The first thing Abel felt was motion.
The world lurched out from beneath him without warning, and his stomach dropped with it. For a single, horrible instant he was certain he was falling.
Shit!
Air rushed past his ears, his body twisted in a way that made no sense, his sense of balance tearing itself apart as though gravity had forgotten which direction it belonged to. His arms shot outward instinctively, fingers grasping for something, anything, but there was nothing to catch. No railing, no wall and no floor.
"Wait, wait, WAIT!"
Panic struck immediately.
His mind raced through images in rapid succession. The night sky opening beneath his feet. Plunging into a black ocean filled with jagged rocks rising up to meet him. His heart hammered violently against his ribs as his lungs forgot how to breathe.
This is it. I'm going to die here.
The thought came sharp and cold and he began to question why this was happening to him, a relatively ordinary person. I suppose the crucible can choose anyone. I wonder if anyone managed to survive something like this. He let out a snide grunt in response to that thought. But then he noticed something unexpected. He wasn't dead.
One second.
Two.
Three.
But something was wrong.
The rush of air never changed. There was no growing wind, no building speed, no impact waiting at the end of a fall. His body spun awkwardly, his sense of direction completely gone, but the expected collision never came.
Instead, something solid pressed against his back.
Cold.
Unmoving.
Stone.
Abel's eyes snapped open.
Darkness surrounded him. Not the endless void he had imagined, but something closer. He could feel it now, the chill of enclosed air, the stale dampness clinging to his skin. His shoulders were pressed tightly against something hard, and when he shifted slightly, the sound of rough stone scraping against cloth echoed in the cramped space.
What the hell is that? Stone?
He wasn't falling.
He wasn't even standing.
He was lying down.
Flat on his back.
For a moment he didn't move. His breathing came quick and shallow while his mind struggled to catch up with his body.
The falling sensation hadn't been a fall at all.
It had been his equilibrium collapsing when the world changed around him.
Abel swallowed slowly, forcing his hands to move.
His fingers brushed against stone only inches from his face.
Above him.
Beside him.
Every direction he reached met the same rough, damp surface. The space was barely large enough for him to shift his shoulders.
A new thought crept into his mind then, quiet and unwelcome. A thought that made his stomach twist.
Carefully, slowly, Abel pushed his palms against the slab above him.
The stone didn't move.
His pulse quickened.
He tried again, this time with more force.
The slab trembled slightly.
And in that moment, the truth settled over him like a suffocating weight.
He wasn't trapped in a cave.
He wasn't buried under rubble.
He was inside something.
Something made to hold a body.
Abel let out a slow breath in the darkness.
"…Please tell me," he muttered hoarsely, pressing both hands against the stone once more,
"I didn't just wake up inside a coffin."
For a second Abel had a thought that disturbed him to his core.
What if I can't get out?
Abel's heart lurched at the thought of dying in a coffin. He still hadn't even managed to ascertain his surrounding environment, let alone locate a source of water or food like the crucible officers had suggested back on earth.
Scratch that, ill be lucky if I can locate a source of breathable air.
The reality of his situation was starting to sink in, and panic began to hijack his nerve system. He placed his palms on the roof of damp, coarse stone before him and began to push.
The stone slab above began to shake with a quite and eerie subtlety. But it did not move more than a few centimetres.
This isn't good, the amount of strain it requires to move it consumes the oxygen I have available too quickly, I don't think ill make it out before I suffocate.
Abel froze.
The stone settled back into place with a dull, final thud that echoed in the tight chamber around him. Dust drifted down across his face and he forced himself not to cough. Even that felt dangerous now.
Think.
His chest rose and fell too quickly. Each breath sounded louder than it should, scraping against the cramped silence. The air was already stale thick with the damp smell of old stone and something older still. Something that reminded him of old basements and forgotten places.
One thing he did know though, was that panicking would burn the air faster.
He squeezed his eyes shut and forced himself to slow down.
In.
Out.
Slow.
You're not dead yet, he told himself. Which means there's still time.
His fingers spread against the slab above him again, but this time he didn't push. Instead he simply felt it. Its weight, the rough grain of the rock, the slight unevenness where it met the walls of the narrow chamber.
A lid.
Definitely a lid.
Which meant something important.
Coffins weren't usually buried alone inside solid stone.
They were placed somewhere.
A crypt.
A tomb.
A burial chamber.
And if this really was a coffin, then whoever put him here had to be able to open it.
That thought steadied him slightly.
So it can move.
He remembered the moment before he stopped pushing. The slab had shifted. Only a little, but enough for a faint grinding noise to scrape along the edges.
Not sealed, then. Its just heavy.
Abel swallowed, trying to ignore the tightness creeping through his chest. The possibility he failed here and met an untimely end was highly plausible. And he really, didn't want to die.
"Alright," he whispered to himself in the darkness, his voice dry and thin. "Think, Abel. Think."
Brute force wasn't going to work. Not if he burned through all the oxygen before the lid moved enough to matter. He needed a crutch to help distribute the weight of the stone slab. He needed leverage.
Slowly, carefully, he bent one knee upward. The movement was awkward in the cramped space, his leg brushing harshly against the stone wall beside him. There was barely enough room, but after a few uncomfortable adjustments he managed to plant his foot against the underside of the slab.
