I fell through space like a lead weight dropped into the sea, but I was eventually able to regain some control over my body, pulling out of my dive and flattening out into horizontal flight. As my vision cleared, I saw a woman in black, furiously pedalling away beside me on an ancient bicycle. Hunched over the handlebars, her face smeared with tears, she continually looked back over her shoulder as if searching for an unseen pursuer. Her eyes widened when she saw me, but she kept going. We maintained pace, side by side, until she began to falter and fell behind, vanishing from view. There was no sense of speed, and I drifted along in this dreamlike state until my eyes closed, and I fell asleep.
I awoke on firm ground, and my body felt stiff and cold as if I had lain there for a long time. I scrambled to my feet, only to despair at the sight of this barren world—an endless desert of black rock without trees or vegetation, where no living thing could exist.
I sank back on my haunches and covered my face with my hands. Ernest had warned me that a multitude of different worlds exist in this dimension, and I seemed to have landed on a barren one, abandoned in an inhospitable wilderness with no apparent means of escape. I had to get out of here, but first I must attend to my immediate needs, and I hurriedly pulled on the coat Earnest had given me, fastening the buttons and pulling up the collar against the intense cold.
It was too large, but I was grateful to have it, and I thrust my hands into the side pockets, where I found a pair of black leather gloves that fit me perfectly.
My priority was survival, and I had no alternative other than to move on. I must first find a source of food and water and a way out. Only then could I begin my quest to find the key and lock the Green Door, but I did not doubt that there were further trials to come.
There was no real day or night here, only a continuous red twilight. I was exhausted, hungry, and lost in a wasteland as desolate and empty as the Arctic tundra. The land was almost featureless, with not even a blanket of white snow to brighten the mirrored surface of the blackened rocks. My body was numb with cold; I could not go on much longer without rest or food. Remembering the rucksack, I decided to open it as soon as I found a place to stop.
Everywhere looked the same, but I found a slope under the shelter of an overhanging rock and sat down. Opening the rucksack, I found a bottle of water and drank from it greedily. Further down, I found a cheese sandwich, a bar of chocolate, and two oranges. Mr Menschen must have thrown in whatever came to hand, but despite his good intentions, it did not add up to much, and I laid my limited food supplies on the rock.
Next out were a Swiss army knife, a blanket, and a padded pillow with one end covered by a flap, and inside were all the paperback books on the list that I had left on the shop counter for Mr Menschen:
Plato's Republic, The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, The Silver Chair, She, Journey to the Centre of the Earth,The Hobbit, and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.
The original note was gone, but in the same hand was another note in green ink that read:
'Rest your head upon these books and dream.'
I put the books back inside the padded pillow and lay down against the hard rock with the blanket over me. I ate half of the cheese sandwich and an orange, saving the rest for tomorrow. I rested my head on the pillow of books and, huddled up in the blanket, drifted off into an uneasy and restless half-sleep.
A flash of lightning lit up the dark sky, followed by a roll of thunder, and the ground around me started to shift and crack in all directions. Now fully awake, I stuffed my modest supplies back into the rucksack and sprinted across the heaving surface in search of firmer ground, but it was difficult to keep my balance, and I had only covered a few yards when a large, funnel-shaped crevice opened directly in my path. I desperately tried to steady myself on the edge of the fissure, but it suddenly gave way, and I tumbled down the slope into the mouth of a steep chute with walls as smooth as ice.
Lying flat on my back, I sped down like a bobsleigh, twisting and turning through the rock and bouncing off the corners, sliding ever deeper underground until the solid surface ended, and I shot off the edge like a bullet fired from a gun. It was a long while before my forward momentum finally slowed, and I hovered motionless for an instant before dropping onto what felt like freshly turned topsoil.
I later learnt that my soft landing was on a dump of residual ash from the great fire.
I lay on my back in complete darkness, bruised and winded but not seriously injured. The intensity of the blackness was terrifying, and when I glimpsed a faint red glow in the distance, it seemed like my salvation. I scrabbled frantically over the rocky surface towards the light, constantly tripping, until I fell headfirst against a giant boulder and knocked myself unconscious.
When I regained consciousness, the faint red light remained visible in the distance, and I navigated more cautiously, with my arms extended in front of me like a blind man in this tomb-like darkness. Progress was slow, but eventually, the red light grew brighter until I realised I was in a vast cavern.
Stopping by chance to orient myself, my vision cleared enough to see that I was on the edge of a sheer drop to the cavern floor. The shock of entering this underworld had numbed my senses, and I felt no fear. I was equally unawed by the height and size of the cavern, despite it being as large as a cathedral and exuding an aura of great antiquity—a presence that reached into my mind and delved deep into my subconscious, forming an intuitive connection with an idea that held far greater reality than anything in the world of appearances.
But there were others in this world.
Rough hands seized me from either side and dragged me towards the edge of the plateau. I thought they were about to throw me over, but my captors forced me into a sitting position on a chair-like structure made from hewn wood that overlooked the cavern below. My arms and legs were tied with rope and cruelly tightened until I groaned aloud. Satisfied, they left me alone, and I saw my captors for the first time.
They were humanoid but small in stature and extraordinarily muscular. Dwarves, I thought, but then I remembered that the Dwarves of mythology were renowned as proud men of great vigour and warlike by nature. My assailants more closely resembled rodents: furtive creatures with downcast eyes, heads that shifted from side to side as they constantly sniffed the air. Subterranean and half-blind, they must lead a mole-like existence, far removed from the light, yet they did not lack strength or petty viciousness and snarled and bit at any creature that jostled against them. Even so, they were not animals but a form of primitive man, dressed in brown, sack-like garments tied at the knee that exposed well-developed calf muscles covered in wiry black hair.
They did not wear any kind of footwear and went barefoot with splayed toes that had tips of hard bone for digging, beneath a mass of unkempt hair. Their faces were lean and rat-like, with sparse features barely sketched in—a vertical slash for a nose, a wider horizontal slash for a mouth, and tiny, sunken eyes. Large canine teeth protruded over thin lips, with stone-sharpened, dingy yellow fangs, weapons for ripping flesh and cutting meat to eat.
Carnivores, and possibly cannibals, as well as solitary predators by nature, they had formed a tribe bound together by fear, not love; I saw no sign of kinship or caring behaviour.
They settled around me at rest and slept in hollows dug out with their fearsome feet serving as spades. They were waiting for something, most likely orders from a more advanced being—someone powerful enough to command them into submission and force them into service—since they were not clever enough to plan my capture on their own. I guessed that they had been given orders not to hurt me too much; otherwise, there was no doubt I would have been mercilessly attacked.
Despite the gravity of my current situation, I was eager to discover who my former protector against these lowly beasts was. All was silent now, and I ceased my vain struggling against the securely tied bonds, instead peering down into the cavern below.
What I saw took my breath away.
Far below me, a line of exhausted slaves with rope harnesses strapped to their backs dragged logs of wood to feed a massive fire. This was the only source of light, and it burnt like a distress signal. The fire was built on a huge step cut into the rock, with a gap in the roof above forming a natural chimney to vent the smoke.
An overseer in a black leather tunic idly cracked his whip as a signal to a group of slaves to bring more fresh logs and keep the flames high. The slaves appeared programmed to complete specific tasks and showed no emotion.
I wondered where I was. Had I fallen into Hell ?