I never expected to wake up again. Did I really wake up?
Trapped in darkness, my eyes refused to open, and my lungs felt like they were being crushed by some invisible force. Every breath in was shallower than the last, and the air seemed to vanish before I could exhale.
Only the pain radiating from the left side of my body anchored me to consciousness.
I strained to lift my right arm—the only limb that still moved freely. But as soon as I stretched it out, it hit something solid. The bus window, maybe. I groped around cautiously. I had no idea how I ended up buried like this, but one thing was certain now: the tiny space I was lying in was being propped up by the bus's frame.
It felt like I was being buried alive in a coffin.
I couldn't see anything. Couldn't hear anything. Just lying there, slowly dying under the crushing weight of suffocation.
I must've blacked out again. The next time I came to, I heard someone crying.
Someone else was trapped here too! That realization filled me with a sudden jolt of energy. Things were still very bad but just hearing another voice made me feel a little less alone. It was proof that I was still alive.
The crying didn't stop. I held my breath, listening carefully, and realized the voice belonged to the old woman who'd been sitting in front of me. The wedding. Relief surged through me. Someone I knew was still alive. My heart leaped, and I instinctively tried to call out to her.
But no sound came out.
I tried again. And again.
Nothing.
My mouth was filled with dust and grit, packed in so tight it felt like my throat had been plugged shut. My tongue scraped against the dry roof of my mouth. Every attempt to swallow felt like dragging glass shards down my throat. There wasn't even enough spit left to moisten my voice. Every time I pushed harder, the pain in my lungs flared, which was sharp and unbearable. If I kept forcing it, I'd pass out from lack of air before I ever made a sound.
The lady's cries weren't soft or helpless. They were raw, primal sobs—wails of agony.
It wasn't sadness. It was grief, yes, but more than that... ...it was fury. It was despair. It was the kind of screaming you made when something inside you broke beyond repair. When disaster hit without warning, most people didn't even know how to react. But once you've seen how powerless you are—once you've watched the life you worked so hard to build collapse before your eyes—how could you not fall apart?
You'd ask: Why did this happen to me? What am I supposed to do now? Do I even have a future left to live for?
This world doesn't care about fairness. You can't trust it. People with kind hearts end up killing someone by accident. People who take care of their bodies die in freak accidents on the road. It rips away everything in ways we can't predict. We've seen it happen to others. We've heard the stories. We try to be careful, to stay humble…But that never guarantees survival.
The lady's cries…They were the sound of pure despair.
**********
Influenced by the lady's cries, I began to sob too. I was so scared. I didn't know what to do. I just wanted to see my mom and dad…I knew that crying was pointless, that it would only waste what little energy I had left, and would only make me die faster. But I couldn't stop. My lungs were at their limit, and my body had started convulsing uncontrollably.
Just then, my hand brushed against something.
It was soft. Still warm. Half-buried in the dirt. The other half…
It was a severed human arm!
I immediately fell silent, frozen with fear.
I thrashed wildly, trying to back away, but where was there space to move? All I did was dig myself deeper into the dirt. My frantic flailing dislodged more debris from above, and I felt it tumble down around me. The massive object that had been shielding me shuddered. It felt like it was on the verge of collapse.
Carefully brushing the grit from my face, I didn't dare move again. I didn't know what to do. I couldn't think clearly. But one thing was certain:
I wasn't ready to die. Not yet.
Emotions are contagious, especially fear and despair. I forced myself to calm down, to not be swallowed up by her wailing again. If there was one good thing about my breakdown, it was that my tears had cleared the debris from my eyes. I could see now, sort of.
The lady was still crying.
But her cries sounded more pained now. In this situation, the sheer intensity of her sobbing felt… unnatural. I wanted to tell her to stop, that if she kept crying like this, we'd just run out of oxygen faster. We had to preserve our strength. We had to wait for the rescue.
But I still couldn't speak.
Sure enough, before long, she began to cough. Violently. Desperately. She was even dry-heaving. I heard her struggling to breathe. Her wheezing and moaning mixed with a strange, hissing sound, like a slow leak.
Could there be air flowing through?
The thought was quickly dismissed. I knew my body. I felt it. My right arm could no longer lift itself. My head was spinning, my heart was beating erratically—classic signs of hypoxia. And if there had been a gap somewhere, the first thing that should've flowed in wasn't air.
It would've been the freaking rain.
I closed my eyes and tried to stop thinking about anything, attempting to conserve my strength with minimal effort. But gradually, I couldn't help but notice the faint and irregular sound of the wind, which seemed to match the intermittent rhythm of the lady's overdrawn breathing.
She began crying again. I could sense her getting weaker and weaker, but as her voice diminished, the other noises became more pronounced. The whistling sound now seemed more like someone blowing a whistle far away.
A scene involuntarily formed in my mind. A woman trapped in the dark, unable to move. Perhaps she sensed death approaching, so she wailed in fear and unreconciled desire to live. A steel pipe had pierced through her chest, blood oozing out in steady streams, yet even so, she screamed at the top of her lungs, her breath already too shallow, blood nearly choking her throat, but she kept on crying... ... As for the lung pierced by the pipe, whenever its owner exerted herself, air would uncontrollably leak from the hole.
