It had taken days.

Nights.

Nights were especially painful. The light would pierce not only his eyes, but the alien's, too, more deeply, more painfully. Only protective goggles had kept the alien from the same boulder-strewn descent.

But it had worked. The months of reckless preparation. The lost days and nights and hands as the swinging battle-ax of time pendulum'd back and forth over the darkened pit.

The last scream had faded away. Replaced by silent mental whimpers. Those now drowned by the dry whisp, whisp of the tape machine.

thanks to jester and the jestercam