She opened her mouth to speak, but a language came out that she didn’t understand. She clutched at her throat as the unknown waterfall of words gurgled out of her mouth. Clamping her jaws shut tightly, eyes huge and round with fright, she looked like she was choking.

There was nothing I could do to help her.

It was this place. I gathered it was under some sort of lake; the roof and walls oozed green-tinged water between their ancient stones. But it went beyond the dank, mouldy walls. There was something about the room that did strange things to us that we could not understand.

Finally she gave up trying to speak and, with tears welling in her eyes, she came to sit next to me on the floor, resting her tired head on my shoulder and hiccuping occasionally.

I was quiet. I didn’t know how I would react if my own voice was twisted into something foreign on my tongue.

As we sat on the floor, she traced in the mud, We have got to get out of here…

We both knew what would happen if we didn’t.