Somewhere in the remote Kalahari desert in South Africa,nestling among the dry ochre veld, is a small weed-covered pool at the bottom of a crater. Ordinary except for its stillness - the casual observer wouldn't pay it much attention, wouldn't give it a second thought. Unless they were to swim in it. Or dip a toe into it. Then, they'd notice something wrong. Something different.

First, they'd notice the water was cold. Freezing in fact. The sort of cold that doesn't belong to this planet. The sort of cold that comes from centuries and centuries of silence, from the ancient recesses of the universe. And, second, they'd notice that it was almost empty of life, only a few colourless canefish living in it. Last, if they were foolish enough to swim in it they'd discover it's fatal secret: there are no sides to this pool and no bottom - just a straight, cold line to the heart of the earth. Maybe that's when it would come to them, repeated over and over again over in the whispered ancestral languages of the Kalahari people, This is the path to hell.

This is Bushman's Hole. This is Boesmansgat.