Echo of Moths

one | cordolium

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one
cordolium | sorrow of the heart; grief
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THE MAN ARRIVES ON an afternoon like midnight, when his mud-laden boot tears a hole through my coffin. Splintered wood assaults my legs. Its sting penetrates my bare skin, where the tattered remnants of my gown offer no protection.

Foul language streams through the opening, baritone silk muffled by dry-rotted wood. I say nothing. Do nothing. My body, still as death, falls deeper into rigor mortis' grip. This man, with boots that have trekked through more than the fresh slop splattering my legs, will not save me. He will keep walking as all the others have before him.

His boot retreats to make room for the rain. Pouring, ice cold rain. It washes down in torrents, dampening the wood and filling my coffin with the earth's pungency. High noon has never felt more like the dead of night—like the very one when I was placed in this box to spend what remains of my life, and whatever lies beyond.

"Daddy! What's that?"

My blood runs cold. A child. Small, possibly male, with a voice too playful and joyous. I imagine my skin turning green as the ivy laced into the wood grain. It's simple to forget how easygoing some children can be. They have not suffered a fate of blood and pain and—

"Don't touch anything!" The man's voice is rolling thunder.

A small hand no sooner enters the splintered hole when it is pulled away by one much larger. Calloused. Dirt-encrusted. Lightning flickers, and from the opening, ghastly fingers slither along the shards. I blink, and they're gone.

In their place is a scream. One so deep and weighted with dread that it can only belong to the man.

His shadow blocks the hole where his foot penetrated. It fills the coffin with darkness so suffocating that the occasional lightning strike burns my retinas. I wince at the pain, and my legs jolt from post-mortem stillness. Sharp wooden fragments paint crimson trails across my flesh.

The man's rugged fingers curl under the edge of the hole. "Can you hear me? I'll get you out!"

If you're alive, I swear I hear him mutter, words lost on the wind.

It isn't until the breath hitches in my chest that I realize I've been breathing at all. I grasp at my torn clothing with stiff, trembling fingers. Everything aches. My spine rocks against the bottom of the coffin, not bothered to be lined with bedding or even a pillow to shield my scalp from splinters. Moss, vine, and bone brush her skin with every movement. Chrysanthemum petals wither alongside my body, their earthy scent lost to time.

Snapping wood rains an onslaught of slivers. The man rips away a section of my coffin's lid with a grunt.

Whether it is the shard or his foot that slams the ground above, I'm not sure. "Too damn slow..."

It's been ages since I've heard a voice so driven with worry rather than malice. The last one...

My mind goes blank. Who was the last voice I heard, filled with sadistic glee as I was nailed into my prison? The sound of hammering against wood still fills my senses as a blurred face hums and grins, as if this person wasn't sealing me away to rot. I was only twenty, with an entire life before me, though every detail is fuzzier than the last, fading behind the silhouette of the one who drove it to an early end.

Thump, thump, thump.

Each nail matches my heartbeat, the hammer a weight against my chest. Cracking ribs, filling my lungs with blood and mind with panic. Swirling, maelstrom panic.