A Game In Darkness

My friends encased me in an underground cavern for three days. It was meant only as a harmless dare; however that’s not how it would end. Focused on getting me to conquer my fear of the dark, my friends gave me a video game console to provide me with a small amount of light, a small jug of water, and a crusty biscuit. My friends are idiots. The console’s battery was half dead when they provided it to me so it can only last another hour. The jug contained only enough water for a day, if that. And the biscuit is moldy.

I think I did fairly well on the first day. I tried to ration the water so that I would have some left for the next day. I removed the moldy patches from the bread and ate it. Although I heard that fungi spread throughout their host, I wasn’t concerned. I figured that what I couldn’t see couldn’t hurt me, and I couldn’t see much of anything. I turned on the console after the first hour, at least I think it was an hour; I was left with no way of telling the time and no sunlight was getting past the dirt and stone that had been placed upon the hole I had entered. I kept the console on for fifteen minutes.

It was tempting to play the console since there was nothing else to do, nothing to distract my mind from the darkness pressing up against me. I ended up curling in a ball on the cavern floor and sleeping my time away. After waking and falling back asleep numerous times, I concluded that by now the first day must have closed and another had begun. Claustrophobia was working its way into me now. In the game of will, the dark was winning.

The dark was no longer the absence of light, but an evil entity bent on seeing me squirm and break down. I sat crouched in dark’s relenting embrace, felling the effects of the moldy bread on my stomach; it pinched and rolled until I had to take a swallow of water for fear I would throw the biscuit up. I sat not knowing if my eyes were still open or if I had already scrunched them shut in panic. I moved my hands along the rocky cave surface till they met the game console. I quickly switched it on and basked in its alien glow. I could sense my eyes constricting against my will to block out the harsh light. I found myself wishing I could force them to dilate, to absorb all of the precious light that I thrived on. I switched it off again after thirty minutes. Another fifteen minutes of light left.

Day two must be coming to a close…or was it? Staring at the pixelated screen had obstructed my sense of time further. I had no clue where I stood in time and space. I drank the last of my water seconds later, overwhelmed by the dark’s grip on me. It had me by the throat. It was trying to suffocate me.

Huff! Huff! Huff!

My breath came out in gasps reminding me of sound, of my own voice. I-I – my name! My name had escaped me. I scrambled around then, no longer concerned with conserving energy. I’d lost my identity in the darkness and I had to find it. My fingers clambered around the stony walls of the cavern until I felt the skin at the tips had worked itself off. My fingertips were bleeding and the pain was a reminder that I was alive, a solid form in this black mist. I relaxed then and my name returned. Claus. I was Claus Blackwell, thirteen years old, son of Vincent and Laura Blackwell. My breathing slowed and I settled down to sleep again.

*

Day three? There was no way of telling and as I awoke I now thought that perhaps I was still dreaming. Maybe I wasn’t really buried alive, maybe I was buried in the white bed sheets of my warm bed. The delusion dissolved away as rapidly as it arose. I had never had a dream in which I could feel pain and thirst and hunger. I never had a dream that I could wake from and return to on a whim. I wasn’t dreaming; I was in my grave. No food, no water, and surely I would soon run out of air. I hadn’t thought of that until now. I reached for the game console again and flipped the power switch on; however this time I didn’t just stare in wonder at the LCD screen’s luminescence. This time I played. I played for thirty minutes of glorious light, pouncing on adversaries, collecting gold coins, jumping up to bop my head into magical bricks. I played until my mind had forgotten my peril, forgotten my lack of necessities, forgotten the darkness.

As the console’s power indicator light began to flash signifying that the battery would die within minutes, I accepted that this would also be my fate. I’d die when my light went out...That was when I heard the shuffling, the movement of stones above me. My friends had returned. I didn’t die that day, but things did change. I became obsessed with video games for, as far as I was concerned, one had saved my life.