Christian’s eyes felt like they were about to dislodge from his head. Going on eight hours without as much as a pinprick of light was painfully trying. A few times, his eyes started playing tricks on him, and he thought he saw shapes in the darkness. Other times, he imagined he heard crying somewhere out there in the blackness, but he decided it had to be his own mind messing with him because as far as he could tell, he was completely and utterly alone.

For about the hundredth time, ...