One of her guards untied the rope holding my hands together. In a better situation, I would’ve felt relieved, all the blood rushing back to my wrists. And now a small chance of escape, even though there were thousands of the Mardaugs and only one of me.

But this wasn’t a better situation. This was a horrible one. No, not even horrible. Beyond horrible. I couldn’t come up with a word to match my situation.

The Mardaug Queen was staring at me questiongly.

“It’s no fun if you don’t even try.” she said.

I had no idea what she meant. Try? I wasn’t trying anything.

The Queen seemed to notice my confused look.

“You’re supposed to run and try to escape us.” she sighed.

It didn’t take me long to process the happy information. As soon as I heard the word escape, I didn’t look back. I just sprinted as fast as I could away from the now cheering creatures.

It was hard. Now I didn’t have a guide who was used to navigating in the dark. I bumped into the walls. Bruises crowded my skin at this point. Each step I took was faster than the last, but also less confidant. I could hear the Mardaugs gaining on me. Their battle cries echoed along the rocky walls.

I spat dirt from my mouth. I could feel my heart beating out of my chest. Just a little further. . . I encouraged myself.

The Mardaugs were close behind.

What to do now? I couldn’t run forever. I could hide, but the Mardaugs knew their home better than me. I could try to outrun them, if that was possible. But even if I did, I was still outnumbered. Yes, that was my biggest issue.

But maybe the Mardaugs weren’t too smart? Maybe they were strong but dumb? I could use that to my own advantage. . .but I wasn’t sure that it was true.

My captors seemed intelligent. Maybe not quite as advanced as humans, but they definitely weren’t stupid. They had a language, for a start. They spoke english, on top of that. But how? If they’d never heard of humans. . .how did they know one of their languages?

The thought spooked me as I struggled to outrun my captors. They were still gaining on me, faster by the second. Realising this, I continued my run.

There were so many different paths to choose from. Every metre or so was either another hole or another hallway branching out from the one I was being chased in.

How was this place organised? It seemed like I was in a tree that never stopped branching out. It was like a labyrinth.

I took a left, and then a right. But the Mardaugs continued to follow. Some parted from the main group and went their own way. Most stayed in the group with the Queen.

Twisting and turning through the never ending maze, I finally began to lose the Mardaugs. But not even that allowed me to slow my pace. I continued running, even though my legs felt like jello, my heart felt like it would explode, my mouth felt like it would dry up completely from dehydration, and my feet felt like they had millions of bruises.

But I continued.

I felt so lost, running underground through all these complicated tunnels. And to make the trip even more memorable, it was in darkness. I had to feel my way around the different paths. Rocks jutted sharply out of the dirt walls. My hands were coated in cuts. A lot of them were bleeding uncontrollably.

I kept my quick pace. But eventually the silence faded away.

A group of Mardaugs were already behind me. What to do now? I couldn’t keep running, not even with fear to motivate me.

I quickly ducked into a narrow hole. Carefully guiding myself through the turns of the tunnel, I emerged into a narrow space, maybe a metre and a half long. There were three holes. Left, right, or straight. I chose left. After going through more places like that, I finally made it into a small room.

It looked a lot older than the others, and smaller. The walls were beginning to crumble, but would hopefully not cave in during my visit. Rocks peeked out from the walls at strange angles, making it harder to guide myself along them.

My hands were quickly going dry because of the dirt falling from the ceiling. I unwillingly sneezed, and prayed that it wasn’t heard. But in the back of my mind, I wondered if I would die soon.

I’d had nightmares just like this very often. But at least in those there were doctors to save me. Here, I only had myself to rely on.

I could hear in the distance the happy cries of the creatures I’d unfortunately fell into the hands of. They faded away as fast as they’d come. It seemed that the Mardaugs had run right past the hole I’d found. I sighed in relief, but only relaxed when the loud footsteps of my captors finally stopped echoing in my ears.

Leaning back, I began brainstorming of ways of escape. Mardaugs. Did they have weaknesses? Fears?

I racked my brain for possible ideas, and hopefully a fully grown plan. But nothing came to mind.

Eventually I heard more footsteps. I quickly took a big breath and held it, fearing that the Mardaugs would hear my heavy breathing.

But the steps didn’t fade away.

They stayed where they were. I could hear the conversation between two Mardaugs echoing off the tunnel’s walls, twisting and turning through the different paths.

“Maybe it went through here.” suggested one in a squeaky voice.

“Why would it? This is an old tunnel. It could collapse and kill it any minute. I’m sure it’s not that stupid.” said another, in a voice that sounded like it needed to cough.

“But it doesn’t know its way around.”

And that was it. The Mardaugs went silent. But soon enough, their footsteps echoed along the tunnel as they chose their paths.

A couple minutes later two Mardaugs entered the small room I was hiding in.

One of them squealed in delight as they approached.

Before I knew it, I was cornered. I was shaking with fear. In the darkness, I could only see two figures excitedly advancing towards me.

I bit my lip, rapidly trying to think of something, anything that I could do. Eventually I had no more space to back away into. I placed my hands on the dirt wall and uselessly tried to dig it open. And then I caught something.

A root.

Not knowing what to do, I tugged at it with all my remaining strength. It came out of the wall easily, barely putting up a fight. I just held it in my hands, shutting my eyes tight, hoping that this was just a horrible nightmare, and I would wake up any second now to a parent’s soothing voice. Oh, how I wished I had a parent that could comfort me.

I imagined myself waking up to my mother hugging me. She knew when I was having a bad dream.

I imagined myself telling her how I lived in a hospital with a disease, and how I was abandoned at birth.

I imagined myself explaining to her how I woke up here one day, and how I was the Mardaug’s prisoner.

As I imagined a world that never was, a plan formed in my mind.

The Mardaugs were almost touching me now, just a few inches away. I would have to act fast.

I ripped the root in half, and began rubbing the two halves together. No sparks flew. I rubbed harder. And then harder. But nothing happened.

Please, oh please. Fire. just one flame. Please! I begged in my head. But still there was nothing. Not the tiniest flame.

I pictured the one half of the root bursting to flame, just enough to light my way, and just enough to leave me a little space to hold it.

And then a spark flew.