Opituary

Two hundred and thirteen tries. I now stand at the edge of the pit, elated to have escaped after being trapped for so long. The pit itself looks to be about twenty feet deep with stone walls. The winter air is cold, but it feels good after the brutal climb. I look towards the woods. I can go. Leave this place forever. Forget about it and move on, but I can’t. She’s still down there.

I lean over the side of the pit. “Hey!” I shout. “I did it! It’s possible!” We had been stuck in the pit for days now, surviving on melted snow. She’s laying down and staring at the wall, a small rock in her hand as she draws a picture on the stone surface.

“I can’t,” she says. Her voice is raspy and tired.

“What? What do you mean you can’t? I made it. I’m proof that it’s possible.”

“You’re stronger than I am. I can’t do it.” She sounds so sad. Where is the spirit I remember?

“You’re stronger than you know. Please, get up.”

“The walls are too slick. I’d fall halfway up."

“Then dry your hands on your clothing, or find a dry spot in the rocks. If you get close enough I can pull you up.”

“Even if I got up, there isn’t anything to see out there.”

“What!? There are trees everywhere, and the snow is fresh and shimmering in the light. The sun looks magnificent right now. I can hear birds chirping! My god, it’s all beautiful! We could run to the border and make new lives for ourselves! We could travel and do all the things we dreamt of when we were little!”

“I’ve seen birds before. I’m not interested.” She hasn’t noticed my cut forearms and bloodied fingers. She just stares at the wall.

“There’s freedom up here!”

“I’m good.”

“I’m up here.”

“That’s good for you.” A chip falls off my heart.

“Please, just get up! I can help you, I know what it’s like!”

“No, you don’t! You’re stronger than I am. I’m broken.” She motions to her twisted ankle. She hasn’t noticed my scraped shins and bruised face.

“I know it hurts, but you have to get up!”

“I tried at least fifty times, I’m done getting up.” Her voice swells with defiance.

“You’ll die in there!”

“I’ll die out there too.”

“Please just get up!”

“It’s not worth the effort.”

“There’s so much to do!”

“There’s nothing for me out there.”

“So everything for you is in there!?”

“Just leave me alone! I’m done.” She continues drawing on the wall. The chip becomes a crack.

“You can’t stay there, you’ll die! Please, just get up!” She says nothing. “Fine, I’ll get help, just hold on.”

I walk for miles until I find an abandoned farm. There’s no food or blankets, but inside the shed is a fair amount of rope. Legs weak from exhaustion, I stumble back towards the pit. When I arrive, I tie the rope around a tree and toss the rest into the pit. The rope stops about 6 feet from the bottom.

“Grab the rope!” She looks at escape as if it wasn’t even there, and goes back to staring at the wall.

“Please, just grab the rope!”

“It won’t support me.”

“I don’t want to go back down there. Please, don’t make me go back down there.” She continues to stare at the wall. The crack turns into two. I rappel back down the rope and into the pit. I want to run from this place, but I can’t go without her. I reach the bottom and she’s still laying on the ground.

“It supported me coming down, it will support you going up. Can we please go now?”

“Are you stupid,” she says, rising shakily to stand on one foot as if to prove a point. “I can’t climb the rope. My ankle is busted and you expect me to climb with just my arms?”

“Then I’ll carry you up.”

“It won’t support both of us.”

“How do you know that?”

“Just leave me alone!”

“Why won’t you let me help you!?”

“Because I don’t remember asking for it!” I feel the cracks form a spider web. I slap her hard and she sinks back down. The mud from my fingertips leave streaks on her face. I look at the picture she had been drawing earlier and finally recognize what it is. A gravestone with the letters R.I.P and her name engraved in the middle. There are little flowers surrounding the bottom and crows perched atop it. I feel tears well up in my eyes.

“What is this?” I ask. She says nothing. “What is this!?” I yell.

“I’m done. I’m so tired of running. Just go.” The spider web shatters into fragments. I can’t bear to look at her. I don’t understand what happened in the pit, but I know there’s nothing to do about it. I reach for the rope.

“I can’t ask you to stay,” she whispers. A gust of rage scatters the fragments.

“Then don’t.”

“It’d be nice though. We could forget the world for a bit. No more running, or guards, or wolves, or anything like that. It would be just the two of us. Holding each other like we used to. I can’t run anymore. If they found us, I’d slow you down. We’d both get caught. Even if we made it to the border, there’s no guarantee they’d let us stay. They would send us right back if they ever found out.” There’s nothing left to break.

“Then I’ll make you a sled!” I yell. “I’ll splint your ankle! I’ll get us food, and we’ll hide until it’s safe! I know people at the border! They need me... I need you. We’re so close!

She moves her head slowly back and forth. “We won’t make it. We’ll end up right back wher-“

“You can’t say that with such certainty!”

“And neither can you!” Her voice is venom at first but quickly softens. “Everything seemed so possible back then. Now our goals feel as much a fantasy as anything I could dream of in here.” I pause for a moment. I sit down next to her and put my head on her shoulder.

“Do you remember when we used to stay up late, talking about dreams we had of the outside world? Whispering through the pipes just loudly enough so we could hear each other without attracting suspicion?” I feel her head nod up and down. “We would talk for hours about what we wanted to do when we got back. How we would escape. One day we realized the escape dream was good enough to act on. It seemed crazy at first, but look how far that dream got us.”

“I’ll kill you. I can’t go any further. I’m tired of running.”

“I can’t do it alone. I can’t trade one prison for another. I’m tired of dreaming.”

“We won’t make it together.”

“And we won’t make it alone.”

“So we’re fucked.”

I laugh dryly. “I guess.”

We sit for an hour or so. We watch the snow float in through the cavern and melt on the dirt floor while the sunlight glistens on the damp walls. I can hear birds chirping from above, despite not having heard them before. I stare at the charcoal drawing for a while. It’s not a bad drawing at all. It’s almost kind of pretty. Hypnotic, even. Maybe I should stay.

“You need to go,” she says. There’s nothing left to break.

“I know.”

“They need you. I’ve kept you for long enough.”

“It’s okay.” I go to stand up, but she stops me for a moment.

“Take this.” She hands me a half heart of a locket. It has my face in it. The other half I lost somewhere in the woods while running from the guards. The lost half had her face in it. “Don’t lose this one.”

“I won’t.” Something new to break. On second thought, no. I can’t break a memory. Not one like this. Not even when it hurts.

I kiss her on the cheek one last time before I get up to grab the rope. I look back to see tears roll down her face. She smiles.

“I’ll be waiting for you, love,” she says. I hold up her locket half.

“You’ll be with me always,” I reply.

I climb the rope knowing that it will be the last time I see her face. We fell into the same hole, and yet somehow, it ended up swallowing her completely: heart, soul, face, and all.