Free Falling

I had been walking through a dark, smoke-filled corridor for what must have been hours. My breathing remained steady, yet my legs had become tired, as if I had been wading through a peat bog. A laugh began reverberating from deep within the passage, getting louder by the second. As I frantically scanned my surroundings for some kind of escape, the corridor’s walls fell away, revealing that I was now in an empty cell. I started to panic, as the laugh reached an agonizing pitch. A familiar face materialized above me, his expression contorted with malice. My cries dissipated, as a splitting headache brought me back to the real world.

My head still throbbed, and as I cradled my face in my hands, I felt that the left side of my head was covered in dried blood. I was lying on my back, atop what felt like shards of rock. I was surrounded by darkness, yet I could feel the circular walls around me, and could hear the harsh sounds of a storm far above. I deduced I must have fallen into a deep and narrow well. The amount of rubble suggested it had long been disused, fit now only as a breeding ground for mosses and insects. Thoughts and memories ran through my head, but it was a struggle to completely recollect the events from the night before, when I had ran away from that dreadful place. I could remember the violence, the screaming, the panic. The well’s walls were sodden from the storm, with small pools collecting around the base’s perimeter. I thanked God (something I had not done in a long time) that I would at least be able to temporarily quench my thirst while considering an escape.

It was no surprise to me that my cries for help remained unanswered. I tried climbing the sides, fingernails vainly clawing at the weathered brick sides. The day before (at least I assumed it had only been a day) still seemed like a blur, yet I could vividly recall the kitchen, where my brother had been cursing the heavens as my baby sister cried in the corner. He had never been the same since the cursed smallpox took our parents away. He had always been the strongest physically, yet as the house fell apart around us, and our neighbors moved away to greener pastures, he turned inwards, becoming jaded and morose,  and attempting to curtail his feelings of despair with evangelical fervor. I came to view my brother as something inhuman, his occasional drunken rampages merely reinforcing the void that I felt existed between us. Soon, my sister became the only source of human contact I had.

Perhaps what happened the night before my fall was simply a consequence of my neglect, my selfishness. I had consciously let one of my own flesh and blood deteriorate, reaching a level of baseness that I had not thought possible. He had emerged from his quarters, a bottle in one hand, a crucifix in his other. His beard had grown primitive, eyes wild, teeth gnashing in a manner akin to that of a pit bull. He was yelling brutish things, about how nobody, parent, sibling or God, had ever cared or loved him. I approached him with comforting intent, but he lashed at my face with the metal cross, sending me reeling. That was when I was consumed by shock, agony - and the darkness. Clutching my eyes, I stumbled out of the house, running like a man aflame. The sound of my brother’s laughter was the last thing I remembered.

Left only with my thoughts, my body slowly weakening, I realized that my situation was now like that of my brother’s. I, like him, was now trapped, alone and blind, with nothing but the memories of happier times to console me. He must have longed for an outstretched hand, a guiding path, a way out of his indignant state. I drifted into another dream, and once more saw the face of my brother. He appeared as cold as before, but I also noticed weakness and fear. I met his gaze with a smile, and asked for his forgiveness.