The stroke of the bladed pendulum pressed further upon his bloody bosom. He felt a loss of senses. Blackness and darkness made him feel like his soul was descending into an abyss, into the bowels HELL. The lips of black-robed judges appeared before him. They were whiter than the sheet of this printed page. Their lips displayed an unholy and terrible exaggeration. Shadowy moments tell of tall figures that lifted and bore him in silence. The shuddering terror of the existence of thought became an earnest and endeavoring comprehension of true state returned with a sickness. Sweat burst from his every pore. It stood upon his forehead in big cold beads. Agony and suspense grew to an intolerable length. In torrents, the blood pulsed through his heart. “What fearful fate awaits me?” He continued his attempt at self-brainwashing.
“Will I starve to death in the subterranean hole of hell?”
He thought death was not his worst fear. His hand fell upon an obstruction. It fell upon the edge of a well. The seemingly stone masonry felt cold and smooth and slimy. Distrustingly, he ascertained the dimensions of his dungeon. The slimed walls felt perfectly uniform. The floor was moist and slippery. He staggered and stumbled and fell. His excessive fatigue induced him to remain prostrate. The tasted blood was not only from lost teeth and cut tongue. The juice of sweat mixed with slime and fungal decay splashed all over his head and face and down into his mouth. The smell of it made him puke. Fear and agitation kept him awake for long hours – that seemed forever. The lethargy of sleep and the effect of total darkness hid the true face of the gruesome prison and its walls with its many angles, impressions, and niches. The slime of death encircled the jaws of the pit with a nasty aura.
Another noise caught the eyes of the man. There was movement on the floor beneath him. There was a troop of rather over-sized and insanely large rats scurrying about. They immerged from within the well. They arrived in an organized frenzy. They smelled meat. In an unattainable attempt to chase them away, they simply glared at him with blood-lustingly black-marbled ravenous eyes!
In his fright, he remained without motion, relishing the desired relief of death. The vermin clung to the wood, overran it, and leaped upon the man. The multitude which seemed like hundreds, swarmed all over the hapless prisoner. The precise measured movement of the pendulum did not disturb them.