I collapse into the mud. For a long time, I just lie there, breathing. Each breath is ragged and painful, scraping against my throat like sandpaper, but I don’t care. I’m breathing. That’s all that matters.
The rain keeps coming, steady and cold, washing over me. Thunder rolls somewhere in the distance, fainter now, like the storm is moving on. The sky above me is still dark, but not the suffocating black of the tile. This is different. This is open. Endless.
I’m out.
I’m alive.
Eventually, my vision starts to clear. The black spots fade. The world comes back into focus—gray sky, brown mud, the endless field stretching out around me. Everything is soaked. The ground is a swamp. I can barely tell where the hole is anymore, just a dark depression in the earth slowly filling with water.
I try to sit up. It takes three attempts. My left arm won’t cooperate, hanging limp and useless at my side. My legs are still numb, but I can feel the pins and needles starting, that awful tingling that means the nerves are waking up. I shift my weight, plant my right hand in the mud to steady myself.
And I feel it.
Something cold. Smooth. Metal.
I lift my hand slowly, and there it is, stuck to my palm, caked in mud and filth.
Mary’s ring.
The water must have pushed it out when the tile cracked. Sent it tumbling through the broken ceramic, through the mud, right to the surface. Right here. Right to me.
I stare at it for a long moment, turning it over in my fingers. White gold. Quarter carat. Nothing fancy. It looks smaller than I remembered. Duller. Just a piece of metal covered in shit from a drainage pipe I installed ten years ago because I didn’t want to pay someone to do it right.
I waited three days for this. Dug a hole for this. Crawled into the earth and almost died for this.
And now it’s in my hand.
I close my fist around it and feel the edges press into my palm. It’s real. It’s here. I have it.
So why doesn’t it feel like anything?
Tomorrow: The Realization