Chapter One

My world explodes in a ball of green flame.
            Then, darkness, and I’m falling through a chasm of cold air. Falling down, down, into oblivion. I reach out with sweaty palms, desperately grabbing for something, anything, to cling to but the walls are smooth glass and I realise that this isn’t a chasm at all but a chute.
            A slippery glass slide.
            My back somehow finds the curve and I follow it straight down. The air is heavy with the smell of rain and soil. Earthy smells. Is this where I am, underground?
            Long white roots writhe in my mind, wiry fingers twisted around the slide like they’re trying to shatter the glass and bury me alive. Or maybe they’re guiding me, right down to the centre of the earth.
            Not much use in this blackness though, and I find myself wishing for a torch, or a candle, even a match. Yes, I must be miles under because darkness this thick simply doesn’t exist up above. There are no stars, no traces of a moon hidden behind a cloud.
            Only the shadow of the earth with me beneath it.
            The slide suddenly ends and I tip over the edge, freefalling in nothingness, hovering as I spin forwards again and again. I scream but the air rips the despair from my lips and leaves me breathless. I want to cry, to shout to someone for help, but nothing comes and all I can think about is the slides end approaching beneath me, my bones snapping like dry twigs as we make contact. A deadly embrace. Blood spattering across the curved glass walls, iron and earth, red mixing with brown. I try to  stay calm and tell myself that I’m going to be okay, that this is a dream and I’ll wake up before the impact but my heart beats so hard I’m sure it’s ready to rocket from my chest and form a new constellation amongst the stars.
            I keep falling.
            It is not going to be okay.
            I am going to die, I think.
            Sweat drips down my face despite the freezing air, both of which sting my eyes and I clamp them shut. I wrap my arms around my head, as if they’ll somehow protect me. There is nothing to do now but wait.
            That’s the worst part. Knowing that it’s coming, knowing that I’ll feel the pain before falling into an even deeper darkness, knowing that there is nothing I can do to save myself.
            It must be close now. My end must be near.
            And it is, and I slam into it. The impact tears through my bones but they don’t break. Pain erupts in my head and the taste of iron lingers in the back of my throat. Tears leak through my closed eyes, but I’m alive. In spite of everything, I’m alive and I take a huge gulp of earthy air. It has never tasted so good.
            I stay curled up on the floor for a few seconds, listening to the muffled silence. There are heaving sobs, faraway, distant. I think they might be mine but I can’t be sure. I push up off the floor with my palms and, using my hands for eyes, I search this new nightmare. The ground beneath me is glass, the same as the slide probably. Four walls on each side, glass too, reaching up only to mid-shin. The corners of the walls are held in place by thin metal tracks that run upwards, far out of reach of my prying hands, and when I lean over the edge of the glass to see what’s down below, there’s nothing.
            Nothing I can see, anyway.
            I sit back down. Diamonds dance in the blackness and I feel dizzy, like I’m going to throw up, so I squeeze my jaws together and take deep breaths through my nose. Don’t panic, don’t panic, do not panic because being underground means a limited air supply and I can’t afford to waste any.
            Who knows how long I’ll be stuck down here.
            And where exactly is here, anyway? How did I get here?
            I can’t remember...anything.
            Only a few distorted pictures, like the sun shining through grey clouds or the emerald colour of freshly mown grass, or what the wind feels like when it brushes ever-so-slightly through my hair. I remember the smell of hotdogs and the taste of strawberry ice cream as it melts down my throat.
            Everything else is gone. I don’t know where I come from, or who my parents are, or what I look like. I don’t even know my own name.
            How can this be possible? My mind functions perfectly, trying to figure out where I am and how I got here. I know how the world works, and I know that snow is white, and yet I can’t recall the colour of my hair. I can picture the sun but when I reach out for someone’s face�"my parent’s faces�"there’s nothing.
            My mind is as dark and empty as this place. Like someone took certain memories and burned them.
            Everything I once knew about my life is dead.
            The screech of glass grinding against glass comes from above me, somewhere in the tunnel. A smell like burnt oil invades my senses. The creak of chains and pulleys echo in my open glass box. A lurching shudder shakes the ground beneath me and I pull my knees to my chest.
            By the time I see�"or rather, hear�"the glass sheet gliding across the opening of the tunnel, boxing me in, it’s too late. I try to jam my arm in the gap and push it back but it’s already sealed in place, taking my precious air with it.
            The box is barely big enough to hold me. I’m forced to lie on my back, the only possible position, and the lid is so close to my face that I can feel my breathe fogging up the glass. There’s an inch wiggle space on either side, not enough room to roll onto my side, and I close my eyes again to banish the image of walls closing in, crushing me, burying me.
            I shout for help again, begging whoever’s out there to help me, but it feels like I’ve been gargling glass shards and instead of words, there are only unintelligible grunts. I pound on the walls, punching and kicking and scratching, because I can already feel the walls closing in around me and I think I hear my bones straining under the weight of the world. My chest tightens. I cannot breathe. I am suffocating.
            I am suffocating.
            I inhale the words, feel them numbing my lips, taste them on the tip of my tongue, and when I no longer have the energy to stay awake, they burn in my dreams. I see them in the sky, spelt out by stars, I see them as ashes in a dry riverbed, I see them branded on my bare arms, overlapping and disjointed words.
            I am suffocating.
            When I wake up, sweating and breathless, I stop screaming and fighting. It’s a waste of breath because if there was anyone there, they wouldn’t help me. And even if they wanted to, how can they reach me when I’m probably hundreds of miles beneath their feet?
            There is no point in fighting because I am suffocating. I am dead anyway.
            But then, with another jolt, my glass box starts moving.
            It feels like hours�"no, days�"before the line of light appears.
            At first I think I’ve imagined it and I reach out with a hand, wanting to steal a shard and keep it down here with me so I don’t die alone, but my knuckles crack against the glass lid. I blink, pinch myself, shake my head until it hurts, and still the light hovers above me. A new wave of hope, followed by desperation sweeps through me. It’s so close, so close, yet still too far for me to reach.
            The box shudders, jolts a little, then resumes its course. Pillars of grimy earth slide by on either side of my glass cage and, as I move up, up towards the growing line of light, I forget everything.
            There is only the sun, the light, and the sweet, sweet air.

Author's Note

what do you think about:
the writing style
the description
the overall plot

Reviews

[Nick.B]

Interesting story you manage to pin here, curious to see where this will continue, the plot seems good, love the way you describe(I have a trouble with describing)...so far so good...I will definitely read your other chapters as well...great job

[Bethany]

Thank you so much, it means a lot :)