Page 143 of Hurt

Supporting her right shoulder with her left hand, Willow forced herself to sit up.

The darkness was disorienting. Her eyes were not adjusting, and the light from above could not penetrate the suffocating black. Shivering, she got her feet under her and stood. If she could see, her vision would be spinning. But with nothing to lock onto, it was impossible to know other than the nauseating swoop in her stomach.

Stumbling, she hit the wall with her back. She touched the slick surface and found some comfort in it. Finally, something she could focus on. With fingernails cutting through the layer of mold, she tried to order her thoughts.

Willow had no idea how deep the pit was. She was never good at gauging things like that. Experimentally she reached up and stood on tiptoes. Her fingers brushed against some of the natural crevices in the rock. She dug them in and tried to find a hold.

The sensitive nerves on the tips of her fingers were shredded against the callous rock face. Ignoring the pain, she continued to pick at the loose shale. It was coming, but not very quickly. And she would never be able to get a good grip.

She wasn’t even sure she could lift her right arm above her head.

With a sigh, she dropped to her knees. The loose dirt cushioned her knees. It probably saved her life. Burying her fingers in the soil, she brought a pinch up to her nose and sniffed experimentally. It smelled like fresh dirt. The kind that had just been turned over by a shovel. There was also something powdery in it. She could feel it sticking to her fingers and coating her mouth as she breathed in.

The Vega Cabal had dumped fresh dirt and something powdery into this pit.

“Why?” she asked aloud, startling herself.

Flicking the dirt off her fingers, she began feeling around for something. Anything. Hesitant at first, her left hand gained confidence as it brushed against nothing but air and loose topsoil.

She clutched her right to her chest, holding it steady against her torso to keep from jostling her sore shoulder. It was a miracle a dislocated shoulder was all she suffered. Willow hadn’t expected to survive the fall, but to come across without a single broken bone was a miracle.

Kurt had once told her that it was difficult to break a leg bone. Femurs especially were thick and hardy. She didn’t know why that knowledge crawled from the recesses of her mind, but she was thinking about it when her fingers brushed against something hard.

It felt like sandpaper wrapped around a rock. The rough texture on the outside was hard and unpleasant against her fingers. A strange texture, she couldn’t decide on what it was, but she could wrap her entire hand around it.

Willow tried to pick it up, but it was heavier than it seemed. No, not heavy. It was attached to something or stuck.

Scooting closer, she used both hands to try and pick it up. Her shoulder protested, but she could ignore it for now.

Something in the darkness moved, and she realized just how big the thing was she was trying to grab. Sighing in frustration, she tugged again and again until it gave, and she fell back hard, striking the wall. Groaning, she held her trophy close when a familiar smell tickled her nose.

Buried under the scent of rot and mold was a scent she recognized.

Blindly she ran her hands along the length of the object until she came to a joint that created an angle. Following the angle, she touched until she recognized something.

Toes.

She was holding a tibia.

Gagging, she tossed it into the dirt. It landed with a soft thud, and Willow vomited. She had ripped a foot off a dead body. Disgust mixed with anxiety, and her body purged everything from its system in the only way it could.

When she was finished, she was resting her head against the stone and breathing in the fetid air.

“Calm down.” It was an order.

Hearing her voice helped. Like a touch of humanity reaching down into the depths and comforting her. It was the light she needed in the dark.

Her whole body shaking, she pushed the revulsion away and reached for the bone again. It took her a moment to find it, but when she did, she realized the sandpaper-like texture was mummified skin. Whatever the Vega Cabal had dumped down here prevented the body from decaying naturally.

“Don’t think about it.”

Standing, she felt down the bone until she was at the bony bit that would fit into the knee. Wielding it like a baseball bat her adoptive father never taught her to hold, she swung it into the wall.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” she mumbled to the ghost of dead man or woman in the pit with her.

She had to do this. She had to get out.

Kurt needed her. Noah needed her.