Spelunking

Dylan had just raised his first forkful of supper when the phone rang. He lowered it and started to rush as he pushed his chair away from the table. Too late. His mother was already in the kitchen.

            “Hello?”

            “Sheriff?”

            She gasped. “He's missing?”

            Dylan kept frozen, still half-sitting as he eavesdropped on the conversation.

            “Oh, my... Well, I can assure you sheriff that Dylan has been here all day.”

            He faked a smile back when his mother came around the corner.

            “Dylan, do you have any idea where Keegan went after school?”

            “No idea” he replied with a mouthful of mashed potatoes.

            She sighed. “No, sheriff. Dylan says he has no idea where he is. I'll be sure to call if we find out anything. Thank you. Goodbye.”

            When she got off the phone she sat across from Dylan with crossed arms and a stern face. Even with her small stature, the look she was giving was enough to make Dylan think twice about concealing the truth. Even in the later years of high school, the wrath of one's mother is something to be feared.

            She stared at him for a few moments while he tried to smother his anxiety with forkfuls of meatloaf. Finally, she began her interrogation.

            “No idea where Keegan is?” her mouth turned into a smirk as she waited for his answer.

            “No idea!” Dylan muffled through his half-chewed food.

            He knew if he stayed silent, she would eventually go away. A few more moments passed punctuated only by the sounds of Dylan's fork tapping the ceramic plate.

            He finished eating and rinsed his plate in the sink. As he made a movement towards the sanctuary of his bedroom, he could feel the stern look of his mother searing the back of his head. Luckily, she stood silent. She was either giving him the benefit of the doubt, or she was letting him dig a bigger grave.

            Dylan shut the bedroom door behind him firmly and locked it before climbing onto his bed. He reached into the gap between the mattress and the wall and retrieved the small radio him and Andy had talked on since the 6th grade.

            krrt “Disco Pete, this is Hawkeye. How copy?” krrt

            No response. Maybe Andy was still eating dinner?

            He tried again. krrt “Disco Pete, this is Hawkeye. Can you hear me?” krrt

            After a few quiet moments, the handheld radio crackled in response.

            krrt “I hear you loud and clear, COCKeye!” krrt

            Dylan didn't find the humor in the worn-out joke.

            krrt “Shut up man, this is serious!” krrt

            krrt “Sorry, sorry. What’s up?” krrt

            krrt “The sheriff called. They said Keegan was missing.” krrt

            krrt “Shit. You don't think he's still in the old drainpipe, do you?” krrt

            krrt “If he is, he's in deep shit. Maybe we should tell the cops...” krrt

            krrt “Are you fucking crazy!? We can get him out of there ourselves!” krrt

            krrt “You're fucking crazy! You really think we'll be able to find him? We both have no idea how deep that place goes.” krrt

            krrt “We have to try to get him out. If the cops find him, he'll be charged with trespassing. Who knows, they'll probably repair that grating on the drainpipe so nobody else gets lost.” krrt

            Dylan sat for a moment to think about his options. Andy was right. If Keegan got caught by the police, his family would probably disown him. He had already gotten in trouble for selling weed and his single mother had been through enough of his shit. Not to mention, if the cops found out about the drainpipe their secret would be out. He had to protect his friend, and the tunnel could not be compromised.

            krrt “You're right. Can you come by and pick me up in an hour?” krrt

            krrt “I'll be there in thirty, Disco Pete signing off.” krrt

            krrt “Roger that, Hawkeye out” krrt

            Dylan had been friends with Andy since the first grade. He was always a bad influence and a source of chaos in Dylan's life, but he loved the excitement. Andy was the first person to teach him about all the taboos in life. He taught Dylan about sex in the third grade after overhearing a conversation between his parents. With his long hair, earrings, and aggressive graphic T-shirts, Andy showed off his chaotic disposition any way he could. Dylan was jealous of him in that way, his mother would never tolerate her child dressing like a “punk”.

            They had been through it all together. Late night parties, shared girlfriends, lying to each other's parents, keeping secrets. Over the past year, they had made it their hobby to explore the abandoned buildings that pockmarked their Rustbelt town. Each time they explored a new place, they uncovered new secrets and the sense of exploration was intoxicating. The drainpipe on the edge of town under route 41 was their biggest secret yet.

