CW: One suicidal thought/other thoughts about dying
The first hour passed in a wave of adrenaline and horror. Jeremy had been rigid in the concrete pit of the parking garage, staring up at a dark, makeshift slab of a ceiling that was far too close for comfort. His eyes had adjusted to the darkness, though there was a single sliver of light that came in, little more than an inch wide. He couldn't make out any details through it but he knew it was just barely big enough to wriggle part of his finger through. He listened, but his ears only seemed to pick up the sound of his rushing blood and pounding heart.
The Negaverse agents hadn’t returned yet but he figured that had more to do with the fact that he’d shot one of them enough that he needed some sort of attention. Being thrown in a pit in the ground and trapped with a giant concrete slab wasn’t exactly how he wanted to spend his night. The whole place was still under construction but it wasn’t abandoned. It wasn’t open to the public yet, so it wasn’t like he could even look forward to someone stumbling into the area any time soon.
So, he waited for someone to come back. He waited for that girl's face again. He waited to see her sneering expression, her angry eyes.
He kept his gun trained up as he lay flat on his back.
There was little more than half a foot on either side of him, and he had to draw his knees up just slightly so he fit head to toe in the pit. The hole he was in might have been just about four feet deep, he couldn't tell. His depth perception was deceiving him, and the throbbing pain in his head and back weren't helping. He could taste blood, could smell it. Could feel something sticky on the back of his head.
The starseed he’d plucked from the agents remained clutched to his chest protectively.
-
Three hours in, he managed to let go of his gun and wriggle just enough to reach his cell phone. There was no service, but he expected that. His mouth was dry and his body was stiff. Ninety eight percent battery. The station should soon notice that he hadn't come back yet. He could wait this out. His radio had been oddly silent since he'd gotten into the area.
Concrete and metal, probably. And being a few feet underground.
Jeremy exhaled.
He just needed to be patient.
It wasn't his best trait.
-
His phone was down six percent since he'd started checking. Six hours in, and no one had come.
Yet.
He couldn't sleep.
Those two could be back at any point in time.
-
Nine hours in, he was tired. His eyes were heavy but felt stuck open, burning into the concrete slab trapping him in here. He'd kicked at it some before, tried to shove it, but it had been a wasted effort then and it was a wasted effort now.
His eye had been twitching for--he didn't know how long. Phone battery was down to seventy four percent. He needed to stop checking. It was off, lying on his chest, next to the starseed. He held the gun loosely, rubbing his thumb over the safety, as he kept his arm down by his side.
He was tired. He was so ******** tired.
There hadn't been a single sound in the whole place except for his own breathing.
They'd be here soon. His patrol car was having GPS trouble. He knew that. But dispatch had sent him out, and while there were other officers that might have been screwing around, Jeremy wasn't one of them. He had a good track record.
His head hurt.
He couldn't think straight.
God. He could nap. Maybe just for a minute. He could set an alarm.
-
Thirteen hours in, he'd fallen asleep.
-
Seventeen hours in, he'd awakened with a start and sat up so quickly that he hit his head.
He'd thrown a fit, immature and unrefined, and kicked at the concrete walls, shoved at the slab, tried to jostle it in any way. It didn't budge.
He didn't understand how the girl could have moved it so easily.
He kicked until he was out of breath, and then he just felt stupid and tired and his stomach roared at him.
Patience.
Maybe something big happened in the city. Maybe there was an emergency they were handling. That happened sometimes, he knew that.
They wouldn't abandon him.
-
Twenty four hours in and it hit him that he'd been gone for a whole day. What the hell were they doing? How could they drag their feet so badly? --What the hell? Rage boiled in him and his mood soured. He was hangry. He was tired. He was hurting.
He was feeling really, really boxed in right now. He knew it was the middle of the night. He knew that the girl and her friend could be back at any point in time. His hand was on the gun still, but his grip was unsteady. His finger twitched, and he realized that he risked doing more damage to himself than anyone else.
If he fired in here, he was s**t out of luck. There was no way he'd miss himself.
He turned the safety on but kept the gun in his hand all the same.
-
Thirty two hours in, he was surprised his radio had any battery. There was a red light on it--it was alive, but it wasn't making any noise. He didn't know if any of his messages were going out, but he certainly wasn't receiving any.
The phone was at fifty two percent. He had tried calling, tried texting, in some desperate attempt to reach anyone. Nothing had sent. But. If there was some miraculous burst of cell phone reception, he hoped it would go through.
