The soil crashed onto me, I was engulfed by it. Trapped inside the darkness with no source of light.
'If one was buried alive with a coffin, suffocation starts within a few minutes.'
But I wasn't buried inside a coffin, was I? The breath choked inside my throat, the urge to inhale overtook my senses.
And yet, I didn't breathe. Why should I? I don't need to breathe.
'It's not necessary…'
Even since I woke up in this reality, I have realised a few changes that have happened to me.
'I have lost all signs of life.'
I have no heartbeat, no pulse, no need for inhalation or exhalation.
I need no food or water, not even rest nor sleep.
'I just exist.'
I exist but am I alive?
The heavy soil further pressed against my body into an uncomfortable position, my claustrophobia screamed at my instincts to escape but what can I do?
'Am I supposed to dig my way out?'
With all this weight on me? Which begs the question, why has not the soil fallen down?
'I mean the gravity here isn't that trustable but still…'
The coarse yet soft soil pressed against me further, my shoulders were touching and yet the bones didn't break.
'Well, I guess I can only deal with it.'
The gears in my head turned, my brain tried to find any way I could escape.
But no matter how much those gears rotated, I couldn't think of anything.
'This is getting uncomfortable.'
I wanted to struggle, to move, to produce any form of motion.
I hated this, I hate being stuck.
I hate small spaces, I hate suffocation.
'Dammit.'
The uncomfortable feeling of wanting to breathe but not needing to felt like hell. After all, it was a habit that started from birth itself.
'I feel like crying…'
Hatred wasn't the only thing I felt from suffocation, fear was also there.
I'm afraid of suffocation, I'm afraid of small, tightly enclosed spaces, I'm afraid of being stuck.
'I'm afraid of the dark, of this darkness.'
I couldn't see, couldn't hear, couldn't smell.
I just existed, trapped inside, buried in soil.
…
Despair and desperation chained around my heart, my body slightly trembled, my lips slightly quivered.
'Am I going to cry now?'
The realization hit me like a truck.
'Hell no…'
There is no way in hell that I am going to cry here.
'I didn't even cry when my parents divorced, why should I cry now?'
I would rather die.
Just as my defiant bravado was about to increase, something happened.
Something, something seemed to be missing around my head.
Just behind my scalp…I felt no soil…
'Excuse me? What in the actual-'
Then light, just from behind my head, light shined through.
And then, six fingers grabbed me by the hair and threw me out of the soil.
I was on all fours like a dog, gasping for air just out of habit. The green grass under me felt so real…seemed so real…
'That was…anticlimactic to be honest.'
A few seconds, that was all it took for me to regain my cool. I slowly stood up while dusting the dirt away from my suit.
And then, with a sudden snap, I turned towards my saviour.
A tall man/woman in a trenchcoat, their face hidden by the darkness of their hat. Gloved hands with a shovel in one.
It just stood there, near the ground I just came out of…near my grave.
A slanting wooden cross stood near the open ground, it was a grave marker.
'If I had a nickel for every time I came out of a grave, I would have two nickels.'
I physically cringed.
'Which isn't much but…the joke is already too old.'
The thing that saved me didn't stand there for long, it moved away to another grave.
Oh yeah, this wasn't the only grave.
I took a glance around, hundreds of such wooden crosses stood on the green grass.
The sky was blue with clouds, the yellow sun was in full bloom and the grass swayed with a slight wind.
I slowly made my way towards the "sky", as you would have already guessed by that sentence, there was no sky.
'A dome…'
It was a dome, a dome disguised as the sky. I stood right in front of one of the walls, touched it, felt it and trust me when I say this…it felt like slime.
'I can't pierce my hand through it though…'
I stood in front of the wall, molding it, reshaping it, playing with it. And no matter whatever I did, within a few moments it goes back to normal.
…
Anyways.
'No time for distractions.'
I turned away from the wall and stared at the one across it.
As you would've guessed, I am staring at it for a reason.
As you would've guessed again,
There was a door.
'I am indeed starting to get tired of them.'
Yeah yeah Whatever, just keep opening them.
And thus, I sprinted towards it, completely ignoring the six fingered entity.
…
'Am I that stupid?'
Not at all.
The reason for me doing this is to see its reaction.
'Will it stop me? Or will it let me pass.'
I glanced at it from the corner of my eyes from time to time, and for a moment it seemed like it, too, was ignoring me.
It seemed like.
Just as I was a few metres away, something whipped past in front of my eyes which caused me to stop.
Of course it would make me stop.
'Long wooden handle…a blade at the end? The shovel?'
Correct!
It indeed was the shovel.
The entity hurled that towards me and fortunately for me, it missed.
Yay.
The happiness lasted momentarily though as my eyes started to feel kinda strange.
'I can't see…huh?'
Yep, I went blind.
My hands instinctively rose to protect my face, just as I pressed my palm against my eye sockets, something tangled against my fingers.
Something like a…string…
"Don't tell me…"
I traced the strings origins and to my utter horror, it was coming from my eye sockets.
'Did my eyes turn into…strings?'
I pulled the strings out, unraveling what I assume to be my eyes, they stretched like silk.
They hung down from my sockets, I could feel them but I couldn't see from them.
'That isn't it…'
I could see through them but my brain couldn't process through them?
I could see bits, like flashing images but everything else was nothing.
It wasn't dark, just nothing.
The kind of "nothing" you see through the closed eye when you close one eye while keeping the other open.
"How?"
'Was it the shovel? Was it through sight? Or touch?'
It didn't touch me when it flew through the air but I saw it.
'If it is through sight…then I'm done for.'
I stood there, clutching my face, confused and surprised.