In the otherwise pitch blackness, Chimron could only see by the white sparks spitting from the exposed wire hanging down from the ceiling high above, illuminating the steel rafters and metal plate walls along the top of the hallway. He reached out cautiously behind him, until his hands met with the cold, rough, wet brick of the wall.

Aside from the intermittent, insistent zaps of the sparks from the wire nearly a dozen feet above his head, and the ubiquitous drip-drip-drip of a leaky pipe or crack, he could hear the careful footsteps of his quarry quietly tapping against the damp floor.

“I Hear You!” shouted Chimron, hoping that, if nothing else, it would cause his prey to make a mistake, stumble in the dark, go the wrong way, second-guess itself. As the echoes of his shout faded, the tapping became faster, less cautious—and more distant.

It was all Chimron could hope for at this point, and he crept along the hallway, feeling the wall behind him with his hands.