Page 2 of Upon Buried Embers
Perfectly nothing.
My mind is empty, my body light.
I’m… free.
Then I land heavily on what must be a slope. A loud scream tears from me as my body scrapes along the jagged wall, my skin breaking as it’s sliced open and I roll down into the darkness at lightning speed.
Nausea makes my mouth water when my head crashes into something before I hit the hard ground at the bottom, rolling until I eventually come to a stop. A pained groan escapes me, my breathing ragged with agony. I feel warmth on the side of my face where blood flows out of me.
My eyes blink open, seeing the small light of the entrance far above me. A shadowy shape moves away from it, leaving me to my death on the cold floor.
I’m sorry, Effy.
My vision darkens, my heavy eyelids shutting as my body tingles from the shock before it goes numb.
I’m dying today.
I’m sure of it.
Finally.
Two
Elf
I didn’t die, but I wish I had.
The first time I woke, I tried to climb back up to the entrance, my final hope of getting out of here and back to Effy, but all it’s left me with is my fingers more mangled and bloodied than before.
Still, I tried and tried until I exhausted myself.
I just kept sliding back down to the bottom, the way it’s intended for those thrown down here into the cavernous cave systems.
And there have been many thrown into The Pit.
I can feel their bones beneath my feet, their skulls laying against the walls where they rested before they died.
Alone.
My body is willing me to give up, to let the cold and hunger take me as my injuries consume me…
But for some reason, I’m still moving.
Every step feels like my bones will snap, and every breath feels like I won’t take another. Yet I’m still here, awaiting a fate far worse than the last, I’m sure.
I don’t know where I’m going, I can’t see anything as I lean heavily against the rock wall to guide my way, the sticky wetness running down the side of my face the only warmth I feel.
I laugh lightly to myself. I love being warm, yet it’s such a rare thing for me to feel. To feel it now from my life blood as it pours out of me, is both a comfort and a cruelty.
Elvanan must hate me so.
After trying so hard to survive for years, to fight in any small way I could, even when my mind would wander for an escape, for an end… this is what I get for staying alive?
To be discarded because I stole food?
It wasn’t even for me, it was for Effy.
Effy… Gods what will happen to her now?
