Chapter 11: The Big Squeeze

After what seemed like an eternity of squeezing myself through an 18-by-18 inch hole into hell, I wanted to die. My skin was numb from the cold and bleeding from a thousand microscopic cuts. Anyone searching for me in this tunnel would find the trail of blood. I’m not sure how much longer I would have gone on if I hadn’t found that room when I did. And when I found the room, I thought maybe I was already dead because I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.

The space was twenty feet long, twenty...