He stands barefoot at the bottom of the hole, 6 feet deep and he can't see over the edge, not quite, but a chill breeze lifts strands of loose hair, playfully, what are you doing down there? Come back up into the sun.
There is no sun.
The grey clouds pass over the earth and drape the firmament in wool, wet and warm, and the dirt between his toes calls out for the rain to reunite it with the sky. The walls should be closing in, but if anything they move further away, the hole widening, deepening as he stands. The sun gets further away.
There is no sun.
A patch of light rings around the ceiling, grass peeking over the edge, mockingly, what are you doing down there? He opens his mouth to speak and all that comes out is a harsh, crackling buzz. Vocal cords fried, pain in the vibrations.
Suddenly, a dark shape blots out the sun.
There is no sun.
He looks up and a million miles away an oblong box floats, descending slowly, sashaying like a woman as it approaches him, only instead of fire there's ice in his veins and in his head a piercing certainty that the screams that stole his voice are far from over.
There is no sun.
Tobias Beecher awakes with a start from the dream into the nightmare his life has become.
Dead.
The word rolls around the cube, bouncing lazily off the plexiglass, skittering across the floor like a cockroach. His son has been murdered, light extinguished, darkness settling on his soul for a thousand years time, a life's sentence and then some. His body feels hollowed out, his organs scooped out with care and deposited in clay jars to be buried alongside his dead child, offerings for demons watching his journey down the river into the underworld with ember eyes. He lays there unmoving, an object wrapped in linens. He breathes unwillingly.
No sun. No son. Darkness, forevermore.