Reach for the Dark Metal Chain

You grasp the golden finial at the end of the dark metal chain but it becomes thickly fluid in your hand. What once was metal seems now to be some sticky golden ooze. It squishes out between your fingers, quickly expanding to engulf your hand. Whatever it is, you feel almost welded to the chain now!

Panicking, you grip the wrist of your ooze-covered hand with your free hand. The golden goop leaps onto that hand now! Is this stuff sentient?!

You tug and struggle, trying to free yourself from the chain over your head, but it's impossible. The ooze hardens quickly. It feels as though your hands are entombed in a distended ball of golden metal.

Your heart races. You're trapped in a tight booth, with your wrists chained overhead. You scan your cramped surroundings anxiously. You can't get the image of hordes of nightmare creatures pouring forth from some hidden panel to tickle and **** your helpless body.

You flinch at the sound of a click, somewhere above you. Followed by more and more clicks, increasing in frequency. You realize with horror, as your trainers leave the ground: you're being hoisted upward, into the yawning darkness!

You're pulled up faster and faster. The pace is dizzying and disorienting. You feel like you must be hundreds of stories up in the air!

You come to a sudden stop in complete darkness. Your breathing is labored and a sheen of terror-sweat covers your body. A foreboding red light from nowhere illuminates the room you find yourself in: small and plain. The chain ends in the ceiling a meter or two above you. The trapdoor through which you entered slowly closes a similar distance beneath your dangling feet. Muffled calliope music drifts around the room, along with the smell of grease and cigar smoke.

And then ...