The pits of hell

Death found in a mine is a feeling like no other, when the dark tunnels you’ve become so familiar with becomes your eternal tomb.

It would happen so suddenly. Everything appears to be fine one moment, then a moment later the tunnel behind you would collapse, the bellowing sound of earth crashing into the ground being the bell that announces your execution, even if you don’t yet know of the judgement bestowed upon you.

‘I’ve worked here for years!’ you would reassure yourself, the lantern in your hands seemingly reinforcing such a notion, lighting the way for rescue and the long path of life ahead of you.

As small as it is, that single candle becomes your hope for survival, allowing you sight as you slowly begin to move the mountain of gravel and rock that blocks your escape.

But did you know? Fire needs air to burn, and for someone trapped in a mine, such a resource is a scarcity.

Slowly, that burning hope becomes your undoing, consuming your very life force and becoming the hand grips your throat.

With a stalwart body you move the earth that blocks your path, but for each pebble removed two boulders come to take its place.

You would dig…

…and dig.

…and dig.

You’ll keep on digging until your frail arms can no longer bear the burden, your hands bloodied from the futile struggle. Not a dent has been made in what blocks your path.

Excusing the collapse of your body as merely a moment of rest, you’d attempt to catch your breadth. But you cannot.

You breathe.

You heave.

Yet air you find not.

The bell has tolled, and you are already out of time. Your body can no longer recover without air, your strength burnt to a crisp by the fragile hope you so desperately held onto.

A choice is no longer allowed. The candle is extinguished, and nothing more could be seen. The darkness settles upon the body, heavier than the earth that has brought your doom.

The only sound allowed to your ears is heavy breathing, and the dripping of water.

Drip.

Drip.

Your execution had already been announced, all that is left is to await your end, the tapping of water against the freezing ground marking the seconds that stretched longer than an eternity.

Did you know? Even through the mountain of earth, air can still pierce through. Not enough for the lantern to be lit again, not enough for you to catch your breadth, but just enough for a person to escape death by suffocation.

Drip.

Drip.

Drip.

It would happen so slowly, exhaustion deeper than any other creeping in with each second, eating through skin and flesh to reach your very bones, consuming your body bit by bit.

Drip by drip, starved of everything that once resided, the body withers until there is nothing left except your despairing mind, and the boundless darkness that crushes the soul.

Drip.

Drip.

Drip.

Drip.

Drip.

That is the fate of those who dared to brave the pits of hell, and perhaps the fate of I who has been allowed a second life.