Back to the Maze

Chapter 3

A week has passed, and still no sign of the "harrow". That's what I named the pig monster, because harrow is another term for torment... I've been working on my new home, and it's coming together quite nicely. Whoever I was before, I was taught how to do this. And I am very grateful for it too.
There was a hammer and nails, along with some rope sent up in the box with me in the other crates. There was also a few dishes such as: cups, plates, and silverware. And some soap , a toothbrush, and tooth paste. I've been doing my best to stay optimistic in this stupid jail I now call my home, but my positivity is running dry.

What happens when I run out of food?

That's not going to happen. I will plant the seeds that were sent up to me, and mate the rooster with the chickens to produce more eggs and kill some for their meat. I won't die I here.

I refuse to.

I basically have this cycle in my head of:

I'm going to die.

And:

No, I'm not.

It's the worst when I start to feel lonely. That's usually at night. I get myself to thinking. I think about my life now, and what my life could have been like before I woke up in the Box.

Sometimes I will think that maybe it's my fault that I'm here. Maybe it's a punishment for a crime I committed. Maybe I'm in Hell, and it's punishment for my sins.

But why would I forget what I did wrong. Am I not supposed to repent?

I settle on the fact that it definitely isn't Hell. But I still go back and fourth on prison. I don't think I was a bad person before I woke up here. Or at least, I'm not a bad person now.

It's so hard to build a house on your own. You have to hold all of the boards in place while hammering. And if one of them falls, they take the rest down with them.

I'm only half way done with the walls. Then from there, I'll have to build a roof. I could make that out of leaves, since it doesn't even rain, which doesn't make a whole lot of sense. I've had to get my drinking water from a little river in the forest. It's clean water.

I hope.

I have to pee in the woods. And I poop in a bucket they sent up with me in the Box. I keep it for fertilizer. It makes a klunk sound when you take a dump in there.

I laugh to myself at the thought.

I think I'm going insaine. I can't stand being alone for this long. I can't remember specific people, but I do remember people. I remember laughing and talking with them. I can't do that here. Not by myself.

Six days go by, and still no sign of the Harrow. I can hear him at night, what seems to be screams. But he's not alone. There's got to be like ten or twenty of them. They don't all make noise together often, but when they do, it's a horrifying sound that makes me grit my teeth. I usually hold my ears and close my eyes, hoping maybe I can pull the old "I can't see you, you can't see me trick". But if it comes down to it, peek-a-boo isn't going to cut it. I won't survive if I don't pull it together. Not here.

The walls of my new home are finally built. At least the skeleton of it. I'm going to put all of the bark I've been saving from my trees that I cut down on the outside. I only cut one window, located on the opposite side of the door, because it was too hard to make another. Anyways, I don't have any glass and I don't want too much open space in there. Just enough to watch the doors.

I build a ladder in order to make a roof. My supplies is running dry, but I'm going to have to make it work. The ladder only takes about an hour to make, and it seems pretty simple compared to all of the hard work I've spent on my little shack of a home.

I rest the ladder up on the wall of the house, and begin to climb. Holding on to the steps with one hand, and wrapping my other arm around all of the tools I'm carrying up. I make a few trips up and down, tearing leaves the size of my leg from their branches. I get about half way finished, when suddenly...

An alarm blares.

That sounds oddly familiar. I look over my shoulder to the source of the noise, and joy floods my heart when I find that it's not the stone walls, it's the Box. I rush down the ladder, grabbing my machete just in case. When I reach my destination, I peek inside.

More supplies.

"Yes!" I whisper. More nails, a rug- obviously for the carpet inside my house- another machete, and so much more. I grab all of the boxes out, and put them on the ground next to me so the elevator won't leave with all of my new stuff. I want to stay and look at everything, but I also want to sleep under a roof tonight.

The roof takes the rest of the afternoon to complete, with skinny twigs as support, and rope securing it together. I take the rug and place it on the floor inside, but it's a bit too big, so I cut the edges with my machete.

I place a few finishing touches, like making curtains out of shredded leaves, and a door out of the leaves I created the roof with. All I did was nail two of them to the top of the door, which will have to do for now.

I decide to carve in a thin chunk of wood all of the things that have happened since I got here. So far the Box came up after fourteen days. I tally the days at the bottom so I can keep up with it better.

I move my blanket and pillow into my house on the floor. Maybe one day I can figure out how to make a bed or something. I can a build a little table outside tomorrow so I can at least sit comfortably while I eat.