It wasn't my stomach dropping or the intense throbbing in my head, it was the thought that I could potentially be killed at any minute. I was no expert but if this elevator were to hit the top of the shaft at this speed the only thing to remain of me would be guts and pieces of my brain. Those thoughts dominated as I sped upwards through the shaft, holding on to the floor screaming for help, yelling for whatever I was in to slow down. Sweat was riveting down my face into the rags for clothes I was wearing, onto the floor. The light that illuminated flickered in despair, at that moment in time the fragments of events alluded me.
Help!
Someone stop this thing!
I'm going to crash!
Somebody!
Ahhhh!
Suddenly, if things couldn't get any more worse, will taking a short glance upwards, I noticed the end of the shaft had come into sight. The top of the shaft, which would be the cause of my death. This short lived life would be over in seconds and I would never know my purpose, my history or even my name. This was it. And so the flickering light acted as a countdown, with each flash counting down to my death. Flash! Closer, closer. Flash! It became clear that the top of the shaft was a closed exit. Flash! The wooden crate trembled, moving ever so slowly across the floor as it trembled. Flash! Only metres to go. Flash! Flash! Flash!
And that was it. My Death. That's how I was born and was killed in the space of a short memory. No more questions and no more answers. No more darkness and no more W.C.K.D. That was my story and I was okay with that because the sense of a bleak future was evident at my beginning. If I started in darkness, I would surely end in it. So a short death was appreciated - a quick one….
Or so I had hoped. But a death was not on the cards today as the elevator stopped moments before it hit the ceiling and I found myself back in the train of the thought that I had to face whatever came next, whether that be more waiting or the opening of the closed doors above me. And for better or for worse, it was the latter.
With a great Clank! and Crghhh! the metallic clunky doors above my head began to open, sliding into their slots on either side. From there came a mighty brightness that poisoned my eye-sight, forcing me to hide myself away with my arm. For a moment I gathered my thoughts and prepared myself mentally for what was to come but nothing did. Above me thrived blue sky for a brief second I attempted to recall the last time I saw the sky - something I failed upon. The opportunity to get out of the elevator was right there but all I did was stand and stare at the clouds passing above my head. Calmness had arrived and I no longer feared the darkness. The light transcluded my body and relaxed it to a significant motion - I could stand here for a few moments more. I could close my eyes and breathe but that would take a moment too many. So in the next couple of minutes, I did what any idiot would do. Pull myself up into the unknown.
Using the wooden crate, my hands were just about long enough to grab onto the top edges of the elevator shaft and after three attempts I managed to pull myself up on the surface above the gates that led into the elevator. And from there I saw grass. Green, elegant grass that distanced as far as I could see with the sunlight targeting my sight. I could look down back into the elevator but restrained from doing so, a nightmare has begun in there and for all I cared, that was the end of my time in there. I had escaped and that all that mattered. Grass was my new friend and that's all it was, grass. No more surroundings that stopped me. I was free. So I ran. Struggling at first but soon picking up the pace, I ran as fast as I could toward the sunlight, away from the darkness. And as I ran ever so quickly, I didn't notice I wasn't wearing any shoes. But how did I know what shoes were? When was the last time I wore shoes? What size shoe was I? How did I know of shoe sizes?
It was almost funny at the questions that arose while I ran but multi-tasking proved difficult in this situation. I could run while looking at my feet but I couldn't think about them - just look.
Then suddenly the sunlight vanished, and after peering up I could see no clouds were covering it. What was covering it was much worse. Possibly more terrifying than the elevator, worse than the darkness, something that would raise more questions that anything. Something I would come to fear more than anything.
Standing high into the skies, towering over around it, creating a death-defying shadow in the process, stood a concrete wall. Slightly cracked in a few places but most definitely covered in grass vines in various spots, the wall acted as God. Looking down and proving I was still trapped, the wall could only contribute to the nightmare that seemed to continue. And as I turned my body to face all the directions I could imagine, the wall continues, in an ever continuing circles, piercing the blue above. I had left one entrapment only to find myself in another. And unlike the elevator which wreaked with potential, the walls screamed that there was no way out.