-
Thirty six hours in, Jeremy screamed until his voice was raw, until he tasted blood in his throat.
-
Forty eight hours in, he wondered if this was a bad dream. He went to sleep to see if he could wake up.
-
Fifty four hours in, his radio made a noise that startled him into full alertness. It was a garbled mess of words, nothing he could understand. But it gave him hope, and he spoke into it, desperately reporting on his situation and repeating the address.
-
Sixty hours in, the light on the radio went out. The phone was at forty six percent.
-
Seventy two hours in, it rained. Jeremy could smell it, could feel it. Some water trickled in through the opening above him. It wasn't much. He would have been ashamed that he licked it off the concrete wall if he hadn't been so thirsty.
-
Keeping track of things on the phone was starting to make him anxious. He spent most of his time in the darkness, waiting. Biding his time. He fought with himself, torn between staying awake and alert and sleeping to pass the time. He was afraid if he was too tired, he wouldn't wake up when they came looking for him.
...He was afraid if he slept, he'd miss them, anyway.
The phone was at thirty nine percent. He'd been here for seventy eight hours.
He didn't know how much longer he was supposed to wait.
-
Eighty eight hours in, he wondered if anyone was coming. He screamed again, but it didn't matter. He hadn't heard anything outside since he'd first landed in here. He clawed at the concrete above him until his nails bled. He tried to pry the slab back with his fingers, but all he did was cut himself open. He thought he might have broken his index finger.
It hurt, for a bit.
He fell asleep and forgot about it.
-
Ninety two hours in, his stomach hurt so badly that he wanted to curl up into a little ball and hold himself. When he tried to move, he knocked his knees against the wall.
They were closing in, he was sure of it. He thrashed until he hit his head again.
Sleep sounded pretty good.
-
He missed the one hundred hour mark, like it should have been some milestone to celebrate. Instead, he woke up at a hundred and two. He stared at the ceiling until his eyes burned and he fell asleep again.
-
Rain woke him up at the hundred and four hour mark, and he had never been so happy to hear thunder. At first, it was alarming; it was darker than he’d become accustomed to, like maybe all the lights had gone out, but lightning flashed and he realized that it must have just been pouring so much that the streetlights weren't reaching him like usual.
The water poured in more this time than it had before, but Jeremy didn't even consider that he might drown until the rain hadn't stopped after two hours. It had been great, at first--he drank so much that his stomach almost felt full. But then he felt an ugly wetness at his back and it made him wonder how long it would take for the whole box to fill up.
Fear clutched at him.
He'd dealt with darkness. With cramped spaces. With thin air. With hunger, with thirst, with pain.
With drowning?
Jeremy had never had a panic attack before.
He wondered if this was what Myles felt like when he'd come home late at night to find him sleeping in the bathroom, wrapped in blankets and pillows and hiding in the bathtub.
Jeremy would blame the rain for the wetness on his face. He wouldn't admit that he'd cried. He didn't like feeling this way. He protected the starseed and the cell phone on his chest, well out of the water's reach.
By morning, the rain had stopped. There was less than an inch of water in the hole with him.
Before he fell asleep again, he realized this was a good thing.
-
Good feelings didn't last for very long. Jeremy was fluctuating between anxious and hopeful and desperate and despaired.
Denial was hitting pretty hard, too.
The phone was at twenty six percent, but it said he'd been here for a hundred and twelve hours.
He couldn't tell if it felt like more or less.
-
Jeremy was staring down the starseed he'd collected, at a hundred and eighteen hours in. It didn't have any glow, didn't even seem to be special. It looked like a tiny, fragile, glass ornament.
Was it worth it? Was he going to die for this?
-
At a hundred and twenty hours, he realized that he was going to die.
It was a cold, somber realization.
Five days.
People didn't go missing for five days, not like this. He was a police officer. He had GPS in his car. Was someone playing a joke on him? --Did he so badly piss someone off at the station that they decided not to look for him?
He was too tired to be angry. He was too hungry.
He had been stroking the starseed for a while now, like it was some sort of worry stone. It brought him a little comfort. The phone was still on his chest. For a while now, he'd been turning it off and keeping it off for long periods of time. The battery was too precious. Even with his greatest efforts to conserve it, he was at nineteen percent.
There had never been any sign of a signal. He wasn't getting one. No one was coming.