            Andy and Dylan were the first ones to discover it. Three weeks ago, they were cruising through the farmland that surrounded their small town, listening to Andy's new Rush cassette when they decided to pull over and check it out. The thing they noticed first about the drainpipe was the smell. It was barely noticeable from the outside, but after taking a few steps into the tunnel the stench was almost enough to overwhelm them. It smelled like a cocktail of harsh cleaning agents mixed with wet rust. It was as if someone had ruined the toilet on an old submarine and tried to cover the smell with military-grade chemicals.

            “What the hell is that stink?” Andy asked as he covered the bottom of his face with his T-shirt.

            “I don't know, but it hurts my nose.” Dylan was covering his face with the inside of his elbow. His could still smell a faint remnant of the detergent his mother used to clean their family's clothes. As they ventured deeper, that comfortable reminder of home gave way to the harsh stink as the fumes continued to intensify.

            “Fuck this, I can't go any further” Andy said as they were about 100 yards into the tunnel. “Let’s head back to my place and grab some masks.”

            “Sounds good.”, Dylan replied. “We could use a flashlight too.”

            They returned a few hours later and the day had given way to the night. The painter’s masks helped a little, but they could feel their lungs fighting against air that felt painfully heavy with every breath they took in.

            Armed with their masks and a flashlight, they made it to what they guessed was 1,000 yards from the entrance. They were confronted by a rusty metal door that looked like something from an old ship. Through the spider-webbed circular window at its top they could barely make out any details about what was on the other side, other than that the tunnel appeared to narrow down to a much smaller hallway past the hatch. The round wheel in the middle of the hatch was fully rusted stuck.

            “Stand back, I have an idea.” Andy said with an intense stare at the metal door.

            Andy let out a karate-like “Hi-ya!” as he busted out the circular window with the back of his Maglite which sent noise of shattered glass echoing down the long, damp tunnel. Another wave of noxious fumes came from the window and sent them back a few paces. They both let out deep rasping coughs and could taste iron on their tongues.

            “Jesus Christ, man!” Dylan said, nervous at what Andy would do next.

            After a moment of gathering himself to adjust to the smell again, Andy approached the circular gap where the window had just been. With the glass gone, he could see clearly into the narrow corridor that was past the hatch. The hallway continued straight for 50 more feet before appearing to descend down a staircase.

            The walls of the corridor were much different than those of the drainpipe. The drainpipe had curved, cement walls that formed a tunnel around ten feet in diameter. The cement in the tunnel was aged and cracked, with pieces of moss clinging from the ceiling and small gaps in the walls. The walls of the corridor, however, looked to be made of metal. There were no traces of rust to be seen beyond the hatch. Overall, the hallway that laid before them appeared to be in much better condition than the damp, rotting drainpipe.

            Andy peered down and saw that the circular handle on the other side of the hatch was completely devoid of rust. While he could comfortably get his head through the gap for the window, his shoulders were a bit too wide.

            “Fuck! Its too small. You try to fit.” Andy said, out of breath.

            Dylan tried to fit himself and was just barely not able to fit himself through. After trying a series of contortions to attempt to reach the other side of the hatch, they both gave up, exhausted.

            They turned back and planned their next expedition.

            Andy and Dylan both knew someone who could fit through that gap where the window used to be. They had first met Keegan two years ago when he was only in the 8th grade and started selling weed to them. Keegan was a sophomore now, but he had hardly grown at all. He was trustworthy enough to keep their secret and small enough to get where they couldn't.

            It barely took any discussion before they recruited Keegan for their next venture into the tunnel.  His single mother didn't care what he did with his free time, as long as he left her alone and didn't get arrested. Keegan was young and more unpredictable than Andy, but they needed him to get past that strange hatch.

            The third expedition went as usual until they made it to the hatch. Everything was as they left it, except the shattered window had been replaced with a sheet of white plastic from the inside.

            “What the heck, that wasn't there last time”, Dylan said.

            They looked perplexedly, considering who might have done the shoddy repair. Andy pushed at the edge of the plastic and could hear tape stretching from the corner of the white sheet. He kept peeling it back until there was enough space for him to see though. From the bottom of the staircase at the end of the metal corridor, they began to hear something moving.

            It sounded like some metal behemoth was moving below them. Machinery that must have been too large to imagine was shifting somewhere past that staircase. It was causing a grinding, echoing noise that shook their feet as it growled.

            “What is that?!” Keegan asked with wide, shocked eyes.

            “Fuck this shit, man!” Andy was panicking and running towards the way they came.

