I felt the sound before I heard it if that makes any sense. Something pulled me out of a deep sleep, and I never slept that soundly. I was usually a one-eye-open kind of girl, what with being by myself most nights and my terrible habit of throwing myself into danger for no good reason other than helping somebody. Full disclosure: I didn't do that all the time. I did it more than I should have, but it wasn't like I was going around actively looking for people to save.

The sound didn't sound like anything I'd ever heard before. A low rumble, bleeding into a steady pulse, almost like the beat of a song, but slower than anything you could dance to. I knew what it was but couldn't put my finger on it.

That was it. Finger. Pulse. It was a heartbeat. Or at least it sounded a hell of a lot like one. It throbbed at the same time as mine...beat...beat...beat...there was no chance I would sleep again after this. I glanced at my TV, still on after I fell asleep mid-Tyrant Kings. My dude had hit a wall and stood there in a sad reflection of what my life had become – staring up at a wall with someone else in control.

Were the neighbours doing laundry? No, of course not. The asshole landlord didn't think we were worthy of a washing machine and dryer. Maybe someone was rocking out to some experimental bass-only music. At three o'clock in the morning. In a sound-controlled neighbourhood where people called the cops on everyone for everything.

"Shit." I hauled my ass up off the floor. My bed, which I had never officially gotten into the night before, looked more inviting than it ever had. I was the dumb girl in the horror movie, I knew. Don't go check out the sound. Don't go into the basement. Trouble was, I was already in the basement. Did we have a sub-basement in this shitty apartment? Somewhere even shittier than the place I called home?

Was the sound coming from outside? Somehow, I knew it wasn't, and I didn't even have to look. It was coming from below, but how? The sewers? I didn't realize the sewers ran under the house, but to be honest, I didn't spend a whole lot of time thinking about the sewers. More fool me, I guess.

I crept around the apartment, feeling the walls, dropping to the ground, trying to sense where the sound was strongest. This was going to drive me insane, I knew it. If I didn't find out where the sound was coming from, I would lose my mind, which was a tenuous hold at the best of times. Something about the back corner, opposite the front door (I don't know why I needed to specify the front door when there was only one door in or out of the fucking apartment), pulled me in. The closet.

If the horror gods were looking down at me, they were placing bets about how dumb I was. Did I have the zero intelligence necessary to open the closet and find the terrors within? Or was I more basic, smart enough not to poke the tiger in the eye and tempt fate by opening the closet door and potentially cracking the floodgates for Satan themself to burst forth and rain Hell upon Earth's tender surface?

I was one-hundred-percent the first girl. Not one iota of intelligence, at least in the subject area of personal safety and awareness. I ripped that door open like it owed me money.

The pulse cranked to eleven, and I could feel it in my bones. It was so strong it hurt. My ears rang, and I couldn't catch a full breath.

The closet was full-to-bursting with my clothes, none of which were hung up properly but had gathered on the floor in the most glorious of heaps. The fine-tuned pain grew as I spent more time this close to the sound, the beat quickening along with my pulse. My skin itched, and a pair of massive invisible hands squeezed my ribcage, adding pressure with every beat. I had to find the sound. What the fuck was it? Where the fuck was it?

I dug and dug, flinging my clothes out of the closet like a woman possessed, which may or may not have been true at this point. I wouldn't have been surprised to look in the mirror and come face-to-face with an actual demon. The deeper I dug, the higher the pain. It was crippling, tears rolled down my face, but I couldn't stop. I had to find what it was. Something inside me, deeper than any feeling or thought I'd ever had, something beyond what made me, me, forced my hand. It wouldn't let me stop, even if I wanted to. It needed me to dig. I needed me to dig.

Finally, I hit the floor. The closet was empty. The pain was unbearable, but just beyond that carpet was what I was looking for. I ran to my little kitchenette, riffled through my cutlery drawer, and grabbed a knife, hoping it was sharp enough to do what I was about to do. Without a single thought for my damage deposit (which I was never going to get back anyway, so fuck it), I hacked away at the carpet until it pulled away, and I could see what the hell was going on underneath.

"A hole?" I squawked as the carpet peeled away. "That's it? A fucking hole?"

I didn't know what I expected. More than a hole, maybe. I'd never torn up a carpet before. Was it something I would put on my 'best memories' list? Maybe. The landlord was a piece of shit.

The hole wasn't done with me yet. A light, dim enough to be missed if you weren't looking for something but blinding if jolts of pain shot down your nerves with every heartbeat, glowed up from down below. I crept close to the edge of the hole and leaned down. No sooner had I peered over the lip did something – nothing I could see or touch, of course, some unseen force – took hold of me and swallowed me down the hole.

Time stood stock still. The pain was gone like someone had snapped their fingers and turned off a switch. Every sense was cranked to a thousand, and I didn't know where to look. I couldn't have turned to see anything if I wanted to. I was frozen, locked into place by whatever the fuck had a hold of me. Seconds ticked by, but they could have been centuries. The very concept of time didn't matter. Everything I ever worried about vanished, and I didn't even care if this was how it ended, my life, the world, existence as I knew – none of it. It was glorious, miserable suspension. Was I dead? Dreaming? Dead in a dream? Did any of it matter?

Every cell in my body, from the skin to the weird shit and organs deep inside that I couldn't have identified if someone yanked it out of me and held it up in front of my face suddenly roared out in pain. It was like something was tearing me apart, picking me cell from cell, dissecting me at an atomic level. A sense of raw, untapped, and extreme power surged through me, but everything went dark. I passed out of all thoughts of space and time and knew nothing. I was lost from memory, erased from existence, and my consciousness slipped away.