She had been in pitch blackness before, but that didn't make this time any better. It wasn't so much the dark that scared her—it was the consequences of being discovered trapped in her father's most secret place. But if she was going to escape her predicament without alerting anyone, the first thing that she would need to do is take stock of her situation: Currently, she was wedged into a small patch of wooden floor, crushed in between the lip of the wall, where the panel had dropped down, and the square wooden pillar that held up the central display table. Her shoulders fit in with only an inch to spare. Testing how dark it actually was, Sarah held up her hand in front of her face. She wiggled her fingers to try to see something in the blackness, hoping that there might be some stray ray of light that would become perceptible as her eyes adjusted. But her vision played tricks on her instead, showing her streaks of white in some nonexistent distance, or making it seem as if she could see her fingers, only to be disappointed when the motions she made completely failed to match up with the luminous mirage.
