Sinkhole

I was sitting on the couch with my wife a few nights ago. We were watching T.V. for awhile, and she snuggled up close to me. She told me, "I love you." I smiled. I was very happy with my wife. We were married for ten years. "The baby loves you too." She says to me. She was four months pregnant. We were ready to have a legacy. I poked her chest and spoke "I love you both too." She was my life. She was all my love. She was my escape from the hell of my life.

I had met her in college when I was 21. I had been on the verge of breakdown, drug abuse, and suicide. I met her and everything changed. She listened to me. She helped me. She held me every night and told me things would be fine. Even when I sat in my room, contemplating killing myself, she sat by me, holding on. She helped me off the drugs. Kept me away. She would give me a son. She was all that kept me alive. Kept me happy, and soon I would have a son, something wonderful. I never understood why she loved me. I never was able to offer her anything.

She told me she was going to go to sleep. I told her that I would be in momentarily, that I would go get a drink of water first. I got to the tap and began dripping a cup of water. I got ice from the fridge and heard the door close to our room. I sat down on the couch, watching the chick flick she wanted to watch, a Lifetime Movie Network special. I drank my water, reflecting on our relationship. Everything. I smiled for a moment, cut off by her scream in the bedroom. I ran to the door and opened it. In front of me, our entire room had sunk in to the floor. Dirt was encompassing it. The baby crib I designed, our bed, our drawers, all falling into the ground as dirt covered. My wife screamed for me, her eyes tearing, her face in the center, sinking with her hand reaching out. Her face fell in the dirt. The ground had shook, but the house was still. The ground moved like a living being.

I screamed for her, diving into the floor. I didn't realize it was still sinking, the floor still collapsing around me. I dug with my hands. I dug into the dirt sinking around her, grabbing her hand and pulling tight. Her muffled screams in the ground I could still hear, calling my name. I screamed for her that I would rescue her. She was my life. I WOULD SAVE HER.

I dug my hands into the ground, getting deeper. I looked up, realizing I was three feet from the floor and sinking. The ground around me began to get higher, and my legs were sinking into the ground. I grabbed her hand tighter, attempting to pull her up with all my strength. I stopped hearing her muffled screams. I kept digging with my hands, kicking my legs in the dirt. I held onto her hand, it tapping and gripping my hand tightly. She would run out of air soon. She would be dead if I couldn't just save her. She could save me but I couldn't even get her out of dirt. The dirt fell around my hips. I was five feet from the floor. I could only reach up with one hand to the floor. The sound was getting louder, of the ground shaking and covering us.

I dug again, deeper and deeper, clearing dirt and rubble away, and finally saw her face, her eyes covered in dirt. She coughed my name, attempting to inhale. I dug, and kept digging, not even noticing that the dirt was covering my body very quickly, that I was sinking down into the ground... I would save her. I would save my child. "I love you." She told me. I kept digging. It was getting darker. Darker inside the hole. The light from our bedroom still shining into the darkness, but still dark. The dirt began to encompass her face, but I kept spreading it apart, lifting her up. The ground shook. Above us, dirt fell on top of my head. The taste of dirt in my mouth. I choked on it, as we were swallowed by the ground into the underworld. "You can't save m-" She attempted to say, before being muffled again. The dirt swallowed her face. This time, I couldn't get my arms close enough to help her. The dirt had piled to my shoulders.

NO. NO. No. no, no, no, no... I began trying to pull myself from the dirt. I would get a shovel. I pressed my hands against the dirt and pushed. I felt myself lifting up, and the dirt filled between my legs and the ground. I got higher and higher, but the ground was still sinking. I jumped to the the edge of the floor, nine feet up. I barely gripped the floor, Pulling myself to the top. I went to the garage and grabbed my shovel. I trampled over different objects, leaving a mess in my wake, but I had the shovel. A glass jar fell on the floor when I was reaching for the shovel, and my bare feet stepped upon the glass, embedding the shards in my skin. I screamed in pain but had no time for it. A second jar fell from the shelf and broke on my shoulder, sending some shards into my neck. I was bleeding. Blood was dripping from my neck down my body. I screamed to her that I was coming. That I would save her, just as she saved me. I ran back into the bedroom and stopped.

In front of me, the ground filled, only a foot below. All that remained were pieces of our bed. I screamed for her. I dug. I dug and I kept digging. Digging to the ground as it was still sinking, the ground filling up. I kept digging down to her. I kept digging until my vision blurred. Whether it was exhaustion or bloodloss, I passed out. With my breath, I felt the dirt hit my head, as my vision blackened.

When I awoke, my chest was collapsed, most of my body broken. I lay in a hospital bed. My sinuses were destroyed from the pressure. My ears ceased to function, destroyed by dirt and pressure. My jaw was broken, and I was unable to speak from damage to my throat. My left eye was crushed. All my fingers had broken, along with my wrists. My knees had bent the wrong way, my ankles were destroyed. The glass in my neck had yet to have been removed, placed in such a position that prevented me from speaking, but upon removal would kill me.

And I was only two feet away from digging to her. Two feet before I passed out and got this way. Two feet before the ground swallowed me up to my face and rubble fell on my head, the police arriving just in time to pull me  out of the ground. My body, destroyed, and my wife dead. My son, dead. I laid in the bed, looking up at the ceiling with my one good eye, wishing I had been buried alive with her. Or that I had committed suicide and prevented myself from meeting her, so this would never have happened.

At that moment, the floor shook.