He was walking home after midnight when the ground gave way beneath him.
There was no warning. One moment he was on the road, and then he was several meters below it, lying on wet dirt. The whole thing was scary and spooky enough that for a few seconds he just stayed there, trying to understand what had happened.
He stayed there for a while.
When he tried to stand, his leg hurt, but it seemed to be working. He looked up at the opening. It wasn’t very wide, but it was too high to reach.
He shouted.
Nothing happened.
He shouted again.
Still nothing.
He took out his phone. There was no signal.
He was putting it away when something touched the back of his neck.
He turned around.
There was nothing there.
A few seconds later, something grabbed his ankle.
He pulled his leg away and fell over. Another hand caught him.
When he looked up, there were people standing nearby.
At least, they looked like people.
He couldn’t see them well. There wasn’t enough light.
One of them came closer.
Its face was pale. The eyes were difficult to see.
He reached out.
His hand went through its arm.
He pulled back.
After that, he tried to get away from them.
They didn’t seem interested in letting him.
He kept moving until his back hit the wall.
Someone touched his shoulder.
Someone else grabbed his leg.
Then he heard a word.
Stay.
He couldn’t tell where it came from.
He tried climbing.
The dirt broke apart in his hands. He managed to get a little higher before something caught his leg.
He looked down.
One of them was holding him.
He kicked at it, lost his grip and fell.
After that he didn’t try again for some time.
The things stayed around him.
They didn’t talk. At least, not in any way he could hear.
He asked them questions anyway.
Who are you?
What do you want?
Nothing.
At some point his hands were tied behind his back. He wasn’t sure when it happened. The cloth came from his shirt.
He kept pulling at it.
It didn’t come loose.
He spent most of the next few hours sitting against the wall.
He was thirsty.
That seemed to bother him more than anything else.
Whenever he heard a car above, he shouted.
Once, someone must have been close.
He could hear an engine for several seconds.
It went away.
Nobody looked down.
When the sun came up, he could see the pit better.
The people were still there.
They looked worse in the daylight.
Their skin was very pale. Some of them had marks on their faces. He couldn’t make sense of what he was seeing.
One of them sat across from him.
He thought he recognized the face.
He kept looking at it.
After a while he remembered a funeral from years before.
He wasn’t sure if it was the same person.
He didn’t ask.
Later, he tried climbing again.
He didn’t get far.
Three of them caught him and pulled him back.
He fell badly.
There was a sound from his leg.
After that, he couldn’t stand.
He stayed on the ground.
The days became difficult to separate.
He slept when he could.
He woke up hungry.
Sometimes he woke because something was touching him.
Sometimes he heard the same word.
Stay.
He stopped trying to figure out where the voices came from.
He also stopped looking at his phone.
The battery had been dead for some time.
He thought about the road above.
He thought someone might eventually notice him.
He didn’t know if anyone did.
His leg became useless.
His throat was too sore for shouting.
Eventually he couldn’t remember how many nights had passed.
The things were still there.
They had not left once.
Near the end, he stopped reacting when they came close.
One of them sat beside him.
It stayed there for a long time.
He opened his eyes once and looked at it.
Then he closed them again.
There was a hand on his chest.
After that, there isn’t much to say.
The road above continued to be used.
Cars passed over the place.
The hole remained there.
Nobody seemed to notice what was underneath.
The things remained in the pit.
Whether they had been there before him was impossible to know.
