Depth

3. above

     She snapped awake, still lying on the ground, cold and stiff, but her eyes yielded no information. It was pitch dark. She blinked furiously, trying to capture any light available, but there was none. Her fingers were woven into small furrows in the rock wall next to her. She was grasping for dear life, the rough texture biting into her skin.

     Her stomach lurched again, reminding her of the ill feeling she fell asleep with. She turned to her side, expecting to retch. Her throat contracted, heaving nothing. Her meal had long been digested past regurgitation.

     She tried not to let her sickness or her dream get the best of her, but there was a tangible cloud of doom hanging over her. It was almost a visible apparition with how heavy it weighed upon her chest.

     Her eyes were beginning to flutter shut again. A beam of light flickered into view through the grate. She shot up. That was new. No subdued footsteps overhead. The light flashed through again. A flashlight.

     A couple of distant cries echoed across the field above the grate. Calling out a name, no syllables in particular, just a jumble of letters floating through the night air.

     It was quiet again for a beat.

     There was a murmur above.

     "What's that?" a voice said.

     It was a small voice. A child, reminiscent of the cries heard previously. The cloud of doom began to dissipate.

     "I dunno. Maybe, like, a thing for a basement for an old house or somethin'," another small voice answered, nearly identical to the first, but with a distinct drawl.

     "What if it's a bomb shelter?" the first voice asked.

     They were drawing closer, debating the possibility of the grate in the ground. It was innocent and pure, a beam of ethereal light in her cavernous darkness, shining brighter than the occasional flicker of the flashlight.

     She shot up and stood below the grate, not needing visual cues to know exactly where she was in the cave. Her stomach clenched at the sudden motion.

     "Hey!" She shouted.

     The flashlight beam fell on her face. Two short silhouettes stood behind the blinding light.

     "What the heck?"

     "Get help- please, get help! I was kidnapped. I've been down here for twelve days!" She shouted, unable to keep the smile off of her face, beaming at her strike of luck.

      Tears came next and she reached up and stuck her fingers out of the grate with reckless abandon. One of the boys wrapped a chubby hand around them and smiled at her.

     "Don't worry lady, we'll get you help."

     The other boy tried with great effort to pull the grate up, but it was no use. He whipped out a flip phone and dialed a number.

     "Ma? We found a lady in the ground when we were lookin' for Lucy."

     "Call the police!" She demanded, taken aback by the boy's choice to call his mother. She looked to the boy gripping her fingers, "Do you have a phone?"

      The boy nodded and pulled out an identical flip phone and handed it to her. She was dumbfounded by this decision as well, but capitalized on it and stamped in her mother's cell number. She was almost sobbing before she even dialed.

     The connection was shoddy, but her mom picked up on the fourth ring. Her greeting was frantic.

     "Hello? Who is this?"

     "Momma?" she cried.

     "Grace? Grace! Baby girl!"

     That was followed by mass hysteria on the other end, bouts of shrieking, her dad interjecting, more shrieking, which only accelerated Grace's weeping.

     By that time, she could hear the other boy speaking to a dispatcher.

     "Our dog got out and we were just tryin' ta find her and found the lady trapped underground. We crossed, like, two cornfields or so. My address? Oh, um-"

     The Jaws of Life followed a series of firemen, cops, and EMTs. Red and blue lights lit up the moonless night, along with yellow high beams and white work lamps. Questions upon questions flowed in that Grace had never been happier to answer with positive answers that seemed to concern nobody. Fluids were handed down, along with a shiny silver blanket for warmth and a Gatorade for electrolytes.

     The grate cracked open with a shower of sparks and metallic screams. The hole left behind was welcoming. A fireman dropped down into the cave and beckoned her. Three sets of hands also reached downward to assist, so similar to her dream but better than she could ever have imagined. The boundary was gone. Grace was free, doom clouds and angry stomachaches forgotten.

     A sheriff wrapped her up in cozy reassurances. He informed her that her captor had fled, having been pursued by vigilante family members that suspected him of cannibalism.

     Grace held those boys tightly and wept on their weak shoulders. By then, their German shepherd had come to see what the commotion was all about and she licked the boys' palms and Grace's cheeks, overexcited. A newsanchor had a cameraman trained on the boys with a mic in their faces until Grace was whisked away to the nearest hospital. 

     She found it particularly rude that the paramedics kept hitting her in the chest as she drifted into sleep on the most comfortable rubber cot she'd ever felt. A question passed by her lips, requesting she be woken when her parents arrive. Her eyes fluttered closed again and the dream with the hands was back, pulling her up past her boundary and far beyond, above the crows and into the unbounded sky.