And yet, even under such ideal conditions, something still happened. Maybe an electron in his brain darted the wrong way. Or perhaps a wandering beam of light had tickled the wrong spot. Because at one particular moment, Noah felt an irresistible urge to roll over onto his other side.
But then his foot struck against something that had no business being there. Metal clattered sharply, the harsh sound echoing off the walls. Majestic, as though in a cathedral. The clang resounded several times before finally dying away. Noah’s eyes shot open wide, and he sat up quickly, trying to orient himself.
He had been lying on bare, cold stone. At his feet lay a toppled metal bucket, and another identical one stood just a step away. Beside the buckets, discarded on the ground, lay a wooden pole. And next to the pole, dimly glowing in the darkness, the screen of a tablet.
Noah blinked several times, staring at this strange assembly of objects. Two buckets, a pole, and a tablet? He didn’t know if they belonged to him. He didn’t even know why he had chosen to fall asleep in such an uncomfortable place (though the sleep itself had been sweeter than anything he had ever experienced in life).
And after thinking a bit more, he realized he didn’t remember how he had ended up here at all. It seemed that only a few days ago, he had been… somewhere else? But he couldn’t recall that place either. The sensation was strange and a little frightening—because Noah knew his head was working perfectly well at this moment. He had just woken up, felt refreshed, alert, alive. He remembered his name, his birth year, the image of his own face, and how to move his mouth to form words and talk with another human being.
Yet that was all the information spinning in circles inside his skull. That, and a stubborn sense that somewhere deeper in his brain there should be more. Much more.
He bent his legs and tried to stand. His body worked without the slightest problem, which in itself was suspicious. After so long lying on bare stone, one side of his body should have been stiff and numb, yet Noah felt perfectly fine except, perhaps, for the faint hunger gnawing at him. Unfortunately, there was no food anywhere in sight. Only the raw, dark-grey stone. A vast rocky platform, illuminated by a lone shaft of light streaming down from far above.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Noah squinted, trying to see beyond the edge of the light. But there lay nothing but darkness, and his eyes hadn’t yet adjusted, so he cautiously stepped past the bright circle, raising his hand to shield his vision from the blinding beam. It took several long moments for his sight to adapt. When he finally dared to look around again, his heart sank straight into his heels—just half a step ahead yawned a true abyss.
Jagged walls of grey rock plunged mercilessly downward into unfathomable depths. Calming his hammering heart and looking more carefully, Noah realized the chasm wasn’t particularly wide—perhaps thirty paces across. On the far side, faint light gleamed against damp stone walls, curving upward in a semicircle and merging overhead into a menacing ceiling bristling with hundreds of sharp stalactites. This massive grotto had only one source of illumination—that solitary shaft of light that had somehow found its way underground.
“Hey?!” Noah dared to shout.
“Hey??? Hey??? Hey???” the echoes snapped back at him, harsh and aggressive from every side. He barely stopped himself from stepping back—straight into the abyss. Hastily, he retreated to the safety of the lighted circle, spinning around in panic. The echoes eventually subsided, though even half a minute later, he could still hear a faint, ghostly “hey” returning from the chasm.
“Anyone alive?..” he tried again, this time much more quietly.
“Alive? Alive?” the echo asked back, curious now. Then, as though mocking him, it repeated the word several more times, drained of any tone or inflection. No other voice answered Noah.
The conversation with the walls was suddenly interrupted by a short melody. The tablet still lay in its place, untouched. Its screen still glowed faintly, and it seemed a new message had just arrived. Noah stopped scanning the cavern and stepped closer, lifting the device. The interface on the display was familiar—standard Android environment. At the top of the screen, a notification had just popped up, and Noah eagerly swiped his finger across it, desperate for some hint of who had left him here in this dark and dangerous place.
YouTube.com: “A Movie About How I Kicked the Bucket”
The title made his temples throb instantly. Somewhere deep in his brain, forgotten fragments of memory stirred. He recognized this style. Those were exactly the words he himself would have chosen to describe death. Not “I died,” but rather “I kicked it” or “I croaked.” The title whispered to him that he himself had made it, as if tossing a challenge at the rest of the world.
Only… he couldn’t remember if he had actually done so.
And then an ominous dread began gnawing at him.
Taking a deep breath, Noah tapped the link.