All new stories begin with darkness
Chapter 1
When I opened my eyes all I could see was darkness. I don’t know if I was already frozen or if it was the cold stone floor beneath me that had penetrated into my bones. Either way, my whole body was shivering from the cold and when I tried lifting my arms up I couldn’t muster the strength necessary to support them.
Letting my arm rest on beside me and I started moving them sideways instead. The stone floor scraped my arms a little, but when my arms reached out around 10 centimeters I could feel my arms coming to a stop. There was another stone wall around me.
I started figuring out that where I was, stone floor beneath me, two stone walls around me and total darkness. When taking a breath, I could taste the stale air and the dust that was all around me. Am I in a stone coffin or in a stone container of some kind? Or maybe I was just playing hide and seek and went inside something and fell asleep.
‘Why am I here?’ I asked myself, trying to get some perspective. I could feel my head pounding and a headache coming on.
‘I can’t remember’ My memories are spinning and I can feel how fragmented and broken it is. I try to organize my thoughts and remember the last thing that happened before I got here. I was talking to someone; no I was threatening someone. Or was I getting beaten and chained, tortured even. No that isn’t right. Both are different. One is the torturer and the other a victim. One is a middle aged woman and the other a kid. Am I both? It is like two different personas are overlapping and fragmented inside my head. Is my head messing with me, or are the memories from different timelines in my life?
My head is spinning with all these thoughts running through my head, I slowly shake my head too clear my thoughts. ‘I need to get out of here first’ I once again try to lift my arms and now it is surprisingly easier to move them. As I believed, there is a stone wall above me as well. When holding my hand on the roof my arm is bent so the ceiling is very close to me. I try to push with all my might onto the roof, but with no change it won’t even budge. My arms once again lost their strength and fell to my side.
‘Asphyxiation, usually occurs around 2 hours after someone have been buried alive in a common coffin’ A random though enters my head and I even though I really want to think about why I know something like that, I push it into the back of my head for now to regain my focus on getting out of here.
I start tapping myself down to see if I have anything of value on me. I have a simple garment on me, it reaches to my knees and feels a little ruff on my skin. It’s a cheap dress that only a beggar would wear. No shoes, but I can feel some old scars all over my body, my breast are small, so it’s a good chance I am the child from my memories. Inside of my dress is a small pocket, it is very well hidden but I can feel that there is something inside of it. I try to take it out, but it proves to be harder without any light.
When I finally get it out I can feel that it has a metallic feel to it with an oval shape, kind of like a smaller egg. When holding it in my hands, it gives out warmth. In my memories I found that the small girl treasured it as if it were her life.
I can feel myself grinning and without hesitation I grab it in my hand and bang it against the wall. A loud *clink* sound echoed inside the coffin and with some luck it will be heard outside as well.
Asphyxiation isn’t a funny way to die, and to save air I didn’t scream out for help or panic and I didn’t try anymore in vain to lift the top, and being surrounded by stone I can’t exactly kick a hole open. I was super lucky right now to find this metallic piece. It made it possible for me to survive this situation. I can only hope that I’m not buried deep and someone will hear the clinking and save me.
It makes me feel a little weird that I am so calm in this situation. Most people would scream or panic when they realize where they are. The little girl used to treasure this little round thing and I am using it to bang against the wall, I feel she was weak and instead of trying until the end she would simply hold on to the warmth provided by this stone and die.
Even so It left a bad aftertaste, but right now I feel I should try everything to survive before going all sentimental. I probably have the other me from my memories to thank for the change.
‘I really need to find something to call all of these people in my head. Okay the me right now will be called Miss A, the kid Miss B and the middle-aged woman, Miss C. Good enough for now.’
******
I don’t know how long I continued to bang against the wall, but it continued for a long time and I’ve been lightheaded for a while. It’s getting worse, but I can’t do much else other than continue on. At least I’m not hallucinating yet.
My hand is numb and as I stop to change to my other hand, I hear a loud growl from outside. Just as I was on my way to shout out I stop myself. ‘that was a growl, I didn’t hear wrong definitely a growl. A wolf? Bear?’ I’m realizing shouting for help to an animal isn’t probably going to help me and on the off chance it finds me, I will probably end up as its food.
‘Do I have a choice? Getting eaten is probably better than suffocating, it’s definitely quicker, but I want to live.’ Conflicted about the two options I have; both are a gamble. I could stay and hope it goes away, then continue my banging and hoping for someone else to come by before I die. Or I could continue and hope the animal is a vegetarian and doesn’t eat me.
If the thing is an animal and can be heard, then I am probably in a very shallow grave or not buried at all, just trapped in a stone coffin. But the animal can be heard and it is an animal making me think that I am most likely dumped in the middle of the woods.
I think about it for a while until I give up ‘No answer is good, so instead of wasting more time I will simply act with the best chance of getting out of here, take on one problem at a time.’ I remember Miss C used to say something similar before. With my mind made up I slam the object once again at the wall and a loud and clear *clink* sound was produced.
******
The bear who was minding its own business was on its way away from the site that our little girl is at when his great ears picked up on a sound a bit away. It was not a place anyone would enter if they didn’t need to, but intrigued by the sound that continued on and on, our bear alert and ready to run turned towards the sound and slowly made its way over.
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