            “Hold up, dude!” Dylan cried as Andy ran further and further away with the only flashlight.

            Andy just kept running, Dylan and Keegan trailing behind.

            Even though moments before they had been terrified, by the time they made it back to Andy's car not one of them could wait until the next expedition.

            “Come on, you brought me all the way here just to chicken out?” Keegan begged. “It seems to be over. Maybe it was a subway or something?”

            “Keegan, you retard, they don't build subways in the middle of nowhere”, Andy snapped back.

            “Well whatever it is it's gone, are you guys really gonna be such pussies?”

            “We'll go back tomorrow night you little shit. If there's people in there, I wanna bring some protection” Andy said.

            “You think you'll need condoms in there?”, Keegan asked.

            “Not condoms you idiot, maybe if you got laid you would stop thinking about sex all the time.”

            They argued all the way back to Keegan's house. Before they parted ways, the three of them made an agreement to make another attempt at getting though the hatch the following night.

            Dylan was able to sneak out to Andy's car without his parents noticing. He was there in thirty minutes just as he had promised on the walkie-talkie. As unpredictable as Andy was, he was never late.

            “We told that little fucker not to go in there without us.” Andy said through his teeth as Dylan shut the passenger door to his dad's Chevy.

            “Let’s just see what the hatch looks like. If that plastic is gone, we know what's up.”

            “I can't believe he would go in there on his own.”

            “Guess he's got some balls on him.”

            “The only big thing on the little guy”

            They both chuckled.

            As they walked away from the car, Dylan followed Andy as the headlights of the Chevy cast huge shadows of them on the entrance to the tunnel. Dylan could see that Andy had put his dad's Ruger pistol in the back of his jeans.

            “Whoa, Andy. You sure we're gonna need that thing?”

            “What?”

            “The gun?”

            “I was serious when I said we might need protection. Whoever taped up that window might still be in there. And if they are, they might have Keegan.”

            Dylan felt he was probably right, but the gun still made him nervous. Especially in Andy's hands. He just hoped he wouldn't have to see him use it.

            As their flashlights began to illuminate the hatch, both of them began to run towards it in a panic. The door had been left partially ajar, a bit less than halfway open. They both paused when they reached it before creeping inside, trying to make as little noise as possible.

            When they had made it a few feet away from the descending staircase, almost pointlessly, Dylan let out something between a call and a whisper, “Keegan, you there?”

            Nothing but silence in response. Not even an echo.

            As they began their descent down the staircase, its spiral nature began to reveal itself. Every thirty feet or so, the staircase would turn left at a ninety-degree angle. Dylan and Andy found themselves making countless left turns after the first, descending deeper with every step.

            “How deep does this thing go?” Dylan thought out loud.

            “Hell, if I know. This place has got to be something serious for them to dig this far down.”, Andy replied. He was walking in front with the Maglite and Dylan was speaking to his dark silhouette.

            “Hopefully we find an elevator somewhere. This is going to be a bitch to walk back up.”

            It was almost half an hour until they reached the end of their nervous descent.

            They were greeted by the first piece of evidence to where they might be exploring. Painted on the metal wall in huge white block stencils was “SUBLEVEL: SIGMA”.

            “What do you think that means?” Andy asked as he pointed to the words with the flashlight.

            “Sublevel? Maybe it has something to do with sewage? A mine?”, Dylan pondered.

            They were both perplexed. Why would anyone build something like this so deep, especially in the middle of nowhere?

            Again, they called for Keegan. Still no response.

            Suddenly, the metal Goliath they had heard on the last expedition made itself known again. This time it was loud enough for them to have to cover their ears. The noise kept going until Dylan and Andy were both on their knees holding their heads between their hands. Andy let out a scream of pain and could barely hear himself. Dylan watched as the pistol in his friend's waistband slipped loose, it seemed like it was levitating. After it freed itself from Andy's jeans it slammed into the metal wall and “BANG!”, a shot ricocheted past both of their heads. Dylan continued to watch as Andy's earrings were ripped out of his lobes, leaving small bleeding lines in their place. Realizing what was happening, Andy used all of his strength to hold tight onto the Maglite to stop it from crashing into the magnetic wall. The flashlight took his tightened fist with it, and Dylan could hear the bones in Andy’s hand cracking like walnuts as they were crushed between the wall. Andy mouth formed an inaudible scream, totally overwhelmed by the noise that was coming from down the tunnel.

