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The grave breathes with him. Or maybe it doesn’t. The dirt presses in, cold but familiar, finding its way under his fingernails, into his throat, into the cracks of his mind. It tastes like iron and rot, like his own blood.
Time falters here. Or maybe it never existed at all. Seconds, hours, days, they blur together in the darkness, unspooling like thread through his fingers, slipping away before he can grasp them. Jason wonders if this is death, this endless now. The thought sinks its claws into him, chewing at what’s left of his consciousness, dragging him down deeper into the grave’s embrace.
In the penumbra of his thoughts, there is movement. Violent, liquid, overwhelming. Memories, maybe. Or something worse. He doesn’t know. He can’t tell anymore. They pool in the edges of his skull, battering like waves, screaming like voices. Faces rise and fall in the murk, familiar and blurred, slipping away the moment he reaches for them. Names hover on the tip of his tongue but dissolve into nothingness. He’s not sure if they belong to others or himself.
His fingers twitch against the coffin’s splintered lid, nails dragging across the wood. A thought slices through the chaos: dig. But the weight is everywhere. It crushes his ribs, presses his lungs into nothing, whispers promises he can’t ignore: You belong here.
The world outside is gone. Or maybe it was never there. Maybe the dark has always been this absolute.
He thrashes, splinters digging into his knuckles, his wrists, his palms. His body screams with each movement, a raw, animalistic sound tearing its way up his throat. He can’t hear it over the roaring in his head.
The grave shifts. Or maybe he does.
***
It’s not the first time he’s got to dig out of his own grave. It really fucking isn’t.
Somewhere deep in the dark, Jason knows this. He remembers the snap of his bones, the fire in his chest, the taste of copper on his tongue. He remembers waking, clawing, breaking free. He remembers crawling from the earth only to feel the weight of it settle back over him, a veil he can never quite shake.
He remembers, and yet… he doesn’t.
The memories slip through his fingers, liquid and treacherous. One moment, they’re sharp enough to cut, and the next, they’re gone, leaving only the ache behind. Faces blur in the half-light of his mind. Voices twist and distort. The grave breathes, and Jason’s chest rises with it, but it’s not air that fills his lungs. It’s dirt. It’s rage. It’s the echo of something he can’t name.
The lid cracks under his fist. Splinters bite into his skin, but he keeps pounding, keeps thrashing, until the wood gives away and dirt spills in, cold and clinging. It pours over his face, his chest, his legs, burying him all over again. His hands scrabble against it, fingers clawing through the loose earth, but there’s too much. There’s always too much.
His mind fractures, thoughts shattering into fragments. One moment, he’s in the ground, and the next, he’s not. One moment, he’s clawing for the surface, and the next, he’s standing in the rain, mud dripping from his fingers, staring at his own grave. The tombstone is blank. Or maybe it’s not. Maybe the name carved into it is his. Maybe it’s someone else’s. He doesn’t know. He can’t tell.
The world shifts around him, and he shifts with it. The rain becomes smoke. The graveyard becomes the Pit. The dirt under his nails becomes blood.
It’s always blood.
***
He dreams of fire.
It consumes everything, licking at the edges of his vision, swallowing the world whole. He dreams of hands pulling him under, of water that burns, of a voice whispering his name like a curse. He dreams of the Pit, green and endless, stretching out before him like a sea of shadows. And he dreams of crawling out, his body heavy, his mind heavier still.
The dreams are always the same. Violent. Liquid. Overwhelming.
Jason wakes with a startle, the taste of ash on his tongue. His chest heaves, his lungs straining against the weight that still presses down on him. He’s not in the grave anymore, but the grave is in him. It’s always in him.
The room is dark, the air heavy with the scent of damp earth and decay. He’s alone. Or maybe he’s not. Shadows shift in the corners of his vision, and for a moment, he thinks he sees a figure standing by the window. When he turns his head, it’s gone.
He sits up, his head in his hands. His thoughts swirl, battering against the edges of his mind. He tries to focus, to ground himself, but the memories won’t settle. They slip and slide, merging and dividing, until he can’t tell what’s real and what’s not.
The shadows creep closer, and Jason lets them. He doesn’t have the strength to fight them off. Not tonight.
***
The streets are empty, the air thick with the promise of rain. Jason’s boots echo against the pavement, each step a hollow sound in the vast silence. He doesn’t know where he’s going. He never does. The city shifts around him, twisting and warping until it’s unrecognizable. Buildings loom like tombstones, their windows dark and empty, their walls covered in moss and ivy. The air smells of earth and rot, and Jason wonders if he’s still underground, if he ever left.
His hands are still dirty, his nails cracked and caked with mud. He flexes his fingers, feeling the weight of the dirt that’s not there. But it’s always there.
The world tilts, and Jason stumbles, his vision swimming. The shadows stretch and shift, reaching for him, wrapping around his limbs like chains. He’s drowning again, buried alive, the earth filling his mouth, his nose, his lungs. He can’t breathe. He can’t move. He can’t think.
Jason falls to his knees, his hands clawing at the pavement, but it’s not pavement anymore. It’s dirt. It’s always dirt.
The memories rise again. He sees the Pit, the fire, the hands pulling him under. He hears the voice whispering his name, mocking him, condemning him. He feels the weight of the grave, the cold embrace of the earth, the unrelenting pull of death.
And then he’s back, gasping for air, the taste of blood on his tongue because he’s bitten it so hard. The pavement is solid beneath him, the shadows retreating to the edges of his vision. But the weight is still there, pressing down on him, crushing him from the inside out.
He gets to his feet, his legs trembling, his breath coming in short, ragged gasps. The city looms around him, its darkened windows watching, waiting. Jason doesn’t look back. He never does.
***
The grave calls to him.
It’s always there, a whisper in the back of his mind, a shadow at the edge of his vision. He can feel it, pulling at him, dragging him back down. The weight of it is unbearable, a constant reminder that he doesn’t belong here, that he was never meant to crawl out.
Jason stares at the headstone, his name carved into the weathered stone. The letters blur and move around, twisting into shapes he doesn’t recognize. He reaches out, his fingers brushing against the cold surface, and for a moment, he feels nothing. No rage. No pain. No fear. Just the emptiness.
The ground shifts beneath him, and Jason stumbles back, his chest heaving. The whispers grow louder, their voices overlapping, merging into a cacophony of sound. He presses his hands to his ears, but it doesn’t help. The whispers are inside him, in the cracks of his mind, in the rot of his brain.
They’re overwhelming. Violent. Liquid.
The ground opens up, and Jason falls, the darkness devours him before he can outrun it.
***
When he wakes, he’s in the grave again. Or maybe he never left. The dirt presses against his skin, cold but familiar, and the air is thick with the scent of earth and decay. His thoughts swirl again. He can’t breathe. He can’t move. He can’t think.
The grave shifts. Or maybe he does.
But it doesn’t matter, does it?