Written by Louis Soileau
I can’t believe it, I actually got out. I was in those mines for eight days but I managed to survive. You’d think I was a zombie from how malnourished I was when I got out. I never would have been in that problem if I hadn’t volunteered to check for left-behind tools.
It all happened nine days ago when I was at the deepest part of the mine and suddenly there was a cave-in. All around me were falling rocks that sounded like cannons being fired off at enemy troops. When I looked up, I was completely surrounded. At first I thought to myself, “What could I do to get out?” Then I remembered I could scream for help, so that’s what I did. I screamed as loud as I could until it hurt to open my mouth.
After roughly three hours of screaming, I figured out no one could hear me. My next idea was to climb to the top of the wall to see if there was a space I could squeeze myself through. So I started climbing up the wall. When I got to the top of the wall I thought I saw a hole, but when I tried to get closer to it some of the rocks holding me up gave way and I fell and was knocked unconscious.
I woke up the next morning and I was hit with an idea: feel around for a pickaxe. I scrambled to the first wall. I found nothing. Then, I went to the next wall. I thought I felt one, but it was just a rock. After this I walked to the third wall then I felt it.
The soft oak wood from a pickaxe handle. I picked it up and started mining the wall I thought was the exit. I mined and mined, and then it hit me. What if I’m mining the wrong wall?
This idea led me to putting my hand on the wall and walking around the room I’m in. Once I started walking I felt a wall warmer than the rest. “Bingo,” I had said to myself. “This must be the way out because the heat from the sun must be warming this wall.” I ran back to my pickaxe, grabbed it, and sprinted back to the warm wall and got to mining.
After a long day of mining the wall, I was extremely tired. As soon as my head touched the ground, I was out cold.
Day three, I woke up starving. I felt so hungry it was as if my hunger was about to rip out of my stomach and eat my body. This was when I realized I hadn’t eaten in two days. I wanted to give up, I wanted to quit, but I couldn’t.
“I can’t give up yet!”, I said to myself. “I still have so much to live for.” So I combined everything I learned and found the hot wall and started mining it. Around what I thought was midday, my lips started to bleed. When I went to touch them they were so dry their texture was like that of the wall I was mining. Eventually the wall got cold. This let me know it was night so I went to bed. Day four I was met with the slimy oil of a salamander on my forehead. Without hesitation I grabbed the salamander off my head and ate it ravenously. After this I took it as a sign from God that he was taking care of me.
After this I mined until about three P.M. when my stomach began to cramp. I realized that I’ve not had a bowel movement in four days. So I went to a corner and relieved myself. Once I finished I mined until night. Before I fell asleep, my stomach started to hurt a little bit, but I thought it was my body getting used to digesting the raw salamander.
Day five was awful. Turns out the salamander was poisonous and the stomach ache was the poison starting to take effect. I still had to keep mining, but after a while the smell of my own feces was horrible. I still tried to keep mining despite the poison fatigue and the feces smell. I hit the wall wrong with my pickaxe and my handle broke, and so did my hope of getting out.
Once this happened, I sat on the ground and tried to sleep off the poison. While I was sleeping I had a dream that I had gotten out of the cave and the whole world around me had changed. Everything had been leveled down to the ground. No trees, no mountains, no life.
I jolted awake on day six. I had slept off the poison, but I had no pickaxe to mine with, so I felt around in my pockets and there it was. My trusty skinning knife. I got to work immediately removing the broken wood from the pickaxe head. I grabbed the other half of the pickaxe handle and started carving a new handle. The new handle was so short I had to use it with one hand. While short, I could put a lot more force behind every hit. After completing the handle I realized I wasted a whole day of potential mining.
Day seven I woke up with a newfound hope in myself and got straight to mining. Around one P.M. I could hear things on the other side of the wall. My family! I had forgotten about them completely. This gave me the motivation not to give up and to keep going. I worked until both of my arms felt like Jello when I tried to use them.
Day eight I could sense I was close to getting out. So I mined vigorously at the wall, and then boom! The wall had fallen! I ran out into the fresh air. The sun was blinding. It felt as if I had been hit with a giant flash of light.
I went straight home, cooked everything in the house, and made myself a giant meal.
After reflecting on those terrible days, I stepped back from my journal after realizing the amount of time that had passed writing in it. It had been nine hours. I thought to myself, “Where is my family?” So I went around my house looking for them. After searching the whole house I thought they might be eating out. After coming to this conclusion, I went to bed not knowing my assumption was completely wrong.