It Was Months Since He Saw the Sun

It was months since he saw the sun. He stayed in his cave, where it was cool, where the oppressive heat was subdued by shadows. The clammy cave walls were not unlike his skin, maintaining a fine layer of sweat under solar duress.

The sun did not care for the unprepared, unevolved, and undeserved.

He and the cave both endured its torturous energy. Their bodies and crystalline structures had to flex and breathe under its gaze.

Charlie Love had all but given up. There was little hope for a thirsty man scraping moisture off cave walls. Charlie jabbed the odd lizard for morsels and even spoke with them.

They’re laughing at me… He thought as he scraped a dark corner where he heard scuffling.

They can’t speak. He rebuked.

Yes, they can, you’ve heard! ‘ It’ thought.

“Get out!”Charlie said.

I have always been. It

“No, you weren’t here yesterday.” Charlie

“You don’t know of days,” Charlie said for ‘it’ as its laughter resonated in his head, coalescing into a storm of screeching giggles.

“Get OUT!” Charlie said as the internal sound subsided.

Go look, ‘it’ thought … Go see the sun. Hasn’t changed. Still defeats you. Still HOLDS US!

“I cannot,” Charlie said, reaching into the darkness, eventually allowing his face the cold cave floor.

He lied, cheek in ecstasy, conformed to his tomb, listening.

Tortured by his mind, he waited for the sounds of industry, the sounds of steam and metal. The noise of his West! Yet, silence.

You blew them up; why would they come. You blew them up. It said in his mind. The tracks, you did your job. You killed yourself.

“They killed me!” Charlie screamed as loud as his frail vessel allowed.

You didn’t have an escape plan. They never gave you enough water to get back. Why didn’t you think of that?

“ Because I needed to get out of that garrison!” Charlie said defensively.

Yoooooou diiiid… It implanted into his thoughts while its voice subsided.

Charlie lied back down in the darkness and peered toward what he assumed was the shaft to his prison. He couldn’t be sure of the cave’s exit; it’s been too long since he felt a familiar shape. Just then, a faint squeak snapped him back into consciousness.

“Screeeeee” Charlie froze as the second soprano sound reverberated through his cave. “Shreeeeeee-ting” A third!

Charlie immediately started scrambling for the wall. From there, he found the ‘stump.’ From the stump, he squirmed up the sharp and rocky slope he descended months before. While climbing, jagged spines of the cave grabbed his limbs and clenched them till the tired soldier stubbornly yanked loose. Every extrusion seemed to claw for Charlie, had it not been for his worn down cavalry helmet, he would lie dead on the floor.

There it is, his mind echoed as faint reflections became brighter and brighter. He arrived at a faintly glowing cavity. This room, although modestly lit, blinded the poor wrench, and in the haste of shielding his eyes, his right food slid into a depression, not unlike like his invigorated egress. Now with a twisted ankle and prolific despair, Charlie lied still.

Thought you could escape? His mind queried like it was excited at the possibility.

“Quiet!” Charlie said as the distant squeaking approached. More sounds began to filter into his dank gulag. He pulled and yanked his now broken foot from the gnarly trench.

King Alfonso sent you to die. His mind shot at him.

“QUUUUUIIIIET!” Charlie bellowed as ‘it’ snickered. “Find another vessel; I will be free, free from you, free from me!”

Your persistent coil is unwound. You are broken; thus, we are broken. It proposed

“No we! There’s no WE!!!!” Charlie said in pain as he pulled himself around a corner and into a forge of a chamber ten degrees hotter and stars brighter than his abyss.

The noise, a pattern now clearly defined as the persistent and inefficient wines of human machinery, was ever-proaching.

It’s a train, but you blew them up. Have you died for nothing? It asked again, anxious for a solution.

“They rebuilt it, and I will live.” Charlie said as he heard it say,

“Liiiiiiiiiive.” In the most curious of tones.

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Originally published at https://ficdiction.substackth