River Teeth

A Dark Tunnel

April 30, 2017

2:11 am

Passing through the earth was the scariest thing Stan ever been through. He became rigid on the way down. Dirt filled his ears and nose. Roots tore at his clothes as if Death themself was undressing him: You don't need a jacket in Hell, Stan thinks now that it's over and he has time to humor himself. It's toasty all the time. And the lakes? Naturally heated by fire. You'll never have to worry about your eyes turning to stone or your lips turning blue here, my boy.

When Stan finally did hit bottom, it became clear it was a personal Hell. After spending ten minutes coughing, sucking in acidic air, and beating dirt out of his hair, he saw how dark it truly was. He'd spent so many years in darkness, debilitated by his own twisted thoughts, and now here it was before him: a black canvas with which he could feel them - invisible creatures that hid from him, terrorized him, understood him.

"Hello?" he called out.

A small echo greeted Hello? back to him. Over the next few weeks, Stan would become used to that echo as if it were another person to talk to. He learned not to mind his own voice so much.

He felt around his pants. Miraculously, his phone remained in his pocket.

Battery: 77%

No Service

He turned on the flashlight. If the echo didn't already confirm it, he could see he was in a kind of cave.

A wild rabbit, it's eyes sudden yellow from the light, trembled when it saw Stan.

"Hey, little guy," Stan whispered, stepping softly toward it, "Did you fall down here, too?"

The rabbit leaped from him into deeper darkness. Parts of him wished it was a white rabbit. He'd follow it and eat cake and drink tea and play croquet with the Queen of Hearts and when he woke up, Kyle would be hovering over him with a frown: Why would you fall asleep when I'm in the middle of talking to you?

This rabbit had to be magic too though, he decided. It managed to get here when it could have easily suffocated on the way down.

He followed it.

...

The terrain was mostly flat, with some winding tunnels that he was too scared to explore. The rabbit was gone. Every time it saw Stan, it jumped around a corner. Now it wouldn't be seen at all.

Battery: 70%

One path looked like it headed up at an angle. The soil at the bottom was tender and went up to his ankles. He climbed with one hand.

(holy shit i might get out of here holy shit)

It wasn't as long as he imagined. When he reached the end, he was met with cold and packed dirt, still frozen from the long, Colorado winter they just had. It almost turned his hand to ice when he touched it.

"Fuck!"

He raised his phone up.

No Service

He could still call 911. At least he would be easier to dig up now when they found him.

He punched the numbers in and pressed the phone to his ear. Before it could ring, he felt the phone heat up instantly. There was screaming coming from the speaker. When he looked at the screen, a face

(my face

???????????)

smiled at him.

Something was wrong with it: his eyes were blacked out. Everything around him was striking, black void.