"Whoosh… Whoosh… Whoosh…"
"Whoosh… Whoosh…"
I struggled to open my mouth to call out to her, but alas, no sound came.
Please, stop crying, stop crying, sleep for a while, when you wake up, everything will be fine…
My body trembled uncontrollably, sweating cold as if the person pierced by the steel pipe was me.
Finally, her cries stopped.
It was back to how it was at first: I was alone in the silent darkness, experiencing the feeling of being buried alive. The only difference was that the imagined death scene continued to loop in my mind.
Whoosh… Whoosh… Whoosh… Whoosh… Whoosh… Whoosh… Whoosh…
My body seemed to be getting lighter.
Whoosh… Whoosh… Whoosh…
I envisioned my own death.
*
*
*
"I hear crying coming from here!"
"Why did you go down there?! Get back up! That area could collapse, it's unsafe!"
"I really heard someone crying, right below here!"
...
Is it my imagination? Why do I hear Sam's voice?
...
"How long until the rescue team arrives?"
"The road up the mountain is blocked, it'll take some time to get the heavy machines started."
"If we keep waiting, the people below will suffocate! Get me a shovel, I'll start digging!"
It's not my imagination...
My consciousness slowly began to return, and the weight of my body dropped back.
The rescue team is here! I'm here!
"Don't just act on your gut feelings, what if it causes an internal collapse?" That sounded like Officer Maurice.
"Boss, but we have to get moving, saving lives is the priority!"
"Just go digging over there! The ground seems more solid on that side."
No, I'm right under your feet!
"Alright..." Sam's voice grew farther and farther away.
Come back! I anxiously slapped the bus frame, but all I got in response were more falling clumps of dirt.
Sam!
Sam!...
Sam
Sam
"Samuel!——"
I finally shouted out. My voice tore through the silence, broken and damaged.
**********
"Sam... ... I...m here!..."
I barked like a mad dog, but soon couldn't catch my breath. Oxygen deprivation first affects the blood supply. At that moment, it felt as though something was clamping down on my skull, tightening little by little. The veins on my forehead were throbbing, and my body had become so stiff it felt numb.
When you can't breathe, you instinctively struggle harder, desperately gasping for air, trying to overstretch your lungs. But it only makes things worse and drains your energy at a much faster rate. In reality, the fastest way to recover is to breathe slowly, in small sips, however, few have the willpower to fight against this biological instinct. Even when there is enough oxygen, many people break down under the strain.
I was one of those people.
When I reached the limit of my deep breathing, my body began to tremble drastically. Every muscle tensed, contracted, spasmed, and even my bones ached. I felt like a deflating balloon, my body shrinking away.
If survival is this painful, this terrifying, this lonely... ... why not just let go?
At that moment, I really thought about giving up. I'm sorry I'm so weak, I really can't bear this, I'm sorry, Mom and Dad...
It's strange, though. The moment I chose to stop struggling, my body suddenly felt much lighter, and the invisible grip on my head disappeared.
I felt like a lone boat drifting in a sea of emptiness, swaying gently, unaware, unfeeling.
Perhaps this was the calm moment before death. Every disaster begins in silence.
I genuinely admired those who kept fighting in the dark, unwilling to seek release.
"Thud... thud... thud... thud…"
Heavy thudding sounds came from above the earth, each one seeming to hit my breastbone.
"Ga-ha—" I gasped, my head starting to ache again.
"Are you awake? Talk to me!"
Sam's voice came from above my head, alongside the movements of shoveling and digging.
"Thud... thud... thud... thud... thud…"
"Hold on! I'll get you out of here!"
"Thud... thud... thud..."
... ...
Why?
An unbearable sorrow surged in my heart, and I began to sob.
Why does misfortune always strike me? I feel so wronged, unable to speak, unable to resist. Why push me off the cliff, only to send someone to rescue me? What is this—hurting me and then offering a reward? I am so insignificant, so small, and... ...so many people have suffered the same misfortune... ...why am I the only one still alive?…
I don't even have the courage to survive... ... What right do I have to be saved?
Go and find the others, Sam. I should face death.
"Thud… thud… thud… thud… thud!"
It seemed like the person outside had heard my thoughts, and the digging stopped.
I curled my body into an extremely humble posture and closed my eyes.
... ...
"Listen, I can't dig any further…"
... ...
"These rocks are burying the bus, but at the same time, they are also supporting it… I've felt the ground shaking beneath me. If I keep digging, the bus could fall even further."
Fall further? …Does that mean the bus is still hanging on the cliff?
I tiredly opened my eyes.
"The rescue team hasn't arrived yet. Even if they do, it'll be hard to start working after dark… "
"I can't get you out on my own."
A tear slipped from the corner of my eye and fell into the wound.
Sam, you've done your best. It's incredible that you've come this far. I won't blame you.
"Listen carefully," Sam went on.
"I want you to climb out on your own."