Cold stone pressed against the sole of his shoe. Legs were stronger than arms after all.
Good. This is progress. Progress is good.
He placed both hands beside his shoulders, bracing them against the inner sides of the coffin for balance.
"On three," he murmured quietly.
His voice sounded strange in the confined space, swallowed by the rock around him.
"One…"
He drew in a slow breath.
"Two…"
His muscles tensed.
"Three."
He pushed.
For a moment nothing happened.
Then the slab shifted.
A low grinding rumble vibrated through the stone as the lid scraped across its frame. The movement was small, barely the width of a finger but it was enough for something incredible to happen.
A thread of air slipped through.
Fresh.
Cooler than the stale atmosphere trapped inside.
Abel sucked it in immediately, the breath hitting his lungs like cold water.
"Holy-"
He cut himself off and forced himself to stop pushing.
Don't rush it. If you strain yourself too much now you'll take too much time regaining your strength before you get out.
The lid slid back down a fraction when he relaxed, but not completely. Somewhere above his face, a narrow crack had formed. Allowing him to see a glint of light through it.
It wasn't much. But it was enough to tell him something else.
There was space outside.
Abel lay still for a moment, breathing carefully through the thin opening, letting the fresher air seep slowly into the coffin.
His racing thoughts began to settle.
Then something else reached him.
A sound.
Faint.
Distant.
Drip.
Water.
Abel stared into the darkness above him.
Despite everything, the coffin, the suffocation, the crushing weight of stone, a thin smile crept across his face.
"Well," he whispered hoarsely.
"At least the crucible kept one promise."
There was water somewhere nearby.
The sound came again.
Drip.
Slow. Hollow. Echoing somewhere beyond the stone that imprisoned him.
Abel tilted his head slightly, listening harder.
Drip.
There was no mistaking it now.
The sound carried strangely through the stone around him, bouncing faintly off what sounded like open space. Not the tight suffocation of packed dirt or collapsed rubble. No. This sounded bigger. Like a room.
Maybe even a cavern.
Hope flickered faintly in his chest.
If there was dripping water, that meant there was an opening somewhere. A crack in the ceiling, perhaps. Maybe a slow leak through stone. Either way, water meant erosion, and erosion meant time. If water had been dripping here long enough, then whatever place he'd been dropped into wasn't completely sealed.
Which meant this coffin probably wasn't buried.
Just stored.
Abel slowly flexed his foot against the slab above him again, feeling its weight settle against the sole of his shoe. The crack he'd forced open still allowed a thin ribbon of air to trickle down into the coffin.
It wasn't much. But it was enough for Abel to catch his breath without fear. And more than enough to try again.
He waited another minute, forcing his breathing to stay steady while his muscles recovered from the strain. The air flowing through the narrow gap cooled his face slightly, carrying with it the faint mineral scent of wet stone.
And something else.
Age.
The kind of dry, dusty smell that belonged to old places that hadn't seen sunlight in a very long time.
Abel frowned slightly.
Crypts smelled like that.
So did ruins.
He didn't particularly like either possibility.
Still, suffocating inside a coffin wasn't exactly high on his list of preferred outcomes either.
He drew in one more steady breath.
"Alright," he muttered quietly.
"Round two."
His hands braced against the inner walls of the coffin while his leg slowly straightened, pushing upward with controlled pressure instead of a sudden burst of strength.
The slab resisted him at first. But then it began to shift again. Stone scraped against stone with a harsh grinding noise that echoed loudly in the chamber outside.
The crack widened.
More air rushed in.
Abel felt the lid slide a few more centimetres before the weight shifted awkwardly, threatening to slide back down again. He quickly brought his hands up to wedge his fingers into the gap.
Cold air washed over his face now.
Real air.
His heart pounded harder.
"Come on…" he grunted.
He pushed again.
The slab shifted slightly further this time, the grinding echo ringing through the chamber like distant thunder.
Light slipped through the widening gap.
Abel blinked against it as the lid finally slid far enough for him to shove it sideways with both hands.
With a final heavy scrape, the stone slab toppled off the side of the coffin and slammed against the floor.
The sound echoed through the darkness.
For several moments Abel remained there unwilling to move a muscle. He could feel the fire burning in his thighs, biceps and chest. But his face betrayed the sensations he was feeling. Because he, had survived. A wide grin was growing faster and faster with each passing moment, threatening to run off the edges of his face.
Above him stretched a high stone ceiling veined with cracks and jagged edges. A sickening crimson light spilled down from the far end of a staircase reaching high above the level he was on, casting long shadows across the chamber.
He sucked in a deep breath.
Fresh air filled his lungs properly for the first time since he'd arrived here.
It tasted damp.
Cold.
And faintly metallic.
Slowly, Abel sat up inside the coffin.
The chamber around him came into view piece by piece.
Rows of stone coffins stretched out across the floor in uneven lines, some sealed, some broken open. The walls were carved directly from dark rock, lined with old statues worn smooth by time. Water dripped steadily from the ceiling into shallow pools scattered across the uneven stone floor.
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
The sound echoed endlessly through the cavernous crypt.
Abel swung one leg over the side of the coffin and carefully stood.
His muscles trembled slightly as he straightened, still recovering from the suffocating panic of a few minutes earlier.
"Well," he muttered quietly, glancing around the silent burial chamber.
"I guess this is home now."