I ate quickly. The food wasn’t the kind of meal to be savored. Just survival necessities. I watched Kaspar while I ate. I forced myself to look past the attractive human shell, and remember the terrifying reality of the monster that lay beneath it. Somehow, though, the man almost seemed crueler than the monster had.
As I finished the last crumb, the fear that had pricked me when he laid out the rules started to resurface again. It wasn’t simple terror anymore. It was the cold, intellectual horror of realization. I was alone in a cavern with a sleeping being who could easily kill me if he wanted, and I had chosen it.
In the intoxicating rush of confession and climax, I thought I had found freedom. Now, looking at the two forbidden zones, and the rules echoing in my head, I realized I w
