The Best of the Brine

Her Box


Her eyes opened.

She saw, but was still in the dark. Her breathing was short, rapid and desperate. With shaking fingers, she clawed into the pitch black. A cry escaped her throat as she felt a fingernail break against something hard. In horror, she tried to sit up, but found she could only move several inches before her head hit against something cold and rough.

Hot tears began to roll down her cheeks, pooling next to her face. She sobbed for help, for anyone to help her. But there was no response. So she pounded her fists against the sides of her prison, her box.

What had she done to deserve such a fate? Her mind reeled as she coughed up warm liquid. It had a metallic taste, and she couldn’t recognize it at first. But after another moment, she realized it was blood. It flowed out of her mouth, down her chin, and welled against her shoulders, mixing with her salty tears.

She wondered how she had gotten in the box, and why she wasn’t in pain if she was indeed coughing up blood.

Memories, fast and piercing, punched a hole through her panic.

He had been beautiful, unlike anyone she had ever seen before. His eyes drew her in, captured her with their intensity. She tried to remember anything else but his eyes, but found she could not. But she remembered the moon. It had been bright and full, guiding her way back home. Her mind lingered there. Home was supposed to be safe, but safe it was no longer.

Slowly, her hand crept along her abdomen, up towards her chest. Then, her fingers found something that should not have been there.

It had to have been a nightmare, because it could not be real. The things that were happening to her were only in stories. None of it could be happening. It just couldn’t be.

Her fingers wrapped around the cold wood stake protruding from her chest. She tightened her grip, and then pulled. But there was no use, it would not come out. She was trapped like an animal in the box, in her box.

She gave one last pull, but the wood refused to budge, and that was when she noticed her chest no longer moved. She had stopped breathing, but for how long? Her lungs did not burn for air as they once had, but were indifferent at its absence. Her mind sluggishly tried to piece together what was happening, what any of it meant.

A scratching noise came from above, followed by shouts. If her heart could have hammered inside of her chest, it would have. But she was as hollow as a dead tree.

The top of her box was flung open, light shown down upon her.

“You missed the heart!” Yelled an angry man standing above her.

Another man knelt down next to her, he held a lantern to her face. “Who did this to you?”

Her eyes darted around, recognizing the faces, but feeling nothing for them. She clutched at the stake in her chest. “You did!” she shrieked.

The man with the lantern shook his head, as if he would regret his next move. “Finish her,” he ordered coldly.

Her vision became red, anger welling up inside her empty shell. She pointed at the man with the lantern as her fingers dripped blood onto the ground. “You did this!”

The first man leaned down as the man with the lantern stepped into the shadows, only his eyes visible as they glinted in the moonlight. The angry man took hold of the stake, his face twisting in frustration as he tried to move it. “We really put this in there good, didn’t we?”

As the stake was ripped from her chest, and just before it plunged back in, she watched the man in the shadows. Once again, she was captured by his eyes. They drew her in and made her forget what came next.

Her eyes opened.