Chapter 1 - Awakening

Headache.

He could feel the pounding in his head before he had even opened his eyes.

He couldn’t remember having a headache this bad before. The aching seemed to start in one ear and pulse around his brain, concentrating behind his eyes in a searing pain that felt like someone was jabbing needles in his eye sockets.

He realised that he also couldn’t remember much of the night before. He couldn’t remember much of anything. Come to think of it, he couldn’t even remember his own name.

The sudden brainwave activity as he searched his mind for answers only aggravated the throbbing in his head, and he felt like his brain would explode like molten lava from a volcano.

“It’ll come back to me in a minute,” he decided, shifting his aching head to one side in an attempt to offset the pain. Perhaps some more sleep would give his memory time to catch up with events.

He tried to calm his thoughts so he could drift off, but something irked at him. He was sure he could hear a faint buzzing noise. An irritating little electronic hum, the kind usually made by a refrigerator, or a freezer, or some other similar household appliance.

He wondered if it was an alarm clock playing up, but he couldn’t remember if he had one in his bedroom. He couldn’t think what he had in his bedroom, or even what it looked like. He couldn’t think of much at all.

“Fucking headache”, he groaned.

Irritated by the buzzing sound and the pounding in his head, now unable to sleep further, he decided he had no other choice but to open his eyes and get up. When he did just that, he immediately wished he hadn’t.

Right in front of his eyes, just inches from his face, was what appeared to be a wall of metal.

The surprise sight made him raise both arms sharply in self defence, crashing his wrists against the shiny surface with a dull, metallic thud. Wincing in pain and with his pulse now racing, he closed his eyes once more and took a deep breath.

“What the fuck was that?” he wondered. Maybe his eyes hadn’t focused properly, or maybe he had imagined it. With another deep breath, he slowly opened his eyes.

The metal wall was still there. It was not a figment of his imagination, his aching mind playing a trick on him. It was real.

He stared blankly for a moment, before lifting his head as far as the wall would let him to peer down past the rest of his body. The metal went all the way down past his feet. He raised his hands and tried pushing against the cold metal, but it would not move. His mind conjured up a terrifying thought – he was in a coffin.

Deep-rooted fears of being buried alive swept over him like a tidal wave, filling his thoughts and crushing his spirit.

With his heart pounding in his chest, he lifted his still throbbing head once again to investigate. This time he was struck by the realisation that he was completely naked. Instinctively he covered his private parts with his hands, even though he was pretty sure no one could see him.

“Where am I, and where the hell are my clothes?” he shouted, to no one in particular.

Breathing faster now, he took stock of his surroundings. In front of him, a metal wall illuminated in an eerie blue glow by a single tube of light near his head. The wall wrapped around him on both sides, forming a curved shape like a cylinder cut in half. Below his feet, yet more metal. The same above his head.

Now the panic started to set in. He could see nothing but sheer metal. There were no handles. No latches. Nothing to grab or pull. No way out.

Trapped.

The mind is capable of such greatness, but imagination can be a dangerous thing. His thoughts  raced between wondering where he was, how he got there and why, to fretting over the amount of oxygen he had in his metallic prison and exasperation as to why he couldn’t remember who he was. He closed his eyes once more.

He tried to be rational, telling himself that coffins are normally made out of wood and not metal, and that someone surely would have noticed he was still alive before burying him. His head hurt, and he knew he was scared. As far as he could tell, there was only one option available to him.

He screamed.

He kicked his feet and banged his wrists against the metal wall to make more noise. He screamed for someone, anyone, to save him. For what seemed an eternity he did this, knowing full well that if he had actually been buried under ground then it wouldn’t matter how much he yelled or how hard he crashed his sore wrists and toes against his prison wall, no one would hear him. No one would save him.

Tears began to stream down his face as he struggled. He didn’t want to die. He still had so much he wanted to do in life, although he couldn’t remember exactly what it was that he wanted to do. He was sure he had dreams and ambitions, maybe he had a family out there depending on him. He just wanted to live, and to be free of his cold, shiny tomb.

As abruptly as he had started, he stopped screaming. He stopped banging. He lay still, cold, naked and crying. The prospect of death looming over him, he was in shock.

While he sobbed over his fate, a sound like the air brakes on a bus suddenly filled his ears. Fear gripped him even harder, as the prospect of the oxygen leaving his tomb and accelerating his death through suffocation filled his mind.

In desperation, he cried out for help again, louder now than before, a primal scream erupting from his very soul. The air brake noise disappeared, and he realised he could no longer hear the buzzing sound. All that remained was a deathly silence. Then the light went out, plunging him into total darkness.

“This is it,” he thought, “This is the end. I’m going to die.”

He lay still once more. No more screaming. No more banging. The realisation of his fate sinking in.

He shivered, and a single tear rolled down his cheek.

Then the metal wall moved.