They kidnapped me from outside my apartment. One moment I was unlocking my bike, the next—a hood, hands, a vehicle that smelled like sulfur and old milk. I passed out.

I woke up, strapped to a table of cold metal—my wrists burned. The air buzzed with some frequency I couldn’t hear, but felt in my teeth. Inside I tasted dread as candles flickered while the smell of rotted flesh lambasted me. 

I lifted my head to see my kidnappers in a large dilapidated open room. They’d arranged themselves with their backs to me mostly,  in a semicircle around a wall. As I stared, the wall pulsed, shimmered and breathed. Like it waited for me—licking its lips to taste my fear.