The Twenty-First Day

I will try again today. I am braver today. I used my match for as long as it would go, I even let it live its life all the way down to the tips of my fingers where it festered and hurt me. I didn’t cry out, though, and I was so still. I am proud.

But I felt.

It was not pleasant, but it was a sensation. I have not felt such a thing in so long. Save for my teeth and gums. They are so raw and tender. Often I can taste the coppery blood singing from them, and that’s nice too. The pain in my body, it too, never abandoning me. My mind confuses the internal and external sources of my agony, and I grow numb to the feeling. It is my new baseline. To know that exclusive, controlled bite of the dying light to my touch is euphoric. I can use this to steel myself.

I will try again today. I am braver now, for I did the match burning, like I said, and it has greatly improved my prospects. Still, all around me is the dark. I do not know which way to flee to, or whether my atrophied limbs with carry me surely, but I will try. I need to try.

The Twenty-Second Day

I DID NOT TRY.

The Thirtieth Day

I have two matches left. Two slender, narrow tickets of temporary relief. The relief is behind the fear, yet, still it is not darkness and despair. I attempt to let the match burn once more to my fingertips, but this time the pain is too intense, and I drop the stem. But something else happens. It touches the ground, staying aflame for a moment. Just a moment. I’m elated. I saw.

It was as black as I suspected, but so much lighter than that which surrounds me. That has made the difference today. I am a scholar in this world now. I am alone here, save for the things, and that makes me the expert. Do the things bother over the shape and color of the earth? I doubt that they do.

I do not think they know shape and color.

Perhaps they consider, in abstract, as I might wonder what texture my voice is to rub against. I would bet mine is rough, like homespun wool. I have not heard my voice in so long. How long?

So long.

That’s the only reckoning I have.

Today I will try to find the window.

The Thirty-Seventh Day

I’m off. I stand for the first time in a long time. My body knows what to do, and it keeps me going. I move so well now. I am no longer prone. I am a walker. I walk. I am walking right now. I am seeking. Seeking the window. It’s my only salvation. I must find it, or I will die. Death haunts my hourglass. It is always there. Perhaps I have been dead, and the window was my death? I don’t know what to think in this present darkness.

I am afraid, but I am moving.

I can feel the rough surface of the ground as I shuffle along. This is not the skitter of the things, this is the scuffle of my bare feet. They, which are connected to the spindly legs that absorb the rest of me on their pillars. My body is not mighty. It is a frail and wretched thing.

But I am moving.

The Thirty-Eighth Day

He did not find the window on that day, nor the next. He patrolled the darkness, feeling his way with his bare feet, his weak arms outstretched, but never finding purchase to anything substantial.

The Fortieth Day

A long corridor stretching out into what seems like a perilous forever. There is no light, but it is there. One can see it if they merely try. It’s covered in nothing and everything.

Then.

A door.

[ DISCOVERED THE SANCTUM ]