Hope

Until now I'd lost all hope. It had been four days since I had stormed out of the house. We were fighting over who would get the car in the morning. It had been eighty-seven hours you had found me walking along the side of the road. You begged for me to get in the car and I ran into the woods. It had been 5186 minutes since I was swallowed by this sink hole.

When I fell, I sprained my ankle. I called out for you, but you never came. No matter how much I screamed and cried, no one returned my pleas. At every snap of a twig or tussle of the underbrush from the scampering of some animal, my eyes shot upward, but your face never appeared in my portal to the sky.

I tried to climb out but the sides were soft. My fingers cut through the soil wet from the recent rains and cut on the roots and stones. It crumbled in my hands and I plummeted back down. My hands burn with infection. No matter how often I tried, all I accomplished was to make myself bleed and to make my walls scale back on themselves. My escape had become impossible.

I became exhausted. I began to drift in and out of sleep in my stupor. Time began to loose all meaning. I dreamed about sleeping, and daydreamed about being awake. The only thing that kept me grounded was the alarm you had put on my watch. An alarm I had never figured out how to disengaged. It was all I had. It connected me to you and to the world above. It beeps now. It will beep six more times. I had learned to live for that sound. It pulled me back. In that moment, I knew I was awake. I knew I was here and I knew it was true.

When it first began to rain, I thanked the heavens. It had was in the middle of the night on my second day. I was so thirsty. I cupped my hands and drank from them. It was mixed with blood and mud, but I couldn't have been more thankful. But it never stopped. It kept coming and coming. It got harder and soon the winds and thunder came. The water is now at my thigh. and I am so cold. I am numb. I cannot lie down anymore. The last time I sat down to sleep I dreamed of the sea and woke gagging on the water. I dare not try it again.

The storm is getting worse. I look up and see a root, large and strong, overhanging my hole. Until I'd lost all hope, but there it was. My salvation. I mustered all of my strength and began my climb again. I dug my hands into the ground and made my assent. I closed my eyes and worked from memory. I could feel the land curling back. I opened my eyes and saw the the root. I reached out for it. It was just beyond my grasp. I grazed it with my fingers and felt myself sliding down the well.

I threw myself at the root. One last desperate chance. The wood struck my palm and bounced away. I flailed my other hand and the fleeing root. I wrapped my arm around it and pulled it against my body. I came to a jolt and clung desperately. My body flailed like a rag-doll around the root. There was a loud crack. It mirrored the thunder all around, but it wasn't the thunder. It was the root.

I fell back down and splashed into the mud pit. The root whipped back and smashed into my face. I became disoriented and slumped back into the wall. My vision became doubled and I grew more tired. At least I wasn't cold anymore. I was warm, pleasantly so. Maybe I would dream of you. In the end, hope was just a four letter word.