After the panic has worn off a bit, I totally start to get why vampires sleep in coffins. It’s quite cozy.

I’m almost glad my friends played this little prank. Ecstatic, even.

So ecstatic, in fact, that maybe I should take a nap. Let my eyes flutter fully shut in the way I’ve been fighting for an indiscernible amount of time.

Just to prolong this experience, you know?

I always think that way every time I’m invited out with them, even tonight.

We had all just been at the bar we frequent earlier.

Things get a little fuzzy after that first beer, and then…

Well, I remember looking up as I was enclosed.

It’s pitch black in here, but I can feel the hard wood at my back.

They admittedly underestimated my height a bit, my feet forced flat and knees bent slightly. My arms are pressed in on either side, and my nose would brush the ceiling if I tilted my head up.

I’m a side sleeper, so this isn’t ideal.

It does feel a bit like a straight jacket, but I appreciate the sentiment. Especially the effort.

The thud of dirt overhead had lulled me back to sleep initially.

I bet Vampires don’t even have the kind of friends who would bury them in the earth within their cozy coffin, like doubly tucking them in with a natural blanket.

Digging holes is hard!

Who am I to usurp all their effort by panicking at their prank?

I’m sure they’re all up on the surface above, having a great laugh, like the time they shaved Parker’s head in his sleep.

That prank admittedly lacked creativity. But this?

I’m almost honored by the effort.

_‘Any minute now,’ _I think_. _

That intangible moment in time seems quite slippery the longer the prank goes on.

Resentment for the cheap pine box encasing me creeps in as the walls seem to shrink with each passing second.

Hands on an unseen clock clanging like a death knell.

_‘Why would they use something so cheap?’_

That screaming inner voice sneaks through my defenses.

‘How snobby to nitpick the budget of the prank,’ I rasp back at it.

I should really get some sleep.

Build up more energy to block the negativity.

_‘You’ll never wake up if you do,’ _that voice says, almost in exasperation.

Maybe they’re tired, too.

I sense internal eyes rolling at me and focus on them rather than the prickle of fear that is simultaneously rolling down my spine, intensifying its current discomfort.

What if they’re not coming to get me?

I prepare to chastise the voice for that, until I realize the concern was all mine.

My eyes, now firmly shut – as if opening them would give me a different view – paint a picture behind my lids of my friends above, waiting in anticipation with bated breath.

Tyler, the most worried, of course, is wringing his hands nervously. He’s been waiting for me to emerge so he can finally admit his reciprocated feelings upon my success.

Michelle, my best friend, is pacing and biting her nails, even though she gets acrylics done biweekly to stop the bad habit.

I’d even bet that Parker is wishing he had more hair to better thread his fingers through nervously as he paces.

Of course, they want me to break out of this cheap thing.

How silly of me to make them wait.

They obviously want proof I can handle their pranks.

Maybe this means they’ll even invite me to be a part of the next one.

Bending my arms until they can leverage the lid is harder than I thought it would be.

There’s a lot of contortion and then my hands are slapping against the wood above me.

I’ve never thought much about the phrase ‘can’t see my hand in front of my face,’ but it’s an admittedly terrifying idiom to experience, this impenetrable darkness.

Pushing on the lid does nothing.

I pray they don’t have cameras in here to document these embarrassing grunts of exertion.

On second thought, I hope they _are_ watching.

How else would they know if something went wrong?

_“They don’t care,”_ the voice whispers easily in my weakened state.

I don’t have the energy to deny it.

Even my breaths are shortened in restraint, and maybe a little panic, while sending all I have left into forceful upward punches from both fists.

They each thud uselessly, rhythmically, like a melody of nails in my coffin.

The relatability to yet another normally innocuous saying is my undoing.

My hyperventilation turns to hysterics as the void of pitch dark morphs into the impossibly heavy dirt above: demanding my death, pressing in on all sides, and swallowing me whole.

I’m drowning in a sea of endless obsidian that my fists refuse to relent in fighting.

Ears ringing, my battle cry is soundless yet vibrates the air around me.

Wet warmth pours down my wrists from numb fists that continue battering a wood that is apparently a better quality than I’d thought.

The sharp pinch makes me cry out for more reasons than one.

It splintered!

Deluded in hope and undoubtedly deprived of oxygen, I scream and punch, scream and punch with all I have left.

The abyss of dirt I’m drowning in begins to mix with its true form showering down from above, filling the box in affirmation of my fears.

Undeterred, I fight on, almost exhilarated by the sensation of actually wanting to live through this.

I’ve been an impartial survivor, sometimes even disappointed in the mornings when I wake.

The moment I decide that mindset is no more, my fist punches through the wood as though thrusting upward in celebration of my mental victory.

There’s a scream from above.

I’m not sure what anyone else has to shout about at the moment.

Frantic voices and scraping sounds attack the lid that I withdraw my hand from just before it’s thrown open by…

I blink into the limited light until their forms clear.

Strangers?

A group of older couples in hiking clothes look down on me in horror. I smile politely.

“Thanks for the help,” I try to say, but it only comes out as an inaudible rasp.

_“You screamed a lot,”_ the voice supplies.

The couples stumble back as I sit up and climb out of my coffin, pressing my hands to my chest and nodding like a monk to show my silent gratitude as I scan our surroundings.

The darkness doesn’t deter my vision.

We know each other well now.

Enough for it to reveal to me the familiarity of the park. __

The bar is only a block away.

They must’ve gone back when I took too long.

I ignore the slimy sensation from that realization, as well as my kind saviors’ frantic pleas to stay while they call for an ambulance.

Waving away their concern almost locks me in place at the sight of my own blood caking my forearms like macabre evening gloves, but there’s somewhere I need to be.

I stumble toward the bar, fully aware I look like a zombie even before a pedestrian cries out in alarm at the sight of me and a baby breaks out in tears to my right.

_‘What’s a baby even doing out this late?’ _the voice and I think as one.

We reach the mirrored door to the bar at the same time as a bloodied, harried, dirt covered woman grasps the handle with a blankly furious expression better suited for serial killers.

I reel back.

So does she.

We both gasp at the recognition that it’s me.

My normally consistently smiling face contorts further as I wrench the door open and step across the threshold.

Chatter and laughter die off quickly as I scan the occupants, most batting their friends with the back of their hands before pointing in my direction.

There, on the left, Parker shoots up from our regular booth with a look of dumbfound, lacing his fingers behind his shaved head as he looks me up and down like he’s never seen me before.

They really didn’t think I could do it, did they?

I almost want to thank them.

I’ve never felt so alive.

‘I did it,’ I tell the voice inside proudly.

_‘Look,’ _it encourages.

I wish I hadn’t looked.

Sitting in the booth to Parker’s left is Tyler, only just visible behind the woman sitting in his lap.

Michelle.

I barely have a moment for my heart to bottom out.

Barely able to process the duplicity as Tyler looks upon me in horror as if seeing a ghost of someone that has long since died.

Because Michelle, my best friend, and keeper of the knowledge of my long standing interest in Tyler, is eying me murderously from her perch on his thighs.

With alarm, I note that it almost appears as if she wants to turn me into an actual ghost, like I’m dead to her, and that was the moment that I realized it wasn’t ever the plan for me to make it out alive.