AN: This is a story I thought of as I read The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe. If you read it, you will see the attempts of references to the story.
This is actually a story where I didn't write things clearly. If you can get my attempts at references and symbolism, then I did it right. If you can't, it means I need to try harder.
Please tell me your thoughts on the story. Reviews are always incredible things to get even if you didn't like the story.
Tomb
Son cœur est un luth suspendu
Sitôt qu'on le touche il résonne.
De Béranger
Can you tell him, the lost one, what death feels like? For he was put in a tomb – a tomb so deep nobody can dig out – with a beating heart, living soul and unfulfilled dreams.
He screams, for days, weeks, months – he screamed for four years, he never stopped. He tried to dig his way out of the darkness. He tried everything he could do to get out of that wooden prison and see daylight again. There were worms walking on his arms and centipedes too; he sometimes felt warm blood drip down his face or arms. His ears were already accustomed to the sound of forty little legs creeping towards his brain – but there was no other sound in this eerie cell other than the incredibly slow steps of the insect. There was no light, just darkness. Not even a cellmate.
His screams can't get out. There's nobody passing by his grave, not even a grave keeper to tend to the soil covering his coffin. Not a single soul treads over those lonely hills. Even the wild flowers don't visit him anymore.
The walls of the room in which his tomb is placed are, just like the floors, painted in black and white squares. It's a chess game, clearly; he loses, no matter what move he makes. There is always the reaper sitting in front of him, his face ever-changing.
There are times he falls asleep. Those are the only times he sees glimpses of light. He is outside of his grave, sitting on a chair in the middle of the chess deck. The chair is soaked with his blood and his screams.
Then the reaper visits him.
His very existence is death. The steps he takes and the words he utter – every move he makes on the chess board pushes him slowly into the arms of sweet death but never lets him get too close.
He wanted death at the beginning. It was his decision to keep sleeping – for death for him was nothing but a sweet escape. He wanted to go home. He wanted to step on his wild flowers and face the sun; he wanted to be able to look at it with his bare eyes.
The sun was sleeping, so why wouldn't he?
He can't die, but he can't get away.
There's someone else living out there; everyday he's forced to wake up, cook, smile, talk to his murderers, to form bonds with people soaked in blood. He is forced to enjoy every single second of his existence, all the time never leaving his tomb.
He's buried alive inside that wooden coffin and he buried himself.
Now he's nothing more than a fungus. He's in a tight, deadly coffin in the middle of another existence, waiting for death who will never visit him again. He screams and kicks and cries; he suffers every second and he still lives on, still smiling. He grabs his body, his pure soul; because he hates the brightness and naivety of his mind that never reached him, not even once in his life. He grabs those flowers, he rips them out – he is the fungus and he will kill.
Can you tell him, the fungus, the disgusting parasite soaked in the blood of his own friends, what death feels like? For he has only given it, but will never receive it.
Because, Sasaki, you buried him alive.
