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She counted twenty-two steps, more than the standard for a single story, and when they arrived at the bottom, a short corridor receded underfoot. The guard carrying her stopped, and the other moved around in front where she couldn’t see.

Another clack, another door opening, this time with a heavy creak. They passed into another space that smelled of emptiness and long disuse. Grey-shirt deposited her on the floor and she stepped away, clutching her own arms in some primitive bid for defense.

They were already backing out through the door. The one who’d carried her had his arm extended, hand on the latch from the outside, ready to pull it shut.

“You’ll need to run,” he said.

The lock snapped into place behind him, and the room went black as a coma.

Then, lights.

Set low in the walls, the same warm hue as the honeycomb above, the illumination showed Buckeye she was in a circular chamber about as wide through the middle as the long side of the room with all the priests.

She pivoted on her heel to see the rest, and found a single, fat central column supporting the ceiling—a massive spindle connecting two ends of a spool. The only visible opening on any surface was the locked door.

And then the floor moved out from under her.

Buckeye yelped and sat down on her ass. Hard.

The fuck?

No, not ‘moved’. Rotated.

She was moving while the smooth stone floor—something poured, like concrete—began to rotate around the central column, and the walls turned past her like some Neolithic carousel.

Her brow furrowed, and she winced at the new ache in her tailbone. Then a grating sound, stone over stone, came from overhead. She followed it up and up, and her jaw went slack.

At a subtle but steady rate, the ceiling was descending.

You’ll need to run.

She swore and scrambled to her feet. Began a brisk walk. Ground her teeth as muscles w

orked against a forming bruise.

The ceiling, about fifteen feet overhead, kept coming.

Buckeye made the walk into a jog.

The grinding noise stopped. And she saw it all.

Sadistic fucks!

She stopped. Stood in place and let the floor turn her about the room, fists on hips as she watched to confirm. The moment she was still, the stone rasp began again. She could mark, by using imperfections on the curved wall as a reference, the descent of the ceiling once more.

Buckeye gnawed on her upper lip and closed her eyes. Shook her head at the relentlessness of New Covenant. No wonder her grandparents had stayed in The Vice.

She put her head down and started up another jog. The ceiling ground to a halt.

There was nothing else to do. She already knew the end of it. The idea lingered to simply go to the door and surrender, to just get it over with, but Buckeye bristled with resolve.

They’d just have to break her then. Because that was the only way this was happening.

She ran.

For how long? Half an hour? A whole hour? The light never changed. The only marker she had was the burn in her lungs, her limbs, as she pushed.

A stitch came under her ribs and she panted. Raised her arms and folded them over her head as she plodded on, faltering. Her clothes stuck down with sweat.