Plumbing kills Lon

Lon panted, screaming for Two, hearing the hard bang on the other side of the pipe and his sudden, shrieking retreat. She sobbed, her whole body shaking, and slowly started to work her way backward, crawling on her belly, crying as she muttered some half-remembered prayer.

When her feet pushed against a solid wall of pipe, she couldn't even muster a fresh scream.

She was trapped, the space not much bigger than a coffin, helpless. She sobbed, face on the ground of warm, fuzzy pipes…and noticed the silence. Aside from her cries, there was nothing. No pinging, no cracks or explosions…nothing. She raised her head in the barely illuminated dark, looking around. She was alive. It was calming down. They'd come for her, Two would get help. She was getting out of here. She fought back her growing claustrophobia, looking along the walls. She noticed a small gap at the ceiling, and started shifting to get a better look, twisting back…and finding only the open end of a pipe. Lon sagged back, closing her eyes, tears leaking down her face.

The first sticky drips she simply assumed were the same tears. Then one fell on her mouth…and it was sweet. She opened her eyes, and saw a thick, quivering mass of amber goo splatter from the mouth of the pipe, coating her and the floor as it surged out. She coughed, shifting back…it was honey. Honey, or something like it. At least it wasn't molten lead or acid…then she saw the level rising. It wasn't draining. The pipes were packed too close. She looked around her tiny chamber with horror rising much faster than the honey oozing up her sides. Lon beat on the walls, the floor, the ceiling, trying to block the pipe with her hands, heedless of provoking the thing more…as the honey rose and rose, as cloying sweet as a school age lover.

Her last, gasping breath was sweet and stale with honey and screams.