( First the long glance, then the plunge. He sees the crackling of Hell below, the strain of the land like a muscle long-tormented by sickness and a slow convalescence, now once more stretching.

The woman is a mystery, face strange. Another penciled silhouette that orbits the group without weighing it with the stain of her company. She appears, if not rushed to enter alone, then not unwilling. Not afraid.

The lichen of their grudging resignation spread.

The moment feels at once charged and husked, as if the room breathes its last, and they are stranded to hear the dying, sagging coarseness of its last inhalation. As if walls, after a long groan, might collapse in.

He concedes, unbidden — nods once. Again.

And starts to descend first. )

This is hell. ( So hailed, so sung. ) We may not return.

( It does not stay him. But she should know, yet. )