PERVERSE - Apply Fic

01

Ambrose wakes up cold. His hand shoots up, reaching the air. He realizes he is buried, face down, somewhere. Using all the upper body strength he can muster, he pulls himself out of the dirt, shaking it off him. It remains in his hair, a thick layer of soil. His clothes are dirty too, surely they will be stained.

He thinks back to his last seconds. He must've fallen asleep in the car ride, but he doesn't remember much. How did he end up out here, buried under the dirt? This must be another prank that Leander has pulled. That asshole.

Standing, Ambrose looks around. He is in a forest. The trees look like the knobby fingers of a witch shooting out from the earth. They surround him too, and he isn't sure what to do about it.

A few feet away, he hears a shout.

Barry wonders what has happened to them. They lied down on her grave for peace. They must have fallen asleep. Were they buried in the graveyard by someone thinking they were a corpse?

Ambrose rushes over, leaping over roots that reach protrude out of the dirt even though his body aches. He gets to the stranger and helps uncover him from the dirt, pulling him out. Ambrose remembers the strength it took him to pull out, but this man is buried deeper.

The man coughs, trying to stand but stumbling on his feet. His joints hurt, and he hasn't felt this kind of pain in his muscles in a long time.

"Fuck," Barry says, trying to catch their breath. The dirt compressed their lungs. They look up at Ambrose and grab the young man by the collar of his shirt, pressing him up against a tree. "Did you do this to me?"

Ambrose flinches, closes his eyes tightly. He can feel himself shaking, "no."

"No?" Barry says. His grip loosens on Ambrose but he doesn't let go. "Who did?"

"I don't know," Ambrose finally dares to peek at Barry with one eye.

Barry lets him go.

The pair hear a voice screaming for help, somewhere deeper.

Ambrose's eyes widen, "we need to break out and search for more people. Now."

Barry nods, and the two split off, running through the forest.

Barry heads for the voice, while Ambrose looks for soil that might be disturbed. It is dark, nearly impossible to see, and leaves litter the ground. He kicks at the leaves, trying to feel for something, anything.

When Barry arrives at the screaming voice, he digs out her shoulders and pulls her. The woman slowly rolls out of the ground, and she coughs up dirt that entered her mouth while she screamed. She wipes it out of her eyes, smearing it across her face. Her hands are still in Barry's.

"Where are we?" Audrey asks, holding on to him. Then, Audrey recoils. How did they get here? One minute, they were being beaten in chess by that old man, and now, they are just saved from being buried underground.

"There are others buried," Barry explains to the woman. "We need to split up. Some other guy found me."

Clare never knew what to do if they found themselves buried alive. They aren't sure which way is up. There is a cavern where their face is, and so they can breathe, and they don't want it to cave in. They squirm and feel the dirt shift above her. They realize that they aren't buried that deeply. They begin to pull themselves up, but their bullet-proof vest is far too heavy.

Audrey catches a glimpse of the dirt moving. She claws at the body with her sharp fingernails until she hits the bullet-proof vest. Together, the two of them stand up.