stood in front of my cage reaching up high outside of my view. Nippleless breasts flexed with muscle as the monster pulled something from the ceiling - a chain. The TV cracked, exploded, and crumbled behind her. I closed my eyes to hide from the horror.

The tearing sound developed more bass and I heard the sound of bricks falling onto concrete foundation. My apartment was collapsing around me. I could smell dust and ionized metal.

I kept my eyes tightly shut until I felt my cage lurch and began to swing. The chain that the monster had in her hands must have been attached by a pulley to my cage. I swung off the table and was lowered without sentiment to the floor.

A hail of popping explosions rippled around me. Holes were appearing in the walls of my apartment, but through them I did not see a gentle, crisp Spring evening. Instead, darkness seemed to shine in through the holes sucking the life from the world.

A large crack snapped its way across the floor right by my head. With a flash and a brutal rumble I watched the world fall away from me as I desperately screamed hoarsely into my gag.

As the last of my apartment roof collapsed to the side I found my cage perched on the lip of an endless chasm in a barren, dark-rocked mountainous horrorscape. The skies were black though streaked with electricity. Shadows of angry clouds swirled in the heavens and roared as they set down to torment me.

A dark shape swept through the rain some distance away. It was a creature of some sort, leathery-winged. It looked like a vulture of some sort with an ugly featherless head. But, these vultures were big! Taller perhaps than even the Doll Monsters. As I watched more and more began to circle through the wind and rain screeching unnatural, horrific sounds from their crooked beaks.

"Etheryords!" I heard one of the Doll Monsters exclaim.

A loud clang sounded on the top of my cage, shaking the entire structure, causing my face to bounce painfully off the floor. An explosion deafened me briefly from behind followed by a scraping metal ringing sound. I saw a line of chain shoot out from near me across the chasm, arching through the sky, disappearing into the gloom.

I heard a doll monster scream over the dirge of sound, "subGrrl's going over the edge!"

Meanwhile, my eyes were riveted to the line of shot chain which Gravity had grasped and now jealously pulled down. As I watched the chain fall, I tried my best to split in half and slide out the back window, alas, to no avail. In an instant the chain reached its limit and my cage was yanked out into the chasm.

I would have screamed had my stomach and lungs not been left behind as I descended head down into oblivion. By the time I could unclench the muscles of my stomach I began to feel myself pressed to the floor. The chain had caught and I, the pendulum weight, began to swing back upright. The force was so great that my face was smashed to the cage bottom. I thought my poor tortured back would snap. The belt that held me tight against the rear window tore at the flesh of my hips.

As the cage leveled, it began to scoop a tunnel through the pouring rain. I was instantly drenched by freezing water and sputtering for air. And each moment the onslaught became worse as the view out the front end of the cage changed from darkness below to tumultuous skies above.

I felt a moment of weightlessness at the top of the swing and then began the journey back the other way. Now, however, my prominently displayed posterior led the procession through rain and pummeling hail and water poured back out the front end of the cage.

The amplitude of my pendulation quickly dampened, thankfully. I gasped for air and tried to rearrange my frozen, cramped muscles. I realized that I was being lowered further into the darkness as I passed into the lips of a narrow gorge. The walls were dark and eroding thick black mud. Boulders tumbled past my cage.

Suddenly, I saw light off to my left, but I was stymied by the scene it revealed. Carved into the cliff wall was an exact replica of the interior of the bus that I take to work each day. The inside was filled with concerned passengers craning, frantically to look out the windows and see what was going on. I saw the seat that I normally sit in, "Looney's Seat". It was empty.

As the cage descended further, I saw, to my right, a replica of the conference room at work where we have team meetings. All my coworkers were present. I saw my seat at the table, a coiled chain locked to a collar sitting neatly in the chair.

The walls of the cliffs became even tighter as I continued to descend. A sourceless beam of light illuminated a small, rickety dining room table with a tiny cage, my cage, set upon it. Shadow prevented me from seeing inside the cage, but I knew someone was there. I could hear grunting and moaning and a ringing sound of tiny bells or chainlinks from within. Indeed, the table was creaking and rocking as the inhabitant screamed and writhed with lust. There was no satisfaction in these cries though. They were cries of frustration - lust unaddressed, exposed and festering.

A hand slipped out of the darkness between bars of the cage's door. I could see that it was my hand. I could see that a heavy manacle was locked tightly below the swell of my hand. The hand grasped desperately at the hasp where the padlock should have been. Instead there was only a solid steel seamless ring sealing the cage closed. Entrapping the inhabitant forever. I heard a sad howling, gagged wail escape the cage and shortly realized that I was making an identical sound.

My descent continued.

Chapter 18:

My eye detected a movement along the left side, unlike that of cascading dark gray mud. When I looked, I saw my lover. Laysan! I wanted to scream, but only a muffled grunt escaped my gag. Hide!!

She saw my cage. Her eyes were wild with fear and confusion like a scared puppy in a loud storm. Hide!

I heard a howling sound far above us, and as my body covered itself in goose-flesh, the howl was joined by a healthy chorus of others. Please hide, Laysan! She had obviously heard the sound as well. She was looking up, eyes wide. Her knees began to bend. Don't just stand there, Laysan! Move! I pulled at the chains that held my wrists and banged my head against the bars of my cage door. Hide!

That's when I noticed that Laysan's arms were also encircled in heavy cuffs. Thick linked chains extended from each cuff on each side of her, descending slightly before arcing up to places above her head where the chain was embedded into the rocky walls of the cliff. She could not move from where she stood.

A sickening sound of flapping, leathery wings joined the howls of the flying beasts. Distinct shadows began to pass over Laysan as she crouched. "No!" I screamed into my gag, pulling at the bars of my door.

The hellish beasts began to land on the cliff wall around Laysan. She stood boldly as they grew near to her and began to swing her arms. Her chains flipped out and heavy links fell upon bald heads and cragged beaks. Still the Etheryords kept swooping in. One even held a Doll Monster on its back, whooping and corralling.

How could she have any hope with the onslaught of demons as they clawed their way across the cliff wall towards her, biting and scratching and shrieking as they scampered?

Soon she was swamped and my heart blackened. She was looking towards me in my last glimpse of her with such a look of pleading and fear and confusion in her eyes. And still, the Etheryord's advance was relentless. Rocks tumbled around the swarm and Laysan's chains were torn from their anchors.

My descent continued until I could no longer see where she had been, but around me a constant rain of rocks and mud and chain links fell from the activity above.

I collapsed to the floor of my cage, too spent to weep any more. Too spent to move or even close my eyes.

I passed through a gap not much bigger than my cage and into a dark subterranean chamber. Sounds of wind and howling and falling rain and rocks died away.

The only sense that I had that my descent continued came from the vibrations I felt in the cage, but with a hard lurch and a heavy clunk far, far above me, even that sensation stopped.

Here, in my darkness, the silence began to grow and the black began to eat me. I hung somewhere, bloodied and scraped and bruised. A moan from my throat fell away from the cage into the inky thickness around, never to be heard again.

I lay there chewing on my gag, trying to curse. Laysan! They have gotten her! Laysan, my love!

I howled into the emptiness.