You are Murtaugh. Your worst fear ever was to be buried alive.
That night, you woke up to a thunderous roar - the very walls around you creaking under the rolling dirt putting pressure on the wood of your soon-to-become casket. It took you a moment to even process what was happening, and in that moment, like a deer in headlights, you simply watched as clumps and piles of rocky dirt poured in through the window.
Once you heard a sudden crack and burst coming from another room, the situation fully dawned on you - get the boards and nails, and seal yourself off quickly, or else you are done for.
The lower floor was the one that gave out first - you were lucky to have nodded off in your library's armchair, because chances are, if you didn't board up the second floor in time, it would have already been too late. Panic shook your entire body, as if hammering in the nails with just one hand wasn't difficult enough. Even after doing that, you still backed as far away from the windows as you could, because you couldn't trust yourself to have done even a semi-decent job in a state like this. The second floor balcony in the main tower felt the safest, the grey metal walls would surely last you longer than the wood.
You have just trapped yourself in the hell of your own making, congratulations.
Maybe this was the main plan. Maybe the zealots upholding their idiocracy didn't just kill you directly because they wanted you to do it yourself. Spend the rest of eternity going mad in a sealed tomb, then jump off of this exact balcony right here, that looked so tempting in this moment. It's stupid, but it's cruel, and many people wished nothing but cruelty to him right now.
The rumbling slowly became quieter and quieter, the layers upon layers of dirt muffling more layers upon layers of dirt rolling down the sides of the layers upon layers of dirt. Dirt all the way down. Dirt in his fingernails. Dirt.
It's moments like these that really force you to acknowledge your own mortality. In a quiet whisper, you promise yourself to never forget that you are a mortal, human being made of clay and light and blood, although you know that you've broken similar promises before. You promised you'd stay careful, and now you have one less arm. You promised to do no harm, but you can't get the look in Elizabeth's eyes out of your head when she saw you come out on the other side of that portal. You promised to find the answers you seeked, but you feel more confused and lost now than ever before.
But you can't imagine what it would take to make you forget you are human. It's the one thing that you can be confident won't happen.
Something small landed on the top of your head, bringing you back to reality. When you looked up, a newfound wave of horror filled your whole body. The dirt leaked through the metal walls of the top light itself. It was time to leave.
The teleportation device itself has been set up weeks ago now - you started planning moving out of this place 32 days ago, and now there was little to do other than pack up and wait for the electrical power to accumulate. Pouring the diesel into the generator, you shuddered at the sight of the dirt that poured into here from the tiny crack between the plating. You wondered if the side rooms of the tower were safe, and on your way down the ladder, sure enough - like a miracle, both the coils room and the tunnel seemed to be holding up for now.
Curled up in the side tunnel, you took out a piece of chalk from your pocket to do a quick estimate calculation of just how much mass this dirt must have to have broken through metal. The number didn't make you feel any more optimistic.
With about four hours left to burn through, you needed something to take your mind off of the dread, and so you returned to your familiar writing desk, put in a fresh new sheet of paper and got to typing something resembling a suicide note more than a diary entry.
Maybe it's a good thing Einstein has been gone for days now. You don't want to imagine the poor cat being left alone in a place like this, and you don't know how Elizabeth could possibly come back for it now. Somehow, she will, you know it, because "impossible" isn't really a thing when it comes to your dear Liz, and because unlike you she doesn't ever break promises. You paused your typing, remembering yet again how you looked up at her, dizzy but smiling with pride, fully expecting to be met with awe or wonder, but finding nothing but horror on her face. "What have you done, Mur?" she asked then, and you didn't know how to answer. It baffles you still how someone as understanding and enlightened as her wouldn't see the potential of the breakthrough you've made, how she seemed to be looking through you, not at you. It's clear you've hurt her, deeply, even though the only thing you were destroying was the outdated Structure that held back the both of you. You didn't kill anyone. Or at least you didn't mean to.
You reread the words you typed out on your paper. "For those who follow me," you added, knowing only one person who would have a reason to return to this wretched lighthouse, "I am sorry."
You decided to lock the second floor door behind you and throw the key as far away as you could. It was time to look for a shovel and waste the remaining three hours you had on seeing just how many layers upon layers of dirt you were buried under.
"Sincerely, Mur."
