--
Chapter 1: The Pit
A pit... A massive pit...
In the middle of a rainy forest, surrounded by bark-covered trees, a pit...
A pool of mud, like a giant grave...
Joseph woke up in that pit.
As the rain intensified, he was lying face down, sunken in that pit.
He woke up... suddenly... as if someone had nudged him.
He looked at the muddy filth, the puddle on his hands... He looked at the mud covering his arms and body...
Joseph scanned the surroundings.
"Why this pit? And why am I here?" he wondered, looking around with frightened eyes, through the narrow field of vision the mud on his face allowed.
His head was filled with countless unanswered questions.
---
Chapter 2: Escape
He crawled... Crawled through the mud and climbed out of the pit to face the filthy mess.
He tried to remember how he had ended up there.
The rain was getting stronger. Driven by survival instinct, he started walking.
"Where am I going? What am I going to do?"
That was all he could think of.
Maybe Stalin... Was it him?
The one responsible for burying him in this damned pit?
Possibly... but he was just a terrible coworker. A man who sabotaged Joseph's best moments, who didn't want to see him happy.
But could he really hate him enough to throw him in a pit?
Then there was his stepbrother, Tarık...
Hanging around in Merlin's slums... The one blamed for the suicide of Jim's daughter after allegedly assaulting her...
No one in town liked Tarık. Sometimes after work, when Joseph gave him a ride, Tarık would look at him in strange, unsettling ways...
Could it be? Maybe this was Stalin's plan... and Tarık was his accomplice.
Could this pit be their trap?
A lighter! He needed a lighter.
He searched his pockets.
Fire, a spark... anything to warm him up...
He quickly rummaged through. Then he remembered the bag slung over his right shoulder.
The one caked in mud... What could be inside?
That bag instantly became his greatest hope.
Maybe a phone, a lighter, anything that could help him escape...
Excitedly, he rushed under a tree, paused, and began unzipping the bag.
Half a sandwich... Important.
A time would surely come when hunger would be unbearable.
He shoved the sandwich to the side and continued searching.
A charging cable... And bingo! A phone!
His eyes lit up.
Joseph stared at the device with hopeful, smiling eyes.
He quickly opened the flip and pressed a button.
In this modern age, he still used a flip phone to limit his interaction with technology.
Simpler devices suited him better.
This way of thinking had become part of his life in many ways.
Not working.
Yeah... it's not working.
He pressed another button, hoping it was just a glitch.
Pressed again... Still no light.
The cable! He suddenly remembered.
Normally, Joseph didn't carry a charger with him.
"Why is this in my bag?" he thought.
Then it hit him—
Of course! He was going to work.
An evening meeting... People to sit down with, to present something to...
That's why he had packed the cable.
He had remembered it just before leaving the house:
"I'll need it for the presentation. I'll charge the phone there."
That was the only thing Joseph could remember.
Now, the only thing he could think about was charging the phone,
or that maybe, somehow, this cable could save his life.
"After all, I'm in a forest," he thought.
"There's got to be a way out."
He zipped up the bag and started walking again.
But it felt like every muddy path looked exactly the same...
"This story is written by Nyxian Rael and published exclusively on Webnovel "