Night

Once upon a time, the freezing cold had been sitting in his bones for so long that he was numb. Beneath his folded legs, the stony ground cut into the skin. He didn’t notice. His eyes were closed, not that it mattered. The darkness was nearly complete. Only the shadows on the horizon separated the night from the endless field of rock that was his prison.

As the night never ended, he had no way of knowing how long he had been there, but as there was no escape, it didn’t matter. He had resigned himself to a lifetime of sitting in this abyss. This was, after all, the place he deserved. His choices had led him here, to the end of the universe, and an empty silence.

Until the silence began to speak.

He heard its whispers emerging from the ground, like the sound of waves in the distance. Vibrations shook his cold body. Waves turned to words: “Just. Move.”

Stone ruptured into sand, and beneath him a tunnel opened. A path sloped down into the earth, and somewhere in the depths was a light. Small. Dim. But there.

A way out.