She opened her eyes to darkness. It was a complete darkness, unlike the one in her room which would’ve been broken by the moonlight filtering in through her window, shaped by the curtains blowing in a soft, nighttime breeze. There were no sounds other than her shallow breathing and when she tried to sit up, her face struck something flat and broad less than five inches away. She sat back, stunned and blinking, the wet feeling of blood starting to flow from her nose. Her hands spread themselves in an effort to comprehend what was happening to her – but they too were confined, more walls surrounding her on each side, and one at her back, now that she was certain it was far too stiff to be the feather-stuffed mattress she usually slept on. It was a box, and it contained her from head to foot with little room left to move.

Trying to press against the wood, feeling its grain unmoving beneath her fingertips, her breath came faster and faster, surely squeezing close the small amount of space between her form and the box. She kicked suddenly, panic rising up in her chest, clutching her belly with cold hands. A scream tore lose from her lips, tearing her throat ragged as she threw herself against the wood over and over, pure animal instinct taking over and dictating her every action. It wasn’t clear how long this lasted – a few minutes to hours, days. Suddenly she realized the space she had been able to hit with her hands was beginning to break, as was the one by her knees and feet. Her hands were raw, the nails broken and torn; still she found the strength to continue. Suddenly something started to fall on her face, stunning her into immobility for a moment. She could taste blood on her face, mixed with this substance. It was moist, and smelled fresh.

Dirt. Dirt was leaking in through the holes that she had created in the box.

Anxiously, she started in fervor to tear at the holes anew, abiding the pain in her hands as she dug into the earth now falling into her face, suffocating her more realistically than the box had. It covered her, filling in the small space allotted in the box until she was half way out of it, exchanging spots with the earth. She had no time to think, holding her breath, the taste of mud and blood strong on her tongue. Eyes held shut, she moved through the earth towards what she hoped was the surface – it must have been, the soil was loose and moved too easily for her to be digging deeper.

The earth around her was even more constricting than the box itself, and now she was plunging into the darkness head on without a moment to think of what was happening to her. Each rake of her hands brought fresh pain from her nails, now nearly separated from her fingers. Rocks and other debris in the somewhat loose dirt struck her new injuries, but in her terror she could not afford to slow her pace. It seemed that this limbo would never end, that she must strive on or else relinquish herself to suffocation.

Suddenly her hand broke through the surface, air rushing into the hole it created. Her shoulder followed, then the top of her head as she raised her face to the night air, gasping in deep, full breaths as she paused for a moment. Her head spun, her eyes adjusting to the dark as she realized where she was. Stones, tombstones, rose up out of the dirt, her only companions in the dark night. Before the panic could overtake her again, she pulled herself up completely, slowly as the earth seemed unwilling to let her go.

She leaned against the stone behind her; presumably her own marker, fresh flowers already set against the words carved into the stone. Her dress – the dress she had been buried in, familiar but dyed a new color that wasn’t recognizable under the filth – was soiled completely, the lace ruined with dirt. Her hair was saturated, and her nails spoke of her ordeal more completely than any other part of her. Soon she was sitting, her legs still encased in the ground like a mermaid in the sea. She looked up, sleepily, confused and lost in what she assumed was the cemetery close to her father’s estate.

And then it all came rushing back. The women…and…

“No…”

She heard him before she saw him. Her love, the wheat-haired boy who had come following the women; she had not believed their stories, which had seemed nothing more than folktales told to scare children and to keep them in their beds at night – now it seemed she had become a part of them. In one hand, attached to a well-muscled arm, he gripped a white-tipped dogwood stake. The knuckles of his hand were pulled tight, white and red and painful. His eyes were red, the obvious trails of tears marking his face with his sorrow – at his loss twice fold.

Twenty paces from her, he began a slow walk towards his task. Her eyes went wide, whether with shock or terror she was unsure; she was still spent from her escape. Surely he would not harm her, but things were different now. Instead of turning to see him, she scramble to her knees, trying to crawl away from him as quickly as she could – which was a snail’s pace, her limbs unwilling to bend, her hands screaming in rage at their abuse, her feet caught in the dress still embedded with dirt. Suddenly he was atop her, one hand grasping her shoulder to turn her onto her back, holding her down to the ground, the other raising the stake and aiming for her heart.