All or Nothing Read Free

than a pinprick, but it was concentrated. Like a hole in a wall or a crack in a floor. Except it was vertical. Adjusting his eyes to mute the brightness, he realised it was a diamond shape.
    A window?
    He had seen enough diamond-shaped windows on people’s front doors in his time to know that it was exactly what he was looking at. He estimated a distance of seventy feet. A smile crept over his face, for a second, and disappeared. He pushed on further. His feet, bare as they were, trudged over a cold stone floor, which soon became soggy.
    Rupert yelped at the sudden change of sensation and leapt back. He paused. Kneeling down, he held his hands out in front of him, and for what seemed like an eternity, his fingertips investigated the original stone floor he had become accustomed to.
    Seconds later, they moved along, and touched softness. He pulled back and tried to feel the floor again. He felt small wisps of something weightless and soft between his fingers, they tickled the skin there and the insides of his palms. He placed his hand flat down and felt dampness. Soft loose lumps became attached to his palm as he lifted it and sniffed his hand.
    Soil.
    He had touched grass.
    He looked around him and saw nothing but darkness. Judging by the lack of starlight or wind or anything remotely resembling the open air, he assumed he was inside some kind of structure. Grass indoors?
    That’s a new one, he thought.
    Rupert stepped onto the grass and it brought back memories of when he was a child, running around in his back garden with no shoes on, kicking a beach ball, and then playing with action figures inside his cosy, nice-smelling, play house. He felt nine years old again. The sensation of the grass beneath his feet was identical.
    When he opened his eyes, he groaned. What he would give to be back in his childhood garden again. Rather than this....place!
    What incarnation of hell is this ? He wondered.
    He pressed on slowly, still cautious of his surroundings and where he might be. Working his way across the grass he moved with the same pace as before, aware he was getting soil on his feet and between his toes. It actually soothed him a little before the grass stopped.
    Rupert didn’t see it at first, and had he been moving any faster it would have been the last thing he didn’t notice before it killed him.
    In his pursuit to get to the diamond of light, to his shock, he found that the floor had given way beneath him, as if he had stepped off a cliff or a steep step. His rear trailing leg held firm and he fell backwards before he tumbled forwards. Rupert found that his rump was on grass, but his legs hung over an unseen ledge. He lay back, still, making sure all movement had ceased before he sat up, and touching beneath him to make sure he had enough support, he pulled his legs back. The breath shot out of him and he felt as if his heart was about to explode in his chest. He lay on the grass, sweat pouring from him. He felt as if he might die.
    After a moment, Rupert shifted himself around so that his head was nearer the edge of the floor. Then he reached out a hand and felt around carefully. He touched nothing, for a long time. Seconds later, his hand tapped something wooden, about two feet below the level of the floor. It gave a hollow clonk as his fingers made contact. He moved his hand back, not realising where it had been at first, then missed it three times before he tapped it again. He clasped his fingers around it and found it to be a shaft, about ten centimetres in diameter. The shaft continued down beyond the full extent of his reach. He pulled his hand back and felt another shaft, then another. They were equidistant from one another.
    With fear in his heart, he ran his hand to the top of it. The shaft tapered as it neared the top. Then he felt nothing but thin air. Opening his palm, he moved it downwards, just as he had done when trying to locate the grass, and felt a sharp jab. The shaft narrowed into a point at its