They drag my body towards the pit.
I don’t want to go. I knew, when I made the decision, what they would do to me if I failed, and it was the strongest reason to turn back: the pain, the terror, my body forming into something bestial and wrong - despite my convictions, if I knew it would come to this, I would have fled.
I’m standing over the pit now, if it can truly be called “standing” when my body is so held by others, as it is now. The liquid rolls over upon itself like layers of oily sludge; a sour, putrid scent, shifting up from it.