Chapter 19
19
I’m in the basement.
I don’t remember coming down here.
My eyes land on the bags in the corner. The bags that some secret part of my mind remembered. Bags of clay.
And there’s water, flowing from the drainage sink beside the ancient washer and dryer.
The other ingredient, desperation, shivers deep within me.
I’m fumbling in the dark, trying to do something I don’t know how to do. One word keeps beating through my body, thrumming through my veins, singing under my skin.
Survive, survive, survive.
Grasping, holding tight, molding shape and form out of nothingness.
Survive, survive, survive.
My fingers scrape letters into wet clay.
Alef-mem-tav.
Survive, survive, survive.
Breathe in, breathe out.
Survive.
Survive.
Make.