‘Upson! Where are you?’
‘On your left, you have to
let your eyes adjust.’
I try to focus on his voice and
after a few seconds I make out a thick outline. He’s mostly buried in the
ground, obviously trying to hold himself there.
‘This is what they’re scared of,’
he calls. ‘I’ve heard stories, but…’
I see him looking towards the
edge. I start to move. The less time we spend here the better.
‘Can you see Yates?’ I ask. I
move carefully but as quickly as I dare. Each step includes me driving my foot
deep into the forgiving ground that yields to the force I apply to it.
With passing terror, I see that
despite my best efforts, each footstep brings me close to the edge. It must be
about eighty metres now and lessening all the time.
Soon enough, I reach Upson’s
side.
‘I can’t see anyone,’ he says.
His voice cracks with fear, not an emotion I expect from the large man who
volunteered so fearlessly. I wonder does my voice sound the same? Does this
place reduce all of us to our deepest primal instincts, fear being the most
predominant and overpowering of them all. We are all children to something so
big and dark and scary.
‘But we heard him, we heard the
echo of him,’ I say, logic defying him. ‘We just have to look for that.’
I cast around. It’s so hard to
concentrate, completely different to the hot quiet of the desert dunes.
‘I-I think I see something,’
Upson says. He clears his throat and gains some composure. I can tell he’s not a
man to be beaten so easily. ‘Over there, the ripples. ‘
I
think I see it too, a break in the air, like a plume of steam or a heatwave.
Yates was there, or at least he once was. 
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