The cave had offered a greater challenge than the group expected. This was not a tourist's cavern, and there was no stopping to photograph stalagmites-far from it. Each spelunker wore a headlamp, and each had gone
so far as to belly crawl through a tight fissure at the urging of their guide. Riya had kept up all afternoon,
ignoring her aching legs and the shadows of abundant bats. And now she awaited her turn to walk, legs
splayed, across a yawning crevice. Even Old Dot had done it; she could hear the group clapping for her
across the darkness. Finding footholds on the left and right, she advanced-one foot, then the other.
Reaching ambitiously for jutting rock beyond her grasp, she heard a sickly crumble below and began to fall.
How does the excerpt exemplify the ideas King describes in "Danse Macabre”