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Mac blinked awake slowly, and then blinked a few more times as a frown creased his face. He almost wasn’t sure if he had woken up, if not for the pounding in his head. He couldn’t make out anything in front of him. The air was stuffy. Mac brought a hand up to feel his eyes—perhaps he had a blindfold—but hit something solid not even a few inches in front of his face. Slowly, with his heart in his throat, his hands moved along the flat surface in front of him until they reached the narrow sides next to him, and panic nearly choked him.
A coffin.
He was in a coffin, and the smell of dirt was distinctive now that he knew what it was. His chest heaved as his breathing quickened against his will, and his hands clawed and beat at the wooden planks.
“HEY!” Mac screamed, even as an urgent voice in the back of his head warned him not to use up his air. His fists pounded on the wood desperately and his back arched to filled the small space as he writhed back and forth violently. Dirt filtered down into his mouth and eyes. “HEY, LET ME OUT! HELP ME!”
It took precious minutes for him to regain his wits. When he did, and once he was able to take a shallow breath of the stuffy air, he berated himself for wasting so much oxygen. Doing his best to keep his breathing even, he carefully felt around the box. Mercifully, it was just a cheap wooden box, and not a thick mahogany coffin. A small bump stuck out from the lid. A camera, Mac realized with a surge of anger and disgust. As if it wasn’t bad enough that he was literally buried alive . He hit it hard with the heel of his hand, but it didn’t budge. He scowled and tried to ignore it.
“Okay, think, Mac, think,” he muttered to himself. His voice came out a few pitches higher than it usually did. At least it’s not heights, Jack would say to try and lighten the mood if he were stuck with him. The thought made a hysterical laugh bubble up in Mac’s chest, but his mind stayed a blank slate of fear. He couldn’t even remember the periodic table.
“I’m gonna to die,” he whispered. He tried to even his breathing, but the tears leaking down the side of his face didn’t help matters much. “I’m gonna to die, I’m gonna to die.”
Snap out of it, hoss, he could imagine Jack saying. He forced himself to take a steadying breath. Selfishly, he found himself wishing for Jack. His mind was clearer with Jack to keep him on track.
“What would Jack say?” Mac muttered. “Breathe. Think. No pressure, but people will die if you don’t.” Except right now, Mac was the only person who would die, and that wasn’t quite enough motivation to jumpstart his brain. He chewed on his lip anxiously.
“Okay, okay.” He let out a shuddering breath. “What would I tell Jack if he was the one stuck here?”
Suddenly, his mind switched gears and pulled up everything he’d ever learned about being buried alive so fast it almost overwhelmed him.
“That’s more like it.”
He dug in his pockets and almost cried from relief. They didn’t take his knife, and Mac knew there had to be a God, no matter how ironic the realization was to have while six feet under the ground. With shaking hands, he opened the corkscrew, and in a matter of minutes, he had worked a hole between the boards. He paused his work as dirt fell into his face and slowly pulled his shirt up so it was inside out over his head. The bottom of the coffin was rough against his bare skin. He almost got stuck when he tied off his shirt above his head, but he wriggled back to his original position and found his knife again. His eyes and airways protected, he continued.
Eventually, Mac worked the boards enough that dirt was surging in with a suffocating, panic inducing pressure that made him want to scream until his lungs were spent. He pushed the dirt down to his feet until he could pull himself into a sitting position in the box. Then, slowly, fearing any wrong move could cause negative effects, he began to move upwards through the sea of dirt.
It was slow progress, and several times Mac genuinely thought he would suffocate and die halfway to the top. But then, his hand broke through the dirt and was grabbed by a strong one, and in a matter of seconds, he had been pulled to the surface. Mac crawled to his hands and knees and ripped the shirt off his face, coughing so hard he gagged, sucking in gulps of air. Shouting voices swirled overhead. The hand was still clutching his wrist, and another one was rubbing his back. Instinctively, he knew whose they were, despite the fact that he kept his eyes screwed shut again the bright sunlight.
“It’s okay, hoss, just breathe.”
A bottle of water was pressed to his lips, and he drank greedily. It was pulled away too soon.
“You’re okay. It’s okay, we’ve got you. You’re okay.” Jack sounded like he was trying to reassure himself more than Mac.
“Jack,” Mac croaked. Tears flooded his closed eyes, and for the first time since he woke, he allowed himself to fully feel to the horror of the situation he’d been in. “ Jack .”
“Yeah, I’m here. You’re okay now,” Jack said.
Mac managed to crack his eyes open, and once he’d blinked the blurry tears away, he could make out the grass and his own hand supporting his weight in front of him. The hand that still held his wrist was packed with dirt under the ragged fingernails and smeared with blood. Jack had been digging for him. The thought brought a strong wave of emotions that tightened the back of his throat. His own filthy hands fisted into Jack’s t-shirt. You found me, he wanted to say, overwhelmed by relief. You found me. You found me. All that left his mouth was a choked noise.
“I’ve got you,” Jack said. He held Mac unsurely, as if he were afraid of closing him in too soon. The shouting voices continued to encircle them. Jack’s voice wavered. “I’m sorry I took so long. I’m sorry.”
Mac let out a shuddering breath and tried to collect himself long enough to comfort Jack, but fresh waves of nausea and lingering panic rolled over him over and over in a vicious cycle, leaving him unable to do more than press himself into Jack’s chest. Jack’s hands hovered a moment before his resolve broke, and he wrapped Mac in one of the tightest hugs he’d ever received. Completely exhausted and still shaken, Mac ignored the nagging anxiety in his brain from behind enclosed on all sides again and allowed himself to sag into Jack. A few tears fell from his eyes, and then a few more, and before he could fully understand, his breath hitched, and horrified sobs flew into Jack’s dirt stained shirt.
“Oh, Mac,” Jack said, sounding as if his heart was breaking. Mac wanted nothing more than to pull himself upright and slap on a smile for Jack’s benefit, but he was long past the point of no return—besides, Mac was sure that he’d earned a moment of complete, broken down vulnerability after everything that had happened.
“MAC!” Riley’s voice screamed, sounding far away, but then she was clutching his arm in only a few seconds and panting hard. “I—they—I tried to—are you okay? I—I know that’s a stupid question, but—shit, Mac .”
Mac did pull himself up for Riley and made an effort to wipe at his face.
“Yeah, I’m—I’m okay,” he said hoarsely. Riley’s own face was pinched and streaked with mascara, and she busied herself with dunking a towel with a bottle of water and cleaning the dirt off of Mac’s face.
“Riley managed to get your location from the video feed,” Jack explained. “They sent us a link…” his voice choked off at the end, and a set of tears slipped down Riley’s face. Shame coiled in Mac’s stomach at the thought of his friends seeing his panic, but it was overridden by a selfish voice. Good , it said firmly. They know. It will be better, now. You won’t have to lie, now.
A medical team showed up a few minutes later, and then everything was a whirlwind of questions and bustling people and too-bright lights in his eyes, until eventually, he was laying on the gurney with an oxygen mask and trying not to think about how much the ambulance seemed like a coffin. Jack gripped him so tightly that Mac wasn’t sure he would ever be allowed use of his left hand again. It didn’t take long at all for Mac’s eyes to flutter shut, but he kept snapping them open again, too afraid to be left in darkness just yet. Jack’s other hand came to rest on top of his head.
“Go on and sleep. I’ve got you,” he said. He offered a tight smile and looked as if he was about to start crying at any minute, but when Mac’s eyes closed again, he let them stay shut.