Day 351: The die is cast! I made my break this morning, at an ungodly hour, but that's when the Monsters choose to get up...in broad daylight. The Enormous One came as usual to dump a half ton of food in my cage. He was a bit dopey (what else is new?) because he hadn't been up for long. So much the better. I was ready for action. As he opened the cage door I sprang onto his hideous paw and scrambled down his disgusting pink arm. He uttered a surprised bellow and reared back as I ran deeper inside the cloth covering these creatures swaddle themselves in. He also spilled about a year's supply of food all over the floor. I heard it go. I will come back for it after dark, because I am going to need an emergency supply for later.

How can I possibly describe the chaotic events which followed? Well, I'll try. As I burrowed farther down the tube-like shroud around his apparently endless arm he leaped around, yelling obscenities in a thundering voice. Well, I assume they were obscenities, at any rate, from the tone of them. He made a series of clumsy grabs with his free paw, but I evaded them. I suddenly reached an enormous expanse of reeking flesh which I can only assume was his back, as he continued to yell and crash around. It was extremely disorienting.

Then he got an idea, it seems, and began to rip off his upper coverings to expose me. I had to move fast. I headed down, and found myself among his lower coverings. The stench of him was growing even worse, but I gritted my teeth and struggled on. At this point he shoved an immense, grasping paw in after me and almost had me, but I saw it coming, and dodged. I then delivered a nasty bite to the nearest part of him I could find...a huge tubelike appendange flanked by two baglike, hairy masses. The atrocious shriek he uttered when I did this nearly short-circuited every nerve in my system. It was like hearing the world explode.

Evidently I had discovered a vital spot, because he completely lost his balance at this point, and fell down what I think must have been a flight of stairs. It was horrific, like going through an avalanche combined with an earthquake. The instant he came to rest I scrambled out an opening and found myself on a large flat expanse of coloured squares. I made a beeline for the corner, where I might take refuge under an immense white, square thing.

The Enormous One was back on his feet in an instant, and pursued me, yelling dire threats. I scrambled under the white thing, and found myself engulfed in a filthy mass of dust, hair, and God knows what else that was coverning the floor. I almost gagged, but pressed on. There had to be a way out.

The Enormous One continued bellowing, and then siezed upon the white thing and began dragging it by main force away from the wall. I ran back under it. He dragged it farther yet, and I followed. Then I suddenly spotted an aperture in the floor...some kind of dusty tunnel, sheathed in more of the hard, shiny stuff. I plunged into the welcoming darkness within, fell down a steep incline and landed on a pile of debris at the bottom.

At this point there arose a hideous crash from above. Evidently the Enormous One had turned the white thing over completely in his efforts to get at me. And that was not all. The She-Monster was now in the picture, screaming at the Enormous One. It sounded like they were having a quarrel to me, which is not all that unusual, but this time it was bad.

I siezed the opportunity to slip away down the tunnel, which proved to be very long indeed, and full of dust and dead insects. At some length I found myself peering out of a sort of paneled peephole with long slits in it...at another cavernous room in the Castle. I had never seen this room before. It was full of the usual incomprehensible lot of stuff. Monsters like collecting junk and surrounding themselves with it. When they finally die, other Monsters come and haul the junk away. That's what I've heard, anyway.

As I write this, I am stopping for a much-needed breather. It is clear that these tunnels form some sort of system of secret passageways which lead all over the Castle, and I am going to explore them thoroughly. Then I will go back and get some food when the coast is clear. And water. I will need water. Sooner or later the Monsters will sleep, and that's when I make my move.

Corridus