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KALI

This is not a nightmare.

Nightmares you can escape.

Thump.

Thump.

Thump.

They always seem to come in three.

I scream and pound on the splintered wood. I know he can hear the fear coiled around my vocal cords. My screams. And each three thumps of dirt are a sign he doesn’t give a fuck. He doesn’t have any compassion for life.

Especially this one.

Except for one sliver of light between two warped boards near my stomach, I’m engulfed in darkness. In the little room I have to move, I focus my punches there, hoping it’s a weak spot and will give before it’s too late. The makeshift coffin creaks under pressure as I fall further away from the living and closer to the dead.

My chest heaves as I panic, depleting all the air surrounding me. I’m suffocating. My insides are screaming, my soul on the verge of separating from my body.

Thump.

Thump.

Thump.

“Bastard!” I scream. “Is this how you get off? Burying women alive?”

His labored breaths sound further and further away as he jams the shovel into the earth, and I pray that’s not the last human sound I hear. “Please don’t do this! I have money! I’ll give you all of it!”

I’m only twenty-two, and I have so much life to live. Nothing stops him until he’s finished. Until he’s satisfied with his job. Making me disappear. With a heaving chest and a tear-soaked face, I listen to the only person who can save me drive away.

And then the noisy world I’ve taken for granted disappears. Silence. I’ve been swallowed up by the earth. Literally.

Wetness coats my cheeks. Splintered wood mixes with blood on my hands.

My life ends tonight .

Seven days ago, I thought my life was about to begin.

I had a bucket list .

I pull in the deepest breath I can muster and scream the loudest I’ve ever screamed. But no one is out there .

No one is going to save me.

Or even miss me.

It’s ironic. I thought winning the lottery would change my life.

I didn’t know it would end it.