If I keep crawling, I can get out of here. I have to keep telling myself that. Every move, every slide forward is agonizing. My body is so broken, I’m terrified to imagine what it will look like when I can finally see it again. But I can’t give up hope. That’s the key. I have to keep trying. I will find a way out. I don’t know how long I’ve been here. It could be days, or years, or eons; time has lost all meaning. I can hardly remember what daylight looks like, what air feels like. There’s so much I didn’t appreciate before, but I won’t make that mistake again, if I survive this nightmare. This place is horrible. Water drips from the ceiling. I feel it running down the walls onto the rocky surface I’m dragging myself over—drip, drip, drip. That and the sound of my raspy breathing, my body sliding over the rocks—pull, slide; pull, slide—are all I can hear. Everything is darkness, and it’s cold, so cold; but I can’t give up. The men who put me here—they were men, I remember that much—must think I’m dead, or will be soon, but I’ll show them. This is one girl you can’t keep down. I keep telling myself that, although I don’t really believe it. I’ll probably never get out of here. I’m just going to crawl and crawl until I die. I have to fight the despair. There are things in here with me. Sometimes I feel them nibbling on my extremities, but I flap my arms and make the shrieks that pass for sound out of my throat now, and they go away. They can afford to be patient; like the men, they must assume I’m as good as dead. Sometimes I see flashes of light and think the exit to this cave or tunnel or whatever it is is ahead; but it’s nothing, just the desperate straining of my eyes against the blackness. Maybe there are luminescent creatures down here with me, sharing my nightmare—though I guess I’m their nightmare as much as they’re mine. I won’t give up hope. I have to keep crawling. One claw in front of the other claw, pull. One claw in front of the other claw, slide. How could I let those terrified little men with their torches get the better of me? One fool with enough audacity to cross the mountains, find the one witch with the one book with the one spell that could crush and contain me here after I’d been feeding on their villages so happily for generations, the wits to memorize it, the gall to say it out loud to my face, his stark white with fear. I have to keep crawling. You can’t keep this girl down. I won’t give up. I’ll teach them. I’ll find my way out. I’ve got to. I’m so hungry.