Ashes, Ashes, We All Fall Down

There’s no way of telling which is which, thought Samantha timidly. All that was there was a series of black buildings, each the size of a barn and perfectly square.

Her wrist began to throb. She jumped, but it was only the bracelet. It displayed a countdown: 0:45.

Not wanting to test it, she ran ahead to the nearest building, shaking from head to foot with fear. She might not ever come out of the building alive.

The double doors, which fittingly resembled tombstones, glided open silently. Adrenaline pumped wildly through the girl’s veins as she stepped inside.

Both doors closed behind her.

But before she could move another inch through the pitch blackness, her body was violently pulled back and slammed against the wood.

Out of nowhere, snapping through the silence, tendrils snaked out from the walls themselves. They wrapped around her left ankle, like snakes, piling around her body.

They tightened harshly just like the bracelet had, until they were inside her flesh, neighboring the blood and bone.

Samantha let out a small cry as tendons popped and cracked open, spilling gore over the tiles and onto her shoes. The smell floated around her nostrils, violating her lungs until she leaned over to heave up bile.

The pain was intense. Still the bindings did not stop, piloted by some enormous force that could somehow grind through flesh like butter. Soon they were no longer constricting skin and fat. It had almost all been ripped away, leaving a thin layer of shiny muscle over white bone.

A light at the end of the tunnel appeared, not thirty feet away. Heaving with shock and relief, she began to move forward. Then she fell.

Her leg, already weakened by the anguish and exposure to air, collapsed like a popsicle stick. The remaining one would be no use. Blood still poured from the intact skin above the wound. Seeing no other option, Samantha lay on the floor and began dragging herself by her arms, ridiculously like a seal, toward the sweet light and freedom.

The floor was thick with grime, smelling of the accumulated mildew of decades. But she could no longer feel it; she was numb with shock and blood loss. Her face was contorted with strain as she moved, agonizingly slow. The room was still black and silent. Every now and then, she let out another screech of pain as the bone dragged against the steel floor.

After minutes slowed down by the aching in her ankle, Samantha finally reached the door. She wasn’t even three feet away when—

“Aargh!”

The chain, which had been long forgotten, had reached its limit. Now she couldn’t go any further. The bounds were too small now for her to slip off her foot, still in its suit of flesh.

The only thing she could do was…

“Oh, no…”

Carefully she gave another tug on the left chain. A responding shot of pain went through her leg. Gritting her teeth and holding onto the floor as well as she could, she wrenched at it.

The bone began to crack. She started to lose feeling in it…

Crying, bleeding, hating herself, she pulled again with every last bit of force.

The leg came loose. But the foot remained.

Still sobbing, tears streaming down her face with the realization of what had happened, she continued to drag herself out the door and into the air. The sting of humiliation and anger, far from her normally gentle thoughts, did not fade.