Chapter 470

The rusted guardrail gave way with a groan, a sound swallowed quickly by the vast, indifferent chasm below. The jeep, a mangled metal beast, tumbled end over end, a brief, sickening ballet of destruction.

Then, silence, save for the soft sigh of the wind through the tall pines clinging to the ravine's edge. Inside, five friends were battered, bruised, and utterly alone.

Mark coughed, the metallic taste of blood filling his mouth. He pushed himself up, wincing at the sharp pain in his leg.

His eyes adjusted to the strange, light, a murky twilight that barely pierced the ravine's depths. Around him lay the others: Liam, his face buried in his hands, sobbing silently; Sarah, still unconscious, her breathing shallow; and Ben, who looked oddly peaceful, his eyes wide and vacant, his limbs twisted at unnatural angles.

"Guys?" Mark said, his voice rough. "Can anyone hear me?"

Liam looked up, his face a mask of despair. "Ben... Ben's gone." He said.

Mark looked over at the young man who seemed just sleeping but still. A knot of dread began to form in his stomach, cold and hard.

The realization that they were stranded, with a dead friend, sunk in. Sarah moaned and stirred next to Liam.

"Where... where are we?" Her voice shook as she clutched her head.

"We're... we're in the ravine," Mark responded, glancing up at the walls towering above them. "The guardrail broke. There's no way out up there."

A chilling thought then moved into their minds, but they pushed it away. They refused to go there.

Not yet. The four of them began looking for anything they could use.

Liam, in a stupor of shock, seemed the least aware of it, until it became clear they would need supplies if they were going to make it, anything at all, a piece of tarp, anything. Their supply box was long gone.

So that began to concern them all. The sun fell below the horizon, and an eerie darkness rose up the side of the ravine as it engulfed them all in.

They all scrambled and got what meager coverings and small twigs for small fire. Mark tried the emergency radio; its speaker hissed back only with static.

There was no escape through electronics, there was nothing. He placed the radio down onto the small clearing on the rocks near them.

"Great. Just great," He said under his breath to himself as his friends tried to start a fire with the few tinder options they could salvage from the mess.

They had tried for some time until at long last, they finally got something. A small orange and red flame appeared.

The fire was feeble and fragile but the group felt like a small sense of warmth, but it was also mixed with more trepidation at their fate. As they all stared into the flames they did not need to voice how hungry they were.

It began to grow in the pit of their bellies and the desperation started to settle. They each laid there thinking what to do and Sarah sat quietly but suddenly spoke "What are we going to do?"

she looked up at the group, "we can't stay here." It was true, but they were stranded, not on some shore that stretched in the endless abyss; no, it was in a pit, not quite in hell, but getting close to it.

The night brought with it a biting chill that permeated the flimsy protection their small fire gave them. They huddled together, sharing what little warmth they could generate as the small twigs broke and reduced to nothing.

Liam, with wide eyes, recounted stories of how this land had once been some forgotten battleground. Mark and Sarah both had always hated when Liam recounted stories and would always say so to him, even jokingly, but in these last hours together they dared not speak a single harsh word.

"It's gonna be alright, Liam." Mark would state trying to bring hope to the group and reassure Liam more than anything, because they were both just as afraid but wanted to be strong, yet still felt as fragile as the dying fire that reduced to smoke and embers.

They settled to their cold sleeping rocks again and eventually, after hours of worry and doubt, fell into a fitful sleep, their dreams filled with twisted metal and vacant stares.

Days bled into each other, each marked by a gnawing hunger and a growing despair. They had explored the base of the ravine for hours now, and each time returned to their small camp with empty hands and faces.

They had nothing but each other, and that became a terrifying concept as time moved forward. Mark and Sarah scavenged, picking through the wreckage of their jeep and what small plants grew on the ground, finding nothing nourishing, finding nothing to ease their aching stomachs.

Liam, remained listless, only getting up to try and stretch before becoming listless and sullen again. He started to spend more time by Ben's still figure.

They had come to this place just two days prior, laughing, joyful, excited to see what new paths life had for them. Now they were trapped in what felt like an endless hell with no way out.

They all just stared at Ben more and more. What choice did they even have?

No. That wasn't an option; They are better than that.

Their hope and better parts kept getting eaten away each day and hour. Soon, they would give up, each one of them in different ways.

The silence between them grew heavier and more stifling with each sunrise. The question that had once been unmentioned now hung in the space above their heads like a dark cloud.

The thought of having to eat their friend became an echo that got louder as each passing hour reduced them to their lowest forms. It started when Liam, who became increasingly more silent, began to watch the others when they tried to take a plant and seemed almost too hungry to stop.

That made them all stare again at Ben. His body was already bloated from time and that image was stuck in their brains.

"We need energy..." Sarah finally spoke and she would not meet either of their eyes and stared off into the dark distance. Mark knew what she was asking.

