Chapter 1 Six Feet

• Chapter One: Six Feet
• “What the—”
• Definitely wood, I thought as my knuckles hit it before the thought finished, the sound coming back wrong and muffled, swallowed by something I had no idea could swallow sound.
• I went still.
• If everything around me was dark and I had trouble breathing in the enclosed space which smelled like wood — what could it possibly be?
• Also why was my head aching so painfully?
• I made myself breathe. Once, twice, and the air came back warm and thin and already halfway used, that was the moment my brain stopped being confused and started being furious.
• He buried me.
• That son of a bitch buried me.
• “Daniel.” His name came out breathy and quietly furious like if he was by my side I would let my action speak more than my mouth could.
• The anger in me scared me more than screaming would have.
• “Daniel, you absolute coward.”
• I pressed both palms flat against the lid and pushed but nothing happened. I pushed harder.. all to no avail.
• I could feel the shape of whatever it was now.
• Definitely a box— exactly two inches of clearance above my face and just enough room to know I was trapped.
• I’m not dumb or proud enough to pretend otherwise.
• I closed my eyes again, tried taking a deep breath the way the fancy yoga taught us to in the overpriced private session Daniel had pressured me into taking.
• It was then I noticed a part of my body feeling wrong and painful, I traced it and discovered my left wrist was positioned in an unnatural angle.
• Something was broken in there, I filed it for things to be sorted later.
• All that mattered right now was getting out of here alive so I pushed again with my stringer hand and with all my strength.
• The wood creaked slightly.
• “Okay,” I said. “Okay. So we’re doing this.”
• I closed my eyes again and more tightly this time, trying to inhale as much air as I could but it wasn’t much.
• I tried distracting myself with the fact that at least I wasn’t locked in steel or concrete or something more complicated than this wood that I am.
• Little wins.
• Yay.
• Which meant this whole thing was held together by whatever Daniel paid for it, and I already knew everything about how Daniel spent little to less money on things he didn’t expect anyone to look at closely.
• My dear husband has this bad habit of cutting through corners. I’ve known the bastard for twenty-two years, and I’d spent half of them quietly fixing what he left unfinished and the other half pretending I hadn’t.
• “You couldn’t even buy a decent casket.” A short, ugly laugh scraped out of me as I pinched the side of the casket and it gave in immediately. “Typical.”
• The irony was almost funny but I forced more on working my elbows up and bending them at the corners where the wood would be most likely to give.
• When I pushed this time I felt a flex, a small surrender, a splinter that was wider than the first one and it sounded like the beginning of my freedom.
• However, the air was getting worse. I could feel the difference with each breath, the darkness getting worse and thicker. I didn’t let myself calculate how long I had before I choked to death or faint from weakness.
• Numbers would make it real in the wrong direction and I needed it real in the right one.
• “Don’t you dare,” I whispered. I didn’t know if I was talking to myself or the box or the ground above me. “Don’t you dare.”
• I pushed hard, gritting my teeth’s harder, the crack opened and soil poured through onto my face.
• It was cold and the smell was uncomfortable,I was fast enough to turn my head but the soil got into my hair instead.
• I pushed again and this time the lid gave properly, it split down the center and the earth came in unexpectedly.
• I tried sitting up through the sand but it was all heavy around me so I start clawing.
• I clawed as fast as I can while holding my breath through the mess around me.
• I clawed with both hands despite my broken wrist and all.
• I clawed through dirt that was heavy and wet that smelled like something that had never seen the sun.
• I kept clawing even with my lungs burning and my eyes open for absolutely no reason because there was nothing to see — nothing but black and more black and my own hands disappearing into it.
• “Move,” I told myself. “Move move move—”
• I broke the surface few minutes later, my first sign was the Cold air hitting my face but I dragged it in —too much at once — coughing and spitting and making sounds I would never describe to another living person.
• My arms found grass and my knees found mud. I pulled myself out of the ground on pure spite and collapsed face down on the earth.
• And as if all this wasn’t enough, as I needed another proof that God hates me.
• A lightning strike somewhere emotional far from my head and it started raining heavily.
• I lay there and let it wash the dirt from my mouth and thought about everything I was going to do to him since he’d apparently given me all the time in the world.
• I lay there for what felt like a long time, cheek in the mud, rain tapping the back of my neck, and I thought about the dinner we’d had three nights ago. Or maybe four.
• The soft delicious lamb and the good wine he only opened for guests, which meant someone else had been expected, and I had been scheduled around them.
• I thought about the way he’d looked at me across the table like he’d already decided avd finalised on what’s next — which I realize now is him burry me alive.
• I got up because lying in the mud next to my own grave was not how this ended.
• Then a low and constant sound that has been coming from a close distant solashed like something was thrown into it.
• Which means there was a river close by.
• Curiousity had me crawling toward it the same way I’d moved through the dirt without thinking, because thinking was a luxury for people who weren’t current bleeding from their broken hands and walking in what used to be their best dress.
• The bank came up and I crawled faster into it. The water was cold enough to stop my heart for a full second.
• I went under, came back up, got pulled sideways by a current that had absolutely no interest in my survival.
• I grabbed at something, a branch, a root, something fixed in the world, and somewhere upstream, a light moved through the trees but I didn’t call out.
• Not yet.
• I wanted to see who it was before they saw what I was.