The Coffin

They came in the night. Late February 24^th. Up to the house. 3 of them. All in black. Their masks covering the face of evilness that lurked below. They were fast. They were agile. They were silent.

Ebony took a deep breath of air as she arose from what felt like a bed of nails. She checked her eyes open once and then a second time quickly again. As she attempted to sit up she whacked her head. She could hardly move. Her hands slowly reached out to the left only to feel a solid wall.

“Ah, Splinter”, she exclaimed, rubbing her index finger.

Reaching up it was still the same solid structure she had felt before. She tried the right. There was more room this time. Her right thumb dug into something squidgy. She quickly pulled away. Continuing her search she came across wet as she moved her right hand down. Her fingers felt different ridges beside this damp object, sometimes there was just a gap before the ridges started again. Then her left hand started moving down. It felt bony and disjointed. Yet she carried on. However, it was not until her hand reached the end of its search that her heart froze. She was grasping the worst thing imaginable. Another human hand.

Ebony was more than awake now, desperately feeling around for her torch that lay in the back pocket of her jeans. She flicked it on.

She screamed piercingly, her pulsating heart leapfrogging out of her shivering jaw. Shuddering like she had a severe case of pneumonia, she switched the light back off. Ebony lay for minutes, hours, as still as what lay next to her.

She finally awoke again, prepared for any threat that was lurking in the shadows. She wondered how long her torch battery would last until she was plunged into total darkness once more. Grabbing her second and only other item she was carrying, and Evian water bottle, she quenched her throat, refreshing the Atacama Desert that lay in her mouth.

The torchlight came back on, Ebony’s surroundings were revealed. She wasn’t alone. She was now suddenly facing to face with a freshly dead body. She gagged. She could hardly breathe, clogged within what was about 8m² of space, which she had now just discovered she was sharing with somebody else. The stench of rotting flesh was now heavy in the air, almost burning Ebony, scarring her. Leaning over the decaying corpse, she felt again the solid barrier which she was trapped in.

Then it her, like a sudden gust of wind, it knocked her back. She was in a coffin. Yet she wasn’t dead. Pounding the wood hard she yelled hopelessly, no living soul would ever hear her from down there. She turned once more to the dead body beside her. She lit up the face. She thought she had seen it all. There was no torture worse than this. Nothing could ever scare her more than the horrors she had faced when she had first woke up here. Nothing. Ever. Until now. For what lay beside her was her sister’s body, her sister who has been telling you this very story you have been reading…