**There hasn't been a lot of concreteness in the last few chapters, I know. There's a lot of feeling and confusion and disorienting gaps, and Luz is barely intelligible. BUT... Luz was... kinda drugged, so... 🫠
❝did you say you were afraid of dying?
baby, i ain't lived a single day without you...
do you wanna come over?
i was just about to miss you.❞
☽
DAMP, CRAMPED, PITCH-DARK.
Luz, Luz, Luz.
I grunt as I shift an inch, disoriented, focus-blurring loss. My body aches. Time keeps... skewing, disappearing. Everything grainy and fuzzy. How long have I been—
Call 911, Luz!
Dirt loosening. Dirt trickling down, crumbling in a corner of my dry, cracked lips. Panic pinpricks up my spine chillingly. My throat convulses. I can't breathe. I can't fucking bre—
Luz.
Questions always on a reel inside my skull, stuffy and sweltering. Fears of a Mainer. How long can you survive in icy cold? How long before you die of hypothermia?
Luz!
Terror digs into my bones as I blink and blink and blink: flat-packed darkness. Nights in December in Maine. The sky inky, glossy, coal-black.
Why are you screaming at yourself, mi amor?
Paralysis.
Isolation.
I really love you, Luz, Jess kept saying, as if it could fix us.
Pressure sets on my forehead, heavy, blooming. My skin is itchy. Dots dance across a hazy-grey veil. Wood. Pine?
L...uz...
How long can I survive underground? How long before I die of asphyxiation? How... long before I—
"Luz! Luz! Luz!"
Somebody else is... shouting?
Muddied. Dull.
"Melo!"
I'd know it anywhere.
"Hey, you're—"
Drake, I cry, but I don't. Nothing will scrape up. Please. Fingernails pulpy. Palms scratching against splintered wood, pushing, panicking. Sobs wrack my system roughly. Vision dying darkness. I'm panting, retching—
No, no, no. No quiero morir.
HELP
"Luz, I'm- I'm sorry... I—"
Dirt breaking up; being clawed away, away, away. Pressure easing. My chest softening in a hyperventilating yelp. "Drake!" I cough, dusty-dry. I can barely suck in a breath.
"Jesus, I'm- I'm..."
"¡Rápido!" I choke on a plume of woodsy, dirty powder. Soot. Earth. "Drake! Drake! Drake!" Everything seems soggy and crusty-hardened. It's October, I keep remembering.
(Ground is nearly frozen in Maine.)
Trembling.
My whole world vibrating violently.
Frantic, as I shove upwards, kicking, elbowing, shrieking, pleading with Drake. Thrashing. My forearms a criss cross of splintered gashes—
Then...
YOU ARE READING
Dark Places
Mystery / Thriller[UPDATES ON FRIDAYS] It's been three years since Luz Melo left Portland, Maine... and Drake Medina. ☽ When her "borderline" alcoholic lifestyle in NYC falls apart, leaving her girlfriend in rehab, her grades trashed, and her scholarship revoked, th...
