<div class="floatright">(http://lh6.ggpht.com/_VGBuLx9riBs/SisJ-sJMf4I/AAAAAAAAFmg/8dcWZNc3Ojc/P1000057.JPG)</div><strong>Adèle, imprisoned, somewhere in the castle</strong><br/>Adèle's eyes blinked several times as she woke up. She was in a dark room, she was lying on her back. The light was dim. She was stark naked.<br/><br/>She tried to move, but her wrists were tied behind her back, and her ankles were bound together as well. She wanted to sit up but her head knocked against something. As the cobwebs rapidly cleared off her mind, she realised she was lying inside a glass coffin. The transparent bottom was cold against her back.<br/><br/>Suddenly she heard a strange noise coming from above her head. She contorted her head and torso in the cramped space and saw that there was hole in the small wall just above her head, with a tube connected to it. The sound was coming from it, and it was growing louder. Seconds later she saw what the sound was coming from: a rat! A rat was scrambling fast along the tube. And it was followed by more rats. And snakes as well.<br/><br/>Adèle, felt her blood coagulating in her veins and a piercing screech escaped her mouth. Her eyes were bulging out of their sockets, her face turned into a mask of inhuman terror. Again she tried to sit up but this time she banged her head harder against the wall ceiling, making her see a flurry of shooting stars. Rolling on her left side, she curled herself as far as she could at the opposite end of the coffin, packing her trembling flesh into the two thirds of the coffin that were farthest from the hole. Her heart was beating at an incredible speed and she was screaming to the top of her lungs almost continuously.<br/><br/>She had always been scared by the rats and other creepy creatures. They had populated her worst nightmares since childhood. There was rationality in that fear. It was a sheer, animal, instinctive phobia. It was paralysing all her thinking abilities, reducing her to a scared, trembling, frantic piece of flesh.<br/><br/>And there she was, locked in that narrow box with millions of those nasty creatures. She was wedging herself against the far end of the coffin, pressing her flesh and limbs against the walls, which were rapidly getting opaque under the effect of her rapid breathing and abundant sweating. She was desperately yanking at her restraints, ignoring how it made them dig into her skin.<br/><br/>Those rats were huge, their eyes were glowing in the dim light, they teeth seemed sharper and longer than in normal rats. And the snakes too were of the most venomous species. They leaped into the cage and swarmed towards her trembling, miserable body. The rats were curious, prudent after their initial rush. They were looking at her with their tiny, vicious eyes. Their long, whisker-bristling noses were sniffing at her.<br/><br/>The young Archaeologist was paralysed with terror. When a rat moved closer, she could not resist any longer and suddenly her bladder emptied itself, filling the cage with the acrid taste of urine.<br/>