Before the blackness, there were echoes—jagged shards of moments flickering behind closed eyes. Sunlight glinted off the water as the sharp cry of a seabird cut through the air and the ship's deck pitched beneath unsteady feet. In another flash, he saw the roar of a crowd with faces turned upwards, cheering in words he somehow understood. Then came a woman's face with kind eyes crinkled at the corners, her gentle hand smoothing hair back from a forehead. The vision shifted to the clang of hammer on steel and the searing heat of a forge slamming into his face.
These flashes came faster now, overlapping like rain on glass, creating a maddening collage of lives unlived. They weren't quite memories but something else entirely, clinging to him like phantom limbs and hinting at experiences that left no anchor in his soul. None of them felt like his, which only deepened the burning question beneath the chaos—who was he?
Then amid the swirling fragments, one vision solidified, pushing through the noise with terrible clarity. A farm stretched to the horizon under a sky heavy with storm clouds, lightning writhing within their depths. The wind whipped his hair as he squinted toward the distance, not at something but someone. A woman ran toward him through rows of tobacco plants, her pace quickening with every step until she was nearly flying. Then darkness swallowed everything.
Pain arrived first as consciousness returned—not gradually, but all at once, like being slapped awake. A scream tore through him, though he couldn't tell if it escaped his lips or just echoed inside his skull. The sound eventually faded to a cruel, high-pitched whine that pierced the surrounding silence.
The blackness pressed against him—not the empty dark of unconsciousness but a void that seemed to have substance. His first real sensation was rough wood against his cheek, followed immediately by the discovery that his limbs struck solid barriers when he tried to move. Wood above him sat close enough to brush his nose with each breath; wood hemmed him in at his sides, while more wood pressed against his back. Realization flooded his veins as the truth became undeniable—he was trapped inside a box.
He gasped, but the air hung stale and thin around him, tasting of dust mixed with that same cloying sweetness from his vision. When his palms slammed against the lid inches from his face, it remained solid and immovable. He pushed harder until his muscles trembled with the effort of what felt like years of disuse, yet the lid refused to give even the slightest creak of protest.
Terror clawed up his throat as questions raced through his mind. Why was he here? How had this happened? He searched desperately for anything before the flashes, before the memory of the farm, grasping for a name, an identity, anything at all—but nothing came except that same terrifying emptiness.
When his fist pounded the lid, the sound died instantly as though devoured by some crushing weight above. He froze and strained to hear anything beyond his prison, but the silence remained absolute. No distant noises, no footsteps, no voices penetrated his confinement—nothing existed beyond his own frantic heartbeat and ragged breathing in this suffocating darkness.
The truth crashed down on him like a physical blow: he was underground, buried alive. The muffled sounds, the dead silence, the weight pressing on the lid he couldn't budge—all pointed to this conclusion.
A scream tore from his throat that barely echoed in the confined space before he pressed both palms against the wood above and pushed with all his might. His limbs felt strangely weak and shaky, as if his muscles had experienced significant fatigue from some forgotten ordeal. Each time he pounded against the lid, dust clouded what little breathable air remained in his coffin. Every inhale seemed to bring less oxygen to his desperate lungs.
He realized he had mere seconds left before he would die for real—whatever "real" even meant to someone with no memory. Panic gave way to something more desperate. With a sound caught between a sob and a snarl, he planted his feet against the coffin's bottom and channeled every last ounce of his strength upward. Despite his shoulders screaming and muscles tearing under the strain, the wood held fast against his assault.
His lungs burned as colored spots began to dance across his vision. Just as he accepted this as his end, a strange, intense heat bloomed deep within his chest and spread like wildfire through his veins—searingly hot and almost unbearable, as if his very core had ignited from within.
A final, ragged scream tore from his throat, raw with agony and desperation. His fingers, which had been scrabbling uselessly moments before, suddenly dug into the hard wood above him. Splinters drove under his nails as the grain seemed to momentarily soften beneath his touch. The heat flooding his body concentrated with sudden speed, surging like a lightning strike down his right arm until it felt like his bones might crack from the sheer energy flooding through them.
The deafening CRACK directly above his head overwhelmed even the whine in his ears—a sharp, violent shattering followed immediately by a low rumble. The lid didn't merely break; it exploded outward as if struck by some powerful force.
Dirt, pebbles, and cold, damp clumps of earth rained down onto his face and chest, filling his mouth and clogging his nostrils. He choked and gagged while thrashing wildly in the confined space, fighting against the debris and clawing at his face in desperate search of air.
Cool, damp air suddenly washed over his skin like a blessing—fresh air that tasted very sweet despite its biting cold against his raw throat. He gasped it in between body-shaking coughs while spitting out dirt. A dim, grey light filtered down through the raining soil and splintered wood where the lid had been.
After absolute darkness, even this faint illumination blinded him. He squeezed his eyes shut against the painful glare before forcing them open again, blinking rapidly as tears streamed from both the dust and sudden light. Through the ragged hole he'd somehow created, past the cascading trickles of earth, he finally saw it—not bright sunlight, but a flat, grey, overcast sky heavy with the promise of rain.
A thought flickered unbidden through his mind as he stared upward: that sky looked exactly like the one from his vision of the farm.