Chapter 20
20. Buried Alive
Could you ever imagine yourself as naught but a mere cut of beef, strung up in the grim abode of a butcher, lifeless and devoid of dignity?
That was my unenviable fate in this direst of moments. My body, bereft of volition, was reduced to a pitiful rag doll, hoisted and hauled without a modicum of care. My legs served as the pitiless grip of my captor, my form scraping the cold hard ground with each drag, each pull.
"Heck… Heck…."
The creature in possession of my unfortunate limbs huffed laboriously, a sound that did not belong to any man I knew. It was an uncanny creature indeed, that saw no humanity in me, just as I saw none in it. With great effort, I mustered enough strength to part my eyelids, a feeble attempt to observe my surroundings.
I was met with utter darkness, a void that swallows all light, an infernal abyss into which I had been tossed. Deprived of strength, I could not afford the simple luxury of turning my head, of glimpsing the beast that toyed with me so. I could only register the swift flashes of the ground that sped past my eyes.
Rock, rubble, gravel… and the gruesome remains of what once was a canary, its tiny head severed from its body.
After some indeterminate period, my body was once again made weightless, then abruptly discarded into a pit. A rain of soil and filth fell upon me. Summoning all the will I had left, I shielded my face from the foul deluge, my arm serving as the only barrier between me and the onslaught of dirt and decay.
Thus, I found myself buried alive, a living corpse interred in a premature grave.