Dark

• Amilia Aldred, Grade 12, Ingleburn High School -
• Short Story
• 2019

Excellence Award in the 'Just Keep Writing 2019' competition

It's dark; so dark, that I couldn't even see my hands when they were right in front of my face. Try as I might, I couldn't see anything, it was like a black void - endless.
When I moved my legs to stand, I heard the clinking of metal on the ground, which made me realise that there was a cold object encasing the entirety of both my ankles. I reached out and felt the metal that was holding me captive, and discovered it was chains. This caused a rise in my already high anxiety. To try and calm the swelling of the feelings inside me, I checked the length of the chains, and it seemed to be long enough to at least attempt to walk around the space I'm in.
Now that I was somewhat confident in standing, I brushed along the wall with the palm of my hands, leaning on it for support. As I started to drift along the wall beside me, I tried to do it as quickly as my legs could go. After a couple of moments of movement, my head struck something hard, but smooth. Assuming that this was the connecting wall, I placed one of my hands on it and started to move across the adjacent wall. Being careful where I laid my hands. As I kept close to the structure in front of me, I heard a clunking sound and almost fell forward. My leg was stopped from stepping further into the room I occupied.
As I went back the way I came, I noticed something odd. A part of the wall didn't feel the same as the rest of it. I knocked on the area to discover it was hollow. I began to be hopeful of the chance to escape the darkness surrounding me. The hope I felt made me frantically knock the space around, to see how far it reached. The more I tapped, the more hopeless I felt. What I found was only a small piece of wood that seemed to cover a hole. I didn't want to give up just yet and tried to remove the plank of wood. I pulled and pulled as hard as I could, so hard that I felt the pain of my fingers tearing apart. I kept going despite the overwhelming pain. I continued to pull until I finally succeeded but lost the balance I had and fell backward. Pain shot through my back, but even with the injury of the fall, I wanted to see what was behind the cover. I sat up and crawled to the light shining through the hole. I quickly kneeled in front of the hole to make it eye level. What I saw was people; people going about their daily lives.
I breathed in and screamed "HELP!" but what came out was a broken and raspy bit of air. I attempted to yell out for anyone to help. No one would because no one could hear me.