            After a few more agonizing moments, the distorted metal noise finally came to an end. The pistol came unstuck from the wall, crashing to the floor along with the pair of bloody earrings. Andy cried out, “Shiiit!”, as he wiped his hands on his wounded ears and saw the fresh blood. The knuckles on his left hand had been skinned, but luckily he could still move his fingers.

            As the sound continued to ring their stunned ears, it was followed by another wave of the noxious smell that permeated the tunnel.

            The wave of contaminated air was enough to send both of them gagging. Dylan pulled away his mask before coughing up enough blood to fill the gap in the “A” of the “SIGMA” that covered the wall. Andy looked at him with wide, fearful eyes.

            Dylan hacked up a few more things from inside his body, “I . . . I think I'm fine. . . We gotta find Keegan before it’s too late.”

            After looking at the puddle of blood Dylan had coughed onto the walls and floor, Andy nodded and they gathered themselves before pushing deeper into the dark unknown that stretched before them. Andy put the Ruger back into his waistband and put his bloody earrings into his pocket.

            “Whatever made that noise magnetized the walls, Andy”, Dylan pointed out. He could barely speak; his voice was so horse from the episode of coughing he had just been through.

            “What the fuck is this place?”, Andy asked to himself, stunned.

            The tunnel was like a metal cave, almost completely devoid of details except for the rivets that held the sections of walls together. There were no clues pointing to why this place had been constructed, or by who. The darkness of the tunnel stretched far beyond the reach of their Maglite.

            Imperceptible to the two of them, the pair of spelunkers were descending ever slightly deeper into the earth. Thoughts of what lay at the end raced through their minds, neither of them imagined a happy ending to the end of this strange journey.

            They walked for almost an hour before reaching the hatch that lay at the end; barely any words exchanging between the best friends.

            The second hatch was almost identical to the first one, except that it had been painted completely fire truck red. There was also no sign of rust on the handle and the glass on the window was still in good condition. They could see though the window that on the other side of the hatch there was a small room, maybe four-foot square, that was illuminated in the center by a dim orange glow. In yellow block letters, “SUBLEVEL: OMEGA” was stenciled on the metal wall above them.

            Dylan and Andy both hesitated before turning the large circular handle of the hatch. The creaking of the iron joints was amplified and echoed by the metal walls of the tunnel. They both winced as the noise reminded them of the Goliath that had brought them to their knees.

            As the hatch was released from its seal with the metal wall, a terrible noise came from the room in front of them. In the center of the tiny room was a small descending ladder well that was emitting the orange glow. From somewhere at the bottom of the ladder they heard the unmistakable noise of metal grinding away. Along with the orange glow, a noticeable amount of heat was rising from shaft causing the room to be uncomfortably hot and the orange light to be refracted in waves.

            The two of them stood on opposite sides at the top of the ladder, illuminated strangely by the glowing shaft below them. Their tired, fearful faces were distorted by the waves of heat coming from the shaft.

            “Where do you think we are?” Dylan asked Andy with trepidation in his voice.

            “It feels like we're in Hell.” Andy was sweating from the heat.

            “You gonna go first, then?”

            “Fuck. Guess if you're too scared, Cockeye.” Andy was always the one to lead the way.

            As they descended the shaft together, the heat grew in intensity. After ten minutes, they had completely soaked through their shirts with sweat. After fifteen more minutes, they started to become exhausted and Dylan's body began to drip beads of sweat down the shaft onto Andy's head. Andy was too focused to complain. It took every ounce of his strength to keep hold of the hot iron bars that crisscrossed the shaft. Just when he felt as if he couldn't hold on any longer, he heard Dylan's tennis shoes scraping the walls of the shaft above him as Dylan lost his grip.

            Dylan came down the shaft in an uncontrolled slide, trying to use the soles of his Converse as brakes against the walls of the shaft in a vain attempt to slow himself down. He came crashing onto Andy, sending both of their bodies tumbling down the ladder well. After a moment of sheer terror, they lay stuck, their bodies contorted together filling the narrow width of the shaft.

            Dylan had hit his head on the way down and had been knocked unconscious. Andy's left ankle had been twisted sideways and he let out a cry of pain. Andy was upside down, suspended by his twisted foot. It felt like every moment he was stuck in that position; his foot was being pulled further out of its socket.

