The Devil's Hole

Marcel

The first thing Marcel sensed was the smell of damp, freshly turned soil.  He would later come to realize, after the hopelessness of his situation began to drift in, that this smell didn’t make any sense; these walls probably hadn’t been touched for centuries.  The next thing he sensed was his heart pummeling at his chest. His ears throbbed with sounds of rushing blood. The darkness was so immense, he had to question if his eyes were really open or if the feeling that they were stretched wide was an illusion.  He felt the cold air brush past him in gusts like little hands passing over his body in a gleeful goodbye as he made his descent. It was once he understood where he was that the screaming began.

The screaming echoed off the walls right back into his ears.  He heard it with his entire body and it was deafening. He was truly unable to control the passionate pleas escaping his throat.  He screamed, endlessly. Tears catapulted from his eyes as if they were desperate to escape the noise. After at least half an hour, the screams gradually became softer and his throat burned.  He was thirsty but scared to drink because it felt as if the walls of his esophagus had disintegrated and the nerves were literally exposed.  

He knew he had water, because he’d flailed around and his hands hit the belt attached to his waist which was attached to the rope - the rope that was lowering him down.  It was a suede tool belt he’d become familiar with over the years and it held various tools, none of which he could see but he could feel a flashlight and a bottle of water.  In the midst of the screaming and crying and begging, he took out the flashlight and squeezed his eyes tightly. His finger slowly caressed the switch, his hesitancy to turn it on was increasing and he had to repeatedly convince himself that he should turn on the light.  He finally clicked the light on and peered around at his hell hole - once imagined in restless dreams, now a terrifying reality.

He was surprised and even more frightened to see the walls were made of stone, not dirt.  This meant someone had actually built this tunnel. How long would it have taken someone to make it?  

His sobs had reduced to soft whimpers.  He knew that Cyre wouldn’t be able to hear him and likely didn’t hear him when the screams first started - he was in too deep when he awoke.  He cursed at himself for all the missed opportunities to escape Cyre when he had the chance. The man was a monster and he’d made Marcel into one too.  

After twisting his body to see all of the surrounding circular wall, he shakily pointed the flashlight down.  As he expected, the light stretched far until the beam was swallowed by blackness. There was no reason to think he’d reach the bottom.  Perhaps Cyre would run out of rope. If this occurred before the bottom was reached, he was almost certain he would feel himself being hauled back up.  He knew Cyre was more interested in the mystery of the depths than killing Marcel; however, there was the possibility that Cyre was in one of his moods where he became very unpredictable and all previous anticipations couldn’t be trusted.

Even if Marcel was saved by that demon, he would die trying to claw Cyre’s eyes out.  He had done everything Cyre ever asked of him. His one request was to never be thrown in the well but Cyre had finally violated that pact.

Marcel held the flashlight fixed below him.  It was the one thing he had - to be able to see what was coming.  He expected bodies obliterated by the impact of such a far fall. He watched his tears drop through the beam into the darkness below.  He had never cried so much in his life - even in those first few weeks with Cyre.  

His eyes slowly lost focus and he let his hand with the flashlight dangle at his side.  He escaped into his thoughts, trying to find anything to distract him from his plight. He wondered if children could produce as much water in tear ducts as adults could.  He began to picture tear ducts from his treasured anatomy book; his tool for maintaining his sanity throughout the hard years under Cyre’s rule. Tear ducts looked like small tentacles reaching to pinch the eyes but never securing a good grasp or tiny crane machines rigged to lose their grip.  He tried to picture what his would look like. He started to imagine the deconstruction of his face; first, picturing himself peeling off his skin, ripping it slowly from the muscle underneath, then lifting the muscle to peer at the glands. There were the tear ducts, slimy and soft. He stared at his imagined dissection as if in catatonic focus and the ducts seemed to grow larger.  They swelled to the size of fingers and burst into a river of blood covering his eyes. He shook away the thought.