Flux

voice escaped as a tiny squeak; inaudible to those operating the scanner. He was trapped: they’d got him and the game was up. Resigned, he closed his eyes.
    The machine started and Iain’s head filled with grinding and clunking noises, the sound of heavy machinery. His body felt electrified, a mild tingling all over accompanied by a rising feeling in his stomach, like when driving too fast over a humped back bridge.
    He was no longer lying down; snapping open his eyes he found himself once again standing staring out over the abyss, all bathed in the dull red glow of fire, smoke rising up to meet him, filling his lungs. He breathed deeply of the acrid stench.
    “Hi there.” Bert was sitting a few paces away on a pile of stones, which were not stones at all but skulls.
    “Hi,” Iain replied wearily. He wasn’t afraid anymore; his will was broken and nothing could be worse than what those above would do to him.
    “Have you decided to join us then?”
    “Dunno.”
    “Come with me.”
    “Where?”
    “All in good time. I have something to show you.”
    “What?”
    “I said, all in good time.” And with that he was up and walking towards the lip of the chasm. Iain could see the fragile bridge of stone which spanned the gap. It wasn’t the way Bert was heading. “Chop chop; keep up will you.”
    Iain followed, his feet kicking up clouds of red dust in front of him; he hurried so as not to lose sight of his guide.
    Bert waited for him at the top of the steps, the rough stone ones which led down until disappearing from view into smog and fire glow.
    “This way if you please.”
    Iain hesitated.
    “Come on will you. Don’t be a pussy. If I’d known you were a pussy I wouldn’t have bothered.”
    Iain shrugged his shoulders: What the heck, and started to follow.
    The steps were steep and narrow; the surface pitted and rough. On one side the rocky wall rose up above them and on the other, a sheer vertical drop. Iain had to watch his footing carefully so as not to stumble and plummet to the unseen floor below. On occasion he glanced up and could see the openings of caves set into both walls of the chasm. The fires still burned in their mouths and shadowy, tortured figures still danced and toiled inside; he could picture them as being masters and slaves.
    “Who are they?” he asked Bert during a small pause in their descent.
    “All part of our merry collective,” replied Bert, a wry smile on his face.
    “They don’t seem very merry!” just as a scream wafted to their ears from one of the closer caves. Iain didn’t want to think about it too much, he knew bad things were happening in there.
    “Hmph.”
    They carried on, ever downwards. Little nooks and crannies in the walls revealed spider creatures; he shrank back, a little more afraid than he had been.
    “Don’t worry about those; they’re harmless,” called Bert over his shoulder.
    Iain was worried about them though. He was confused and didn’t know why they weren’t attacking this time. Looking up, the top of the abyss was now obscured from view by the smog hanging thick over their heads. He glanced back at some of the spiders; they stared back, menacingly: slick red skulls turning to follow his progress, thousands of eyes burning into his back. Iain knew that one false move and he’d be dead and couldn’t understand what force now had them tamed.
    “Nearly there,” Bert called before quickening his step and whistling a merry little tune which Iain couldn’t place but sounded familiar.
    They stepped off the bottom step and into a vast underground cavern he imagined to be even larger than the one above. There must have been a ceiling of rock up there somewhere, but it was out of sight, lost in a sky of billowing, black, sulphurous clouds. He thought it was a cavern but to call it such would be an injustice; it was a subterranean world.
    They were standing on a beach of black sand, coarse underfoot. Ahead of them, small waves lapped lazily at the shore; the water blacker than the beach. As far as Iain could tell, it was a wide river. Far across the water hazy shadows of land could be seen, dark and threatening, rising from the horizon like an apparition. Straining his eyes against the gloom, he could see a volcano rising from the land-mass, the red glow of lava spewing from the summit. Something splashed in the water ahead of them; something told him it wasn’t a fish.
    The sound of a baby crying drifted to them from over the