Dying Battle

The push itself was small, but the fall was great.

I clasped at the slimy brick walls which surrounded me on the descent down, the tiny prick of light fading to nothing with every passing second. The walls were decorated with wet, ugly things, which I hesitated to even imagine what they were.

My body broke the sheet of ice that covered the bottom of the abyss, consuming me. My dress clung to my frail form; my shoes came free from the buckles that tied them to my feet, presumably drifting into the black depths beneath me.

I could see nothing. There was no light; there was no escape from this endless void. I tried hard to keep my head above water, gasping for air I couldn’t seem to find, as I thrashed and kicked and lost my strength too soon.

All I could hear was the singing echo of my voice, yelling and screaming for help that was too far away to hear. I was alone. I was trapped. I was still falling.

Try as I might, there seemed to be no way out. My nails clawed at the walls, searching to find anything to hold me aloft, but finding nothing. When I pulled my hands back to massage the fingertips, I smelt blood.

There was nothing here to save me from this fate, no one to care enough to hear my cries. In this torturously small, deep hole, I could entertain only myself.

This was dark as no human had ever had the misfortune to witness. It made me gasp for different reasons than lack of air, it made me want to vomit and let it take me now. There was no use in delaying the inevitability of it: I was confined to this agonizing prison.

It felt like hours before my legs finally lost all feeling, but seconds before my arms went dead. I floated with my head grasping at the tiny space of air I had left, the only thing left to live for.

I wished for a spark of light, a voice of any sort, a sign of any kind to call for me, yet a distant murmur in my mind whispered “No hope.”

Finally, as the last thread of radiance disappeared from my mind and my soul, I felt my heavy eyelids shut. I promised myself that I would open them again. I promised myself that this was not the end.

My dying battle with the well was over, I realised, as I allowed the unfathomable, bitter water devour me, dragging me down further until I thought not a whimper…