            “Fuuuck! My ankle!”, he looked up in dismay at Dylan's sleeping face.

            He tried to shake him awake, careful not to dislodge him sending them both tumbling further down. Eventually, he awoke. He was confused and tired, but alive.

            “Shit, Andy. What happened?”

            “You passed out.” Andy said through his teeth as he winced at his ankle.

            “You alright?”

            “My ankle. . .”

            Dylan noticed Andy's ankle pinned between the ladder and the edge of the shaft. Removing it would send him falling if he wasn't secured, since he was upside down it was the only thing keeping him from tumbling straight to the bottom.

            Ideas raced through Dylan's tired mind has he tried to think of how to save Andy. He removed his sweat-soaked flannel shirt and looped it around his wrist before offering the other side to Andy.

            “Grab this. I'm gonna try to get your foot out.”

            “Please, no. You'll make it worse.”

            “We gotta get down to Keegan, Andy.”

            “Okay. . . Just be careful.”

            Andy grabbed the other side of Dylan's shirt and tried his best to brace himself against the walls of the shaft. Dylan removed his foot as carefully as he could from the where it was stuck, but it wouldn't budge.

            “I'm gonna have to take off your shoe.”

            Andy nodded and Dylan began to untie the dirty laces on the old sneaker. As his foot began to slip out, Dylan felt the shirt on his wrist tighten as Andy grasped it for life. As his foot came out of the shoe, Andy was able to get himself upright and get his good foot onto the ladder again. The empty shoe fell another hundred feet before making a metal CLANG as it hit the bottom of the shaft.

            They descended the rest of the way, exhausted and terrified.

            At the bottom of the shaft the heat was overwhelming.

            Andy and Dylan found themselves standing in the center of a square chamber roughly the size of a small church. Towards one end of the room Keegan was facing the wall sitting in a lotus position. Each of His hands were in strange gestures above His knees. His knuckles bent in unnatural directions in some demented sign language. He was completely nude, His sweat-soaked hair forming a black waterfall that was only thing concealing the rest of His small, pale body.

            The walls all reverberated with a loud hum from whatever strange machinery that was concealed behind them. The walls were streaked with bright orange glowing lines that formed silhouettes of piping behind the hot metal.

            “Keegan is that you?!”, Dylan had to shout at the top of his voice to talk over the noise that was incessantly humming in the walls. His voice was shaking, both from the reverberations that were coursing through his body, and from the sheer terror that this place made him feel.

            Andy yelled, “FUCK!”, as he ripped the Ruger out of his jeans. The frame had become red-hot like the walls and singed the skin of his palms when he touched it. He panicked again when the earrings in his pocket started a small fire with some lint as tinder, patting violently at his leg.

            “KEEGAN, WE HAVE TO LEAVE NOW!” Dylan screamed, his voice cracking painfully as the veins in his neck pulsed with his words. The words left a taste in his mouth that was an unsettling mixture of blood from his throat and the metallic stench that was coming from this place.

            Slowly, as the reverberations of the room intensified even further, Keegan began to float away from the floor. Beneath Him, He left a glowing red spot in the place where his body had been resting moments before. He began to make more strange gestures with His arms off to His sides, still in a lotus position, His back turned to the two best friends. He reminded Dylan of an Indian god. The more His arms gestured in sync with the humming of the walls, the heat of the room grew more intense. He continued until the heat of the room was unbearable.

            Andy had managed to rid himself of the earrings in his pocket, but his right hip was seared badly. Terrified, he shouted to Dylan, “THAT'S NOT KEEGAN!”.

            The strange gestures Keegan was performing with his skinny, pale arms continued as they began to resemble somebody swimming. He began to rotate as His hair started to stand on its ends, forming sweaty tendrils like a Medusa. When He turned around, Andy and Dylan saw the full extent of Keegan's transformation.

            His face had completely changed. A third eye had appeared on His forehead, emitting a bright beam of white light. In place of His two normal eyes were gaping maws of encrusted blood, His eyelids torn out up to His eyebrows and down past His cheeks. He opened His mouth to reveal a set of sharpened teeth and an inhumanly long, forked tongue.

            Stunned for a moment by the horror he was witnessing, Andy regained his senses and made a move towards the ladder. Like a spotlight shifting to another actor on a stage, Keegan brought the beam of white light from His third eye down upon Andy.

