The Darkness

     Her stomach lurched as she fell. Below, the world was a canvas of green and brown, farms and a small town in the distance, red roofs glinting in the fleeting evening light. Through the swirling, sun-drenched clouds, Amane’s eyes snapped from the blurry patchwork of the world below towards something else entirely. An upside down tower, a needle of dark stone that plunged headfirst through the sky, its base—or was it its top?—a wide expanse of green. A floating island. In the vast sky, fragile, disoriented thought surfaced in her mind—this was not a dream. Tears are whipped off her face as they form, carried off by the wind. She wasn't falling to the world, but into a world.

                                                                                     ~

     ‘Is death supposed to be so cold?’ Amane wonders. Getting hit by a car wasn’t exactly how she imagined going out, but it didn’t hurt as much as she would have expected, so there’s that. In the moment, she worries about her family.

     It’s out of her hands now, regardless of all her efforts. She floats in darkness and chill, going back and forth between worrying for her family, wondering if her grandmother was going to be okay, hoping her departure wouldn’t ruin her siblings’ childhood, and reminding herself that it was pointless to think about because it wasn’t her problem anymore, nothing was.

     She’s getting colder, her fingers ache.

     ‘Are you supposed to feel anything when you’re dead?’ She thinks suddenly, clenching her fist.

     Slowly, she lifts her hand up, touching her face with chilled fingers. She pinches her cheek.

     “Oh my god, I’m alive.” She says, dumbfounded. But then, why was it so dark? Surely she should be in a hospital right now. Trying to sit up, Amane immediately slams her head into something hard with a jarring, brutal thud.

     “Ow! What the hell!” She cried out, trying to rub the pain away, her hand coming away wet. She reaches her other hand up to feel a hard, smooth surface above her and at her sides. “An MRI machine? No… it’s stone?” And then it strikes her. This is a coffin. They buried her alive.

     THEY BURIED HER ALIVE. She screams.

     “HEY!! LET ME OUT OF HERE! I’M NOT DEAD! NOT! DEAD! THIS ISN’T FUNNY!!” She screams in full panic, sweaty palms banging on the lid of the coffin they buried her in. She’s not strong enough, it doesn’t budge. It’s getting hard to breathe, maybe from the panic, or maybe she’s running out of air, either way it only makes her panic harder. Tears gathering in her eyes, she manages to get her knees up, pressing against the lid in a uncomfortable pinch. Adrenaline in her veins, she pushes with all her might and, painfully, manages with pop the lid off, twisting her hips at an awkward angle to crack open enough room for her to escape.

     Sucking in quick, desperate breaths, Amane scrambled out of the stone burial box, squeezing through the gap. The stale, dusty air filling her lungs was a sweet relief—she wasn't buried in the earth, but in some kind of morgue? Or maybe a mausoleum? Creepy.

     Amane shivered, the air even colder outside the burial box, a chill made worse by the fact that she’d somehow lost her flip flops, her bare feet on the ice-cold stone tile floor. She looked around, trying to figure out where she was, where the exit was, but it was too dark to make out anything.

     "Hello?" she called out, her voice echoing strangely. She hugged herself, shuffling her bare feet on the cold stone, unsure of what to do. Taking a moment to steady herself, she carefully shuffled toward a wall. Clinging to the cold stone, she began to feel her way around, searching for an exit.

     Her hands, numb from the cold, traced the rough-hewn stone of the wall. Each step was a hesitant shuffle, blind as she was, her bare feet mapping the icy floor one tile at a time. None of it made sense, where she was, why she was there, what the hell was going on. She was hit by a car, wasn’t she?

     ‘Maybe this is some kind of nightmare? I must be in a coma, in a hospital.’ The air, thick with the scent of dust and decay, felt heavy in her lungs. Amane doubted her own thoughts, everything felt too real, the dull smell of the dark… wherever she was, the ache of her chilled fingers, the cold hardness of the floor under her bare feet. She was scared, shivering in the dark, alone as far as she could tell. Surely, it’s normal to be afraid in such circumstances? She can't be a coward and a loser.

     She shuffled around like that for a long time, how long, though, she didn’t know. Eventually, the stone tile gave way to a rougher, uneven dirt floor, but she still couldn’t see. Amane couldn’t help it, she started to get weepy, silent tears gathering in her eyes and she continued to cling to a wall and cautiously find her way forward.

     A faint scuttling sound echoed through the darkness, the hair on the back of Amane’s neck stood on end. It was a rhythmic tapping, creaking. She froze, eyes wide and unseeing, her breath catching in her throat. The sound grew louder, closer.

     ‘I can’t, I can’t see, I need to see! What is that?! Where? WHY?’ Amane clung closer to the wall. As if by magic, or a miracle, see started to be able to see, not very well, but she could differentiate between the wall and the floor.

     Whatever relief she might have felt was quickly swallowed up by terror, as a new shape began to emerge from the inky blackness—a pair of glowing, crimson eyes, impossibly large, stared down at her from only a few feet ahead of her. A huge spider, the size of a car, blocked her way forward.

     A flurry of panicked thoughts ran through her head. ‘Spider, a giant spider!’, ‘Close, too close, I can’t run from it.’, ‘It’s too big, it’s going to catch me, it’s going to eat me.’, ‘It’s going to kill me!’ Amane’s head ached, she froze in place, sweat running down her back. A low, chittering sound vibrated through the air, the spider was already on her, it’s massive fangs moving in to sever her head from her body. Amane screams, falling, closing her eyes. 

     The blow never comes. 

     After a moment, she opened her eyes, daring to look. The spider still stood over her, inches from her face, stopped by some unseen force. Amane dared not move, fearing what ever divine protection would fade if she so much as twitched.

     ‘What do I do? What do I do?!’ Her vision swam, her head absolutely pounding.

     “S-Someone, help…”

     A warm, bright light flooded the tunnel, illuminating the grotesque sight of the spider trying to eat her. Fire, fire all around, it was hot, but it did not burn her, only the spider. The disgusting creature shrieked a horrible sound shattering Amane’s scattered thoughts before burning to ashes in mere seconds.

     Confusion and fear riddled Amane’s disjointed thoughts, pain piercing her brain as black spots clouded her vision. Someone was speaking to her, but their voice was far, so far away.

     Only one thought made it through the chaos as she lost consciousness. ‘Not the darkness again, I'm afraid of the dark...’