The girl with the crazy eyes haunted his dreams. He'd hallucinated a few times already. Her. The man she was with.
He wondered if she was waiting for him to die. If she'd be back to see him before the end, or if she would only return to pluck the starseed from his cold, dead fingers.
He wondered if his life had meant anything. If he'd made more good choices than bad ones. He wondered how things would have been different--if he'd run away from home sooner, if he'd pursued any other job. He wondered what would have happened if he'd taken Myles with him.
He wondered who he'd be if his mother was still alive.
He didn't have this job because he wanted it, he had it because he needed it. Maybe he would have been an electrician, or a mechanic, or something else. Something safe. A normal, 9-5 job, where his brother wasn't always worrying about if he was going to come home or not.
He wondered if Myles was going to be okay.
-
At a hundred and twenty five hours, he thought about putting his gun in his mouth.
-
At a hundred and twenty six hours he realized he needed to say goodbye.
He could barely move his arms. His body was burning from being so cramped, and his whole backside tingled and stung from the constant weight. The phone was at sixteen percent.
He sucked in a breath and navigated his way to the audio recorder. He was squirming as he selected the app, but even then he had to close the phone for a while. It wasn’t as easy as just leaving a voicemail. He had to think about this.
What were you supposed to say when you were saying goodbye? How did you leave a lifetime of messages in a phone with sixteen percent battery?
He cleared his throat and tried speaking. His voice echoed, and rasped, and he found it felt like swallowing a very large mouthful of food. It was the sensation just before you choked.
For an hour, he practiced what he wanted to say and who he wanted to say it to, so he could get it right the first time and use as little battery as possible. Myles was the hardest. He didn't know if he should keep that for last or just get it out of the way. Of everyone, he was going to need the message most. He couldn't risk running out of battery at the last minute, so he started with the message for his little brother.
It was the hardest thing he'd ever had to do. Choosing the right words to leave someone with for the rest of their lives. He spoke, in a haze. He tried not to let fear creep in his voice. Tried not to nag. Tried to be a positive memory.
Myles had lost enough in this life. He didn't want this last message to be any more painful than it was going to be. He told Myles he was proud of him. That he believed in him. That he trusted him. That he was sorry for being so loud and pushy, but that he had only wanted what was best for him. He told him stories about their mother. He made sure Myles knew where to find all of their important documents and carefully--patiently--explained what he would need to know about paying the bills, the lease. Who he could talk to if he needed help.
To the very end, Jeremy was going to look after him.
He didn't know how to end the message, so he didn't say goodbye. Which was a good thing, it turned out, because he kept thinking of more things to add.
Myles wasn't the only person who he left a message for, but when he was figuring out what to say, to who, he realized that he didn't really have that many friends. But, he had a little time, and he was going to make the best of it. He went down the list, little messages for everyone. Erica was on his list, and Drew. A few other people in the station made the cut as well, but there was a certain tenderness when he recorded their messages.
He trusted those two enough to ask them to look after his brother. He trusted them enough to have Myles ask for them.
He even left a message, vague as it was, about how he wound up here. Just so they'd have something to explain what happened. It was coded; he couldn't just up and name drop the Negaverse. If Myles heard, he'd know. He left him another message to remind him to be careful.
Jeremy talked until his voice was hoarse, and the phone battery dipped below three percent.
The last message he left was for Myles.
He just wanted to say 'I love you' one more time. Just so he wouldn't ever forget.
Jeremy saved the messages. He wondered if he should send them, but they'd find the phone on him. He managed to get a plastic bag out of his belt and secure the phone in it, just in case it rained a little more.
-
A hundred and thirty two hours in, he tried to make his peace. He'd never said '<********>' so much in his life.
He'd gone through the five stages of grief before. It was weird to feel it for himself.
He wasn't going to die like this turned into being furious that he was going to die like this, which turned into promising to do whatever it took to get out of this, which turned into a melancholy despair, which turned into this.
This, the end.
His hunger faded and his body stopped aching. The water that remained in the hole with him was cold, but even that wasn't uncomfortable anymore.
He was numb.
It wasn't very comforting.
He missed his headache.
He missed food.
He missed his brother.
-
The phone was always going to die before he did. It made it to a hundred and thirty eight hours.
Jeremy stared at the dark ceiling and wondered if they'd be able to tell how many hours he'd made it.
-
At a hundred and forty hours, he heard the unmistakable sound of his brother screaming, and suddenly there was light, and warmth, and him.
