Chapter 2 : Rubble

Genre : Dark, Tragic

Author : Corrupted_Entity

Chapter Art : https://www.deviantart.com/corrupted0entity/art/20221112-232751-936862887

"Hey are all the things in place?"

"Yes! I can't wait for the main event."

I answered my father in a cheerful tone. The occasion was my sister's wedding in July. Everyone was overjoyed and enthusiastic about the ceremony. We called the priest and began the wedding day. After all the rituals were finished, heavy rain started pouring outside. Even though it was raining outside, the scenic view of the mountain next to the church we were in never ceased to amaze me.

"It's pouring cats and dogs out there..."

My father spoke in a serious voice. He was never one to believe that rainy days are bad days. However, sometimes at important events like this, he would act paranoid and worried. The others were too busy admiring the view of the mountain. Suddenly we heard a booming noise and saw tons of dirt and trees headed straight toward us.

By the time I woke up to the feeling of drowning, I realized that water was dripping on my face from somewhere but it was too dark to see. I felt pain all over my body and a burning sensation in my knees and hands. I also felt a sharp poking pain in my back. I reached for my phone in my pocket in a daze. As I switched on my phone, I saw rubble, dirt, and the roots of trees all around me. I was stuck in some sort of dirt cave.

"It was a landslide..." I whispered in a solemn voice.

I was once again reminded how easily the tides of life change after the death of my mother. I wiggled around only to find that the thing poking me in the back was someone's teeth with blood on it. I held back my vomit while trying to process the situation and how to get back to the surface.

I was currently experiencing countless emotions. I felt exhausted, disgusted, angry, frustrated, helpless, and scared all at once. This was the first time I have felt such a massive outburst of different emotions. My head felt cloudy and I was not in the right state of mind currently. There was no way I could get back alive. I took a few deep breaths to calm myself down.

But all my efforts were useless once I saw a hand in between the rubble. I immediately tugged the hand and tried to pull it. Unfortunately, all my attempts were futile. I tried my best to pull the hand. But all that changed when I saw a familiar-looking ring I saw before today.

In despair, I started wailing and desperately digging and crawling my way up. The more I crawled up, the more corpses I found. I looked at the corpses, cried, and again started crawling my way through the dirt and rubble while following the dripping water. The corpses started piling as I crawled higher and higher. But now, I did not pay any heed to it. I had witnessed enough deaths in one day. Every time I saw something like a mangled human figure or a limb in between the rubble, I ignored it as I was now too tired.

Each second felt like an eternity here. I had to constantly keep shifting positions at least every 2 hours to survive as every air pocket had a very scarce amount of oxygen. After what seemed like forever, I had reached my limit. I could not endure anymore. So, I gave up. Enough deaths, enough suffering, enough sorrow. I lay down in the tiny space which made me feel suffocated and claustrophobic and accepted my fate.

"Is anyone alive?! We have come to rescue you!"

A ray of hope shone through all the dirt and rubble. I mustered all of my strength in my vocal cords and shouted.

"I AM ALIVE! I AM HERE! I...AM...ALIVE"