He swallowed hard but his stomach churned hard and loudly and the small spark of a hope that remained started to out in the darkness.

Mark turned towards Ben's corpse and started to tear strips of cloth from the jeep's upholstery. He knew the stench of decay had begun and this had to happen.

He walked to Liam who was now rocking gently staring off at nothing. "We can still get through this," Mark said, looking right at Liam with intense sincerity, trying to grab some spark of who they once were to at least be remembered again.

Liam didn't answer him or look up but instead only continued staring and gently rocking back and forth. He continued tearing the upholstery, ripping them into strips, each tear echoing in the suffocating quiet, "Sarah."

He said as he turned his attention to her now, as they stood only feet from each other, she could see that the desperation in his eyes and his mouth trembled, "I… can't do this." Mark looked back at Ben.

Sarah turned away, placing a shaky hand over her mouth as tears welled in her eyes, unable to face either Mark or Ben. She didn't say anything back.

He turned back toward Ben's body. This isn't how it was meant to be.

Their group was meant to see all their tomorrows, their children playing with their children, all of it, but now, they were going to eat one of their friends to keep the light of life going. "This isn't going to get us through it!"

Sarah snapped, finally, a rare fire reigniting in her face, but she refused to meet his eye contact still. Her desperation made his stomach feel even emptier than before and his mouth start to dry.

He knew Sarah was only telling them what he was thinking too, so he remained silent. Mark then swallowed and moved forward toward Ben, finally accepting their bleak reality.

Mark's hand moved slowly to grab a part of Ben's clothing, which now was starting to decompose as the flesh underneath was as well. A few tears welled but refused to fall.

Liam did not say anything or react at all and neither did Sarah but he still pushed himself through, and so it went for them all. That first bite, an act of survival that tasted of betrayal, clung to Mark's throat.

Each bite thereafter was consumed in an equal amount of fear and shame. His very core felt stained, yet also his own body, now slightly re-energized from it, begged him for more and a sick feeling bloomed within him.

As they forced themselves to continue this grotesque ritual they could feel more of who they were getting washed away like water eroding at the banks of a river. They did not talk to each other anymore, each of their eyes a vacant stare of nothingness that seemed to haunt each other's dreams if any were left.

They began to eat more in order to stave off their hunger and started to eat in more quantities, like ravenous dogs ripping at scraps of meat; They felt a burning heat rising up and over and into them each and every bite as this action washed the last parts of themselves away and now the cold pit swallowed more of them and their very being.

The weight of it, this vile act, grew with each passing day, each piece they devoured, they too became another part of Ben as this terrible action made them just like the corpse before them.

One morning Mark woke to an awful sound, a dry gagging sound coming from nearby and with no emotion in his eyes looked at Liam, on his knees throwing up a black sludge; His body couldn't handle it anymore.

This continued all day. Sarah did nothing but sit, only looking over from time to time, she did nothing but look down and stay away from Mark's side, they did not talk at all, so only silence was in the air again and that became the status quo.

Liam's body did not get any rest from throwing up all day as if the devil inside of him was trying to push its way out and that became the final echo in this story. The small fire was never started again, the camp was never really a camp, just where they had laid as they let this place finally make them like the forgotten dirt and dead wood that surrounded them and with that Liam died;

His life finally coming to a long miserable and torturous end. That night Mark didn't bother dragging Liam away as his stomach started to turn and twist.

It wasn't going to be long now he knew, that Sarah and him would become the last living creatures down in this forgotten space. Mark finally moved towards Liam's bloated corpse and pulled a piece off the torso.

With the same empty and listless stare that Liam had adopted so long ago Mark consumed the flesh. Sarah did nothing, didn't even flinch and they both began to consume Liam.

Sarah would, for hours stare over at Mark as he began to become ravenous for Liam and did not stop and it was then, that Mark began to suspect, she too would feast on his flesh the moment his heart was done beating.

The very last glimmers of hope washed away by this action. Days would slowly bleed together for both Mark and Sarah.

Their interactions and ability to move had all but stopped. No longer would they explore, they barely would stand now or speak but just only watched.

Mark would become even weaker over time, Sarah as well. Mark's stomach was done, so each piece made him throw up more bile.

Soon his face turned a terrible black color, the sickness moving and corrupting and consuming. That one final night the black in his vision overcame all, as it stretched from his stomach to his face;

it made his head fall forward as the sound of chewing reached his ears. It was Sarah eating his arm while he was still alive.

He tried to reach his hand to feel, or pull away, but his body was dead and gone, just one last consciousness in a body as useless as all of those who fell before him in that hellish pit. His thoughts went cold as he realized this is the pit, this is where things were forgotten, and then finally there was a stillness;

only broken up by a single terrible sound as the flesh pulled and was swallowed by the one left behind. Sarah consumed him and she too finally gave way.

There, in that pit, they all finally became dust and their cries became only the echoes of the land. The end.