T
he first thing I notice is that my blanket is gone. The last of my nightly rituals is to pull it all the way to my chin, and it never falls away, no matter what nightmares I wrestle before I wake.

But something else is wrong; I try to move, and though I don't seem to be paralyzed, my arms are pinned tightly to my sides. My brain is slow; the horror saturates me gradually. I struggle, twist to the left, and free one arm.

Reaching up, my trembling hand gets only a few inches before my fingers touch cool stone. I blink. My lashes spider-touch my cheeks, and then that touch is gone, so my eyes must be open. The dull, compressed darkness is so absolute that I cannot see my shaking hand, even as I bend my elbow and press my fingers against my right eye, and then my leftâgently, very gentlyâto make certain both still rest in their sockets.

My eyes are intact. But the relief dissipates as I recognize the shape of my prison, the feel of the thin padding beneath me, the slope of the cool stone. The plush lining .Â .Â .

This darkness is the darkness of a coffin.

Not any coffin. A stone sarcophagus. Perhaps even one I've been in before, years ago, on a dare.

I've been buried, but I'm not dead. I'm not dead. I can't breathe. What is that sound? Is someone here? No, it's me, crying and using precious air .Â .Â .

Tremors shake my entire body, but the box I'm in does not shift at all.

I must be in the vault, held in place by solid stone. Beneath the house. The dead of my family press around me. We're entombed by marble shot through with a vein of pink, a rare and costly stone, thick enough to keep the waters of the tarn from seeping down into the crypt.

Panic claws at me. But I cannot succumb to it; I cannot fall into one of my fits. Not now.

The house is heavy and filled with hate. I slow my breath and relax my arms. The lace at my sleeve is rough against my wrist, and suddenly I realize what I'm wearing. A dress that I hid deep in the recesses of my wardrobe, praying never to see it again. The lace at the neck is stiff and scratchy. Tight. When I move my hand, the pearl buttons at the sleeves press into the sensitive skin of my inner arm, likely to bruise. I should have burned the dress. I would have, had I known that I would be buried in it. Buried.

Claustrophobia sets in. The not-so-gentle cousin of madness.

One of my arms is still pinned tightly down. The freed one rests, trembling, on the silk of the dress, which I know is white, though I can't see it. No part of me is not touching the accursed fabric. Tears wet my cheeks. I cannot breathe. I cannot breathe.

I claw at the collar. The box is so tight that my elbow hits the side each time I move.

The lace catches my fingernails and one of them breaks, the pain bitter and sharp.

Blood, trickles down from my fingertips and I am choking on bits of the desiccated dress and the coarse dry velvet of the coffin's lining with every inhale. This small space is so very hot. I cough as velvet particles line my throat.

Only the ring on my finger remains cool. The ring I always wear, given to me by my brother, Roderick, as a token of his love.

It's very heavy.

My hair has been pinned tightly against my head.

My eyes burn. I check once again to make sure that they are intact.

I hear panting and know that the sound, animalistic, desperate, is coming from me.

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