Description
The water is at his chin now. Kenny Thole tilts his head back, pressing his face against the cold limestone ceiling of the mine shaft. Two feet. That's all the air space left between the rising water and the rock above him. Two feet between life and death, and it's shrinking.
His legs dangle in the darkness below, numb from the cold. He can't see them anymore. Can't see anything except the faint glow of his headlamp reflecting off the water's surface, creating dancing shadows on the wet stone inches from his face. The lamp is dying. Has been for hours. When it goes out, he'll be in absolute darkness, alone with the sound of water rising, rising, always rising.
He's been here for fourteen hours.
The water has risen eleven feet.
And nobody knows where he is.
Kenny's arms shake as he grips the walls, trying to keep his face in the shrinking pocket of air. The water is so cold it stopped feeling like cold hours ago. Now it just feels like absence. Absence of warmth, absence of sensation, absence of hope. His fingers are white, wrinkled, useless. He can barely feel the rock he's clinging to.