[i]The first time you saw the Stone, it was kind of pretty, wasn't it? The towers looked like they were growing out of the rocks, the trees were thick and green all around, and billows of steam made the whole thing look like it was floating in the clouds. You almost wouldn't believe it was a place people were sent to die.

The moment you stepped through the doors was like walking into the biggest cathedral you've ever seen: vaulted ceilings high as the sky, statues carved into the walls, the expanse of the mosaic floor. A stream from outside flowed right into those rumbling boilers and powered gears that ticked and clacked at the far side; you could hear steam hissing in the pipes like roots in the pigeonhole walls full of coffins and narrow walkways. It was all echoes.

It was nice, for the last thing you'd ever see.[/i]

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You awoke in silent, claustrophobic darkness.

The lid of your coffin was loose; fresh air could be had with little effort, and you could clear your lungs of the noxious gas that had put you to sleep. Your escape from the pigeonhole slot would prove more difficult, but not impossible.

Narrow, cracked walkways spanned the length of the room beneath each of the twelve rows of coffins. The walkways were only reachable by a single gated elevator, which rested on the ground and was overgrown by lichen and weeds.

The mosaic floor was rippled and split by roots and sapling trees. The copper pipes had turned green like decaying vines. The stream still flowed into the churning boiler, and the gears still turned and groaned. Jagged holes in the ceiling let in the rain and gray stormy light, and the room echoed softly with the drone of machines, the hiss of steam, the drip of water.

From within a hollow corridor, a woman was singing.

The heavy doors had been left wide open, their hinges rusted away. The drawbridge outside was nothing but a shattered ruin of metal and a few broken boards. Beyond it, the road to civilization was gone.