~ Author ~

This darkness presses in against her like a living thing. It tastes of damp stone and iron, clinging to her skin, filling her lungs with the weight of it.

She awakens abruptly, in a hoarse gasp of breath that feels like scouring her throat. Every limb hurts, either cold or bruised. A headache threatens to engulf her skull, the pulses pounding like drums. She tries to open her eyes, but something blocks them.

A rough cloth is tied over her eyes. An earthy smell, metallic and old, ...