"I'm still not out" - the thought kept running through his mind as he held tight to the small roots and bones that stuck out from the dirt wall. Every move he made was fragile. This isn't his first escape attempt, but he prayed it would be his last. The man looked down over his shoulder to see just how far he'd climbed up this time. Carefully, he peered down into the pit he so desperately wanted to escape. There were thousands of them, and every single one of them were crying out in agony and pain. He hadn't heard it before. Not while he was down there with them - there was no memory of anguish... at least not at first recollection. It was as if the air in that pit had consumed people’s thoughts, twisted them, and bent them. Hopefully not for good, otherwise there would be no escape - no hope. While down there, among what seemed as everybody he'd ever known, he didn't want anything else, feel for anything else, he felt good, and contempt... even though he knew it was a lie, he would never had admitted that to himself ... no, not if it weren't for that girl.
For some reason, on one particular day, this man had a few moments of the clearest thoughts he had ever had. While watching a particular girl shove her way through the mess of people in the dark dirty, agonizing place. It was as if the surroundings and every other person came gray to his eyes, and that the only specs of color resonated from her. He realized quickly that it was not a sign of her superiority, or of her lack of despair, for her cheeks were rubbed of dirt and coal, her pants ripped, she had torn rags in place of a proper shirt, and that she walked with a limp in her right leg. For a lack of a better reason, she stood out to him because of her brief smile. Whether fake or not, that particular smile had brought the man a feeling that had been remote to him since as far back as he could remember, and all that he could remember was only his life in that pit.
It quickly went away, and everything became gray again, the feeling of love and compassion almost swept out of the man's mind just as quickly as the color. But he held on to it so tightly, as if his life depended on it. He struggled day after day to hold onto that memory. Bumping into people with dirty faces, and torn hearts, they shouted at him for holding it, he could tell that they felt threatened by it. It became clear to him that he would not be able to keep it forever. Not in a place like this. The longer he held onto it though, the clearer his mind became, and he noticed the fear, the sorrow, and all the hatred for life that had covered the wretched place and all of its people like an evil cloak.
His left hand suddenly came loose as the twig snapped from the dirt wall of his climb. His arm flew into the air like an open barn door with only his right hand and his feet to keep him in place. Desperately knowing that the only way out was up, he anchored his foot and quickly found new hold. But the tunnel seemed never ending, even light had abandoned this place. Never the less, he climbed with such determination and care. He couldn't afford to lose this time, couldn't afford to fall back into that absence only to lose what he fought day after day to keep.
He held onto that wall so tight, now, as if her life depended on it.
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