I am not a person wise in the lore of the wastes. I can imagine such people, leather-skinned and grizzled, pointing and laughing at me as I fall for the one desert danger so iconic even a City boy has heard of it. The hellpit trappist has become part of the idiom; to 'charge into a hellpit' is to embrace an obviously bad idea.

  'Pit' because it's a hole in the ground, 'hell' because it's as bad as getting on Two-as-One's bad side, and 'trappist' to describe the giant insect that traps you there and eats you. The hellpit trappist, having constructed its eponymous chamber, roofs it with a thin layer of sand bound together with sticky secretions. More bug jizz -- stupid, stupid, stupid -- masquerades as open water to lure in prey. When it senses the vibrations of some idiot wandering past, the trappist breaks up the bound sand and the whole thing collapses into its steep-sided lair.

  Then it's chow time.

  I fall with the sand like we're tumbling through the pinch of the world's biggest hourglass and hit stone with a resounding . The air is full of flying grit and it's all I can do to curl up into a ball, clutching my aching shoulder. Sand mounds up around me, and for a terrifying second I think I'll be buried alive. But it stops when I'm half-covered, an awkward hummock among the drifts.

  I raise my head and sand cascades away from me. Then I hear the of stilt legs on rock and freeze. I can't see the trappist, but I can hear it, its footsteps becoming soft crunches as it moves onto the sand. It doesn't sound like it's getting closer.

  Maybe it can't see me? The air is still full of dust from the collapse. The things are supposed to sense vibration, so staying absolutely still might fool it for a while. It knows is here, though, and I listen to it pacing back and forth. It can probably smell me, and I suspect it's wondering what this weird creature is. A foul stench! (No baths on the prison cruise.) Nothing at all like a roach!

  The dust begins to settle. Little trickles of sand play out and stop. My heartbeat seems to grow louder and louder until it fills the world.

  Something is tickling my nose.

  Fuck.

  .

  If I die because of a sneeze, everyone in hell is going to make fun of me.

  The trappist crunches closer. The sneeze is building, however much I wiggle my nose to try and stop it. There's a swishing sound, and I realize the insect is stirring the sand with its claws, trying to find its elusive prey. It's only yards away. Another skitter, and I feel sand scattered across me as it digs. My nose is on fire.

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  Then a leg comes down inches from my face.

  I roll onto my back and stare up into a living nightmare of eyes and mouthparts, all hooked and jagged and covered in bristly gray fur. I scream -- I'm not ashamed of it, you would too -- and simultaneously I sneeze, monstrously loud with pent-up pressure. A jet of aerosolized snot shoots straight into the trappist's most sensitive orifices, and it responds to this unexpected development by jumping straight up at least twenty feet, clinging upside-down to a ledge of stone.

  It's not as big as I expected, probably only twice my weight, not that it matters when it's armored in chitin and sporting foot-long claws while I am but a soft, squishy ape. But my nasal eruption has bought me a precious second and I'm determined not to waste it. I scramble to my feet and start running, scanning the chamber for something -- -- I can use.

  No handy battleaxes or fire-throwers present themselves. But I do notice that the trappist hasn't actually created this chamber itself. We're in the ruins whose protruding spire drew me here, and the lazy creature has simply repurposed a large atrium as a lair. Some of the walls have crumbled, but other parts look intact, and I frantically look for a doorway or passage too small for the creature to fit through --

  On the other side of the room, because of course it is. But the trappist is still being cautious, climbing down the wall one slow step at a time. I grope in the sand and find a chunk of rock the size of my fist. With this pathetic excuse for a weapon in hand, I run.

  The insect decides that this strange creature is prey after all. It hops onto the sand and skitters after me, wide-splayed feet giving it excellent traction. I'm only halfway across when I hear it getting close, so I turn directly into my wind-up and deliver my pitch.

  I played ball for a season back in the City. Not it was part of a plan to impress a girl who later tried to kill me -- but I practiced a bit and somehow it all comes back to me. The twist, the turn, the release, the rock pathetically small against the bulk of the creature. But it hits the trappist right in what I've learned are its tender bits. The thing gives a whistling shriek and vaults backward again, mouthparts working in what I sincerely hope is agony. Score one for naked apes with opposable thumbs, .

  No time for gloating. I scramble to the doorway, which is half-full of sand. I'd feel really dumb if there weren't actually a space beyond, but thank the Twelve there is, a corridor with only a few drifts of sand against the walls. I squeeze through as the trappist starts after me again. The stone underfoot is blessedly solid, and I sprint until I hear it hit the doorway in a frantic rage. Claws scrabble, but it's too big, and it settles for making that shriek again.

  A moment to breathe.

  Now what?

  Well, in one direction the corridor leads to a room inhabited by an enraged giant insect who wants to feast on my innards. So I'm going to say we go the way, which leads into darkness. Who's afraid of a little darkness? Darkness never hurt anybody.