The Waste Hole

In a corner of the cell, Lois Lane found the way out. It looked depressingly like a trachea, or possibly some other gaping orifice. Just a smooth, round tunnel of flesh, barely big enough for a grown woman to squeeze through, descending into darkness. It was coated with slime or mucus, and smelled as foul as the time Lois' sister had tried to do composting. Just that vegetable reek of decomposing garbage steaming up from below.

The reporter sighed as she laid down, feet inside the tunnel. Wonder Woman was still unconscious, and Lois gripped her armpits. Getting both of them through this was going to be no fun at all.

"Hold onto your butt," Lois muttered as she eased herself down into the warm, pulsing tunnel, dragging the princess of the Amazons behind her.

Claustrophobia set in immediately. Lois Lane had been caving before, she had crawled through sewers and air ducts, slipped through tight crawlspaces and on her belly through mud below barbed wire. Yet this was closer to being swallowed, or maybe being excreted. The air was close and foul. The fleshy walls would contract ever so often, threatening to crush them both, and there was nothing to do but hold onto her unconscious partner for dear life and wait for it to pass. Lois couldn't tell how long the passage was or how long it took them to traverse it. Miles and hours, perhaps...or perhaps that was just her own imagination, as the darkness closed in and the rancid slime got in her mouth and hair.

Then her feet touched warm air, free of the tunnel...and Lois Lane and Wonder Woman slipped free, out of the tunnel on a river of goo.

There was no light down here. The smell was acrid, like a swamp. The heat and humidity were incredible. Lois wanted to vomit. Her bare feet slipped on slimy ground, but when her toes touched the water it stung and burned like acid. Hefting the heavy Amazon onto her shoulder, Lois carefully made her way around the deadly pool. Along the length, her feet struck something hard that clattered before it spilled into the unseen pool...and Lois had a queasy feeling she knew now what happened to the missing women, if they had come this way. Still there had to be a way out...

...and then someone turned on the lights.