Lucas saw nothing for an inordinately long time. The total darkness also blocked out sound, as if he had ceased to be, and rather than an afterlife, he had found there was simply nothing. This made it a fairly decent hiding place. Only the light pressure of the mounds of fabric he was under, as well as the dusty smell of their unusedness, let him know that he was still a living being hiding from the latest raid.

The fabric was too thick to hear the footsteps, so he had no way to know when the coast would be clear. Hopefully someone else saw him crawl under this massive pile of leftover fabric and would know to tell him to crawl out from under his shelter.

Being swallowed in such a way reminded him of two things: one of them was hiding in a dark pantry during hide and seek as a child, and the other was hiding under a mound of blankets on his own bed. But there the smell wasn’t dust, but himself and Gwen also camped out underneath listening to each other breathing. Of course, all this was before everything went to hell.

Childhood and teenage reminiscences now mixed with survival. The stakes were higher than he’d ever imagined. After an unmeasurable amount of time (for what is time when there is no sight or sound?) there was movement from above. A rustling of the fabrics caused him to tense. This was either them finding him, or a friend coming to tell him the all clear. His sound begun to return as each layer was removed above him. Whoever it was continued to dig down into the pile.

Then, little faded reds seeped through the darkness. All of a sudden, the cover was thrown off, and painful bright light shined down into his eyes which struggled to adjust. He made out only a blurry figure above him.

“Lucas, we’re good,” the figure said. He sounded deafening to Lucas’s ears, which were so recently encased in silence.