ticed the sand when he felt his feet sink into the earth. His ankles slid under the wet sand and his calves immediately following. Lysander tried to walk, but could do nothing as his knees slipped below. He felt dizzy as the sand spun his body towards the center of its pit, his waist approaching the very edge. Lysander looked around him in a state of panic. A vine! He had to get a vine. Lysander stretched his arms high above him and felt a leaf brush his fingertips. He was sinking in farther. He threw his other arm to its maximum height and seized the edge of a vine. His palms grasped the vine for all they had, piercing the vine’s sharp brambles into his skin. But Lysander did not even wince; he pulled himself up out of the sand like a true hero.Lysander retraced his steps backwards and found another corridor. I will have to be more aware, he thought. For each step Lysander took, he pre-surveyed the patch of earth before him. Several minutes passed by and everything was okay. Lysander was able to avoid a few holes in the earth, holes so deep that their ends could not be seen. Lysander proceeded down another corridor and another turn and another corridor and another turn. Just as he felt a sense of disinterest, he saw before him sixteen silver serpents. “Sssssso you want the princessssss,” the first snake slivered towards him.“You’ve come to the right addressssss,” the next continued.“But before you meet her caressssss…”“You must show us some finesssssse.”“Pass us for your successssss.”“Then you can have your maiden in her wedding dressssss.”Lysander pressed his foot over the first serpent’s head, crushing it’s skull like road kill. He sprung off its body to the center of the serpents. One serpent slivered around his ankle and nearly caught it. But Lysander whacked it on the head with his bottle of moonshine. Two se...
