DISCLAIMER: I don't own any of the characters mentioned in this story, nor the book "The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents" (just borrowed it from the library) they all belong to Terry Pratchett
It was dark in the tunnel.
Hamnpork always said that rats were used to the darkness, that it was a part of being a rat, but this wasn't your usual kind of dark. It was unsettling, evil, if you said so. It made you want to just stop thinking and flee.
-Flee-
that was the only thing that Dangerous Beans could think about at the moment.
There was something disturbing in these tunnels.
He could see next to nothing with his blind, pink eyes and his sense of smell, usually so sharp, was overwhelmed with the stench of fear and panic spreading through the darkness, leaking from every nook and cranny.
But that wasn't the worst thing. There was a voice, Dangerous Beans didn't know what it was, but the voice kept following him, crashing on his mind with shattering force, trying to steal all his thoughts, to thrust him back into the mindless, thoughtless world the Changelings once led.
And so he stumbled along the dirty tunnel, with no senses to guide him through. The rest of the Clan ought to be somewhere near; that was the only hope he clung on to this moment.
When the Clan first sensed the disturbing presence, they gave in to the mad dash, and somehow, he got separated from Peaches. She was surely panicking by now, searching for him along with some of the other rats.
...
That was all good, but he was afraid that if they didn't find him soon, something really,
really bad would happen.
-Calm down...breathe...in...out...think, think!-
Suddenly, he felt a presence behind him. Turning sharply, he more felt than saw something standing in the shadow. There was some creature in there and it was staring straight at him.
Considering his movements carefully, he slowly edged backwards, making some distance between him and the...thing. For a moment, there was silence and then there was a muffled, shuffling sound of feet scurying towards him. Tensing, Dangerous Beans tried to focus his scattered thoughts on a single goal, and, with panic barely contained in his sightless eyes, he turned around and ran.