Rears & Vices

Chapter 35

Thirty-Five

The walls trembled. Everard raised his head briefly to see tumbling bits of dirt fall like pill-bugs from cracks shearing into plaster. Earthquake? A battle? He couldn’t tell.

Then dizziness overcame him, and his head fell back. Vibrations in the earth continued beneath him, rattled his dried-out brain, staccato and rolling like cannon fire.

If this was what dying felt like, being taken up by the rumbling hands of the earth, then Everard didn’t want it. Too much like York.

But maybe, if the wall collapsed entirely and fell inward, it’d be fast.

He closed his eyes.

Softer than bricks, at the very least.