I couldn’t tell where the whisper was coming from. I no longer cared. I was at the bottom of a pit, standing knee deep in sucking tarry muck. The walls were smooth and seamless, polished like a marble table top and slicked with something that felt like snot. I couldn’t find a crack nor get a grip anywhere.

Why don’t you surrender? This is pointless; it’s all pointless.

It was black, a Stygian darkness that was the denial of light.
There was no sound. Even when I called out the words seemed to die just past my lips. Panic was a shrieking banshee held at bay by sheer willpower.

This is pointless; it’s all pointless.

Something was there. Some things. I could sense them crawling closer.

With a brobdingnagian gasp I woke up, shaking with cold and fear.