            Dylan watched with shocked eyes as the light from Keegan’s eye began to take hold of his friend. Andy let out a scream as his eyes rolled back into his head and his body began violently convulsing. The beam of light grew more intense until it began to sear through Andy’s sweaty hair into his scalp. A moment later, Dylan watched his friend’s head explode like a bird hit by a load of buckshot. Chunks of grey matter landed on his flannel and Andy’s body slumped to the floor underneath a cloud of pink mist.

            Dylan tried to cry out, but his voice was completely destroyed and the noise from the walls drowned out any mortal sounds. He saw another white beam of light come down from the shaft above him. Keegan’s third eye was closed for a moment, resting like He was taking a moment of meditation. From the shaft above Dylan, more white lights appeared. Dylan could only guess that it was more demons. They had entered Hell, and it would only be moments until he was served the same fate as Andy. Overwhelmed by terror, he looked up to the shaft and prayed to God.

            Miraculously, like an act of divine intervention, a man who looked like something between a commando and a firefighter descended the ladder well with a rope around his waist. He had his arms spread like a hug, and his eyes were wide behind the window of his gas mask. Dylan grabbed onto him, desperate to escape Keegan’s gaze. In a swift motion, they were both pulled out of the shaft.

            At the top of the ladder well, Dylan could see more commandos with bright flashlights attached to their M-16s. They threw a satchel filled with bricks of C4 plastic explosive down the shaft the moment Dylan and his rescuer were over the top. Dylan was pushed through the ranks of commandos until he reached a woman wearing a hazmat suit, but no tactical gear.

            She tried to speak to him, but Dylan’s hearing was nothing but a constant ring after his encounter with Keegan. She escorted him back towards the long dark hallway. Moments later, Dylan could feel the earth lurch as the satchel of explosives was detonated beneath him.

            Dylan was so overwhelmed with confusion and shock; he began to panic. His breathing was out of control so much he could barely stand. The woman escorting him pulled a syringe from a pouch and put him to sleep before he could hurt himself.

            Dylan awoke, confused and still drugged. He was laying on a hospital bed in room with no windows. It was impossible for him to tell how long he had been asleep. Above him, a bright set of medical lamps were searing his tired eyes. Off to his left he noticed a large one-way mirror.

            Adjacent to the mirror, a hospital-style door opened and the woman from earlier returned with another man. She was dressed like a scientist, with a lab coat and a medical mask with her brown hair neatly tied into a tight bun. The man was dressed like a catholic priest and he appeared to be in his mid-fifties. His black hair had two grey streaks above his ears and his face bore an unmistakable seriousness. His eyes were concealed behind reflections in the thick glasses he wore. As they both walked closer to Dylan on the table, the boy noticed that the priest was wearing a gold necklace that bore the symbols of many religions. A crucifix, a Buddhist wheel, a Star of David, and a silver pentagram.

            The woman and the priest exchanged words, but Dylan still couldn’t hear a thing. His ears still destroyed by the noise of the metal Goliath. He tried to cry for help, but his voice was still gone as well. He lay there, powerless against the restraints that held him to the bed and unable to communicate in any way besides the terrified look on his face.

            As the woman looked towards Dylan, her expression turned to sadness. She began to argue with the priest and trying to pull him away from Dylan. A team of commandos came through the door and her mouth formed a scream as they pulled her out of the room, leaving Dylan alone with the strange priest staring at him from across the stark room through his thick glasses.

            The priest approached Dylan with a crucifix in one hand. He waved the other hand over Dylan’s body while muttering some unknown incantation. He began at his feet, slowly working his way up until he got near Dylan’s head. As he got closer to Dylan’s face, the boy could see his reflection in the thick lenses of the priest’s glasses. As they made eye contact for the first time, Dylan’s focus shifted to the reflection of his weird visage. He could see that, like Keegan, he had also gained a third eye. It was half shut but not sleeping, as if it was in meditation.

            Dylan could see the growing maw of his screaming mouth in the reflection of the priest’s glasses. The priest shook his head in dismay at the sight of Dylan’s forked tongue and walked back out of the room with an expression of defeat, leaving him alone on the operating table.

            A few lonely moments later, a team of commandos came back into the room and surrounded him with the pointed barrels of their M-16s. The priest emerged from behind them armed with a syringe, Dylan was screaming without making a sound as he tried in vain to use his destroyed voice for the last time. Without hesitation, the priest injected him again and put him into a deep sleep. He would not awake again. Not as himself.