TWENTY EIGHT
WHEN THE rocks above started to loosen their ancient hold, Dragomir presumed himself deceased. There was no kind of time measurement beneath the weight of the earth. He had long given up on ever being free again. No one would ever come for him intentionally. Centuries-long frustrations had rendered him as numb as the surrounding dirt. He had not even bothered to listen for decades, since the previous eruptions and earthquakes. There was nothing to sense. Existence was as empty a prospect as was the vastness of the universe.
When those tons of rock began to lift away, Dragomir could actually hear the shovels chipping the stones above his resting place. His revelation was almost sufficient to prompt the semblance of an emotion.
Those churning, machine-powered excavators rumbl
