Buried Alive

One of our aims when we entangle you is to cause the equivalent of you feeling as if you are being buried alive. Doing this keeps you in our grip and under our control. For some people, the thought of being buried alive causes them considerable terror. The concept of being bound and dropped into a prepared hole in the ground, lying against the cold, damp earth as the first shovel load of earth lands on you, dirt cascading over your face as you blink frantically trying to avoid it going in your eyes. A second shovel load lands, this time more compact and it hits your torso with the equivalent of a moderate punch to the ribs. You shout out but your unknown assailant does not respond as more earth cascades down on to you. You kick and wriggle but soon the earth begins to heap around you, your movements are constrained and you are trying to back up so you can keep your head as high as possible, just as you might do during our devaluation of you, trying desperately to retain some dignity. You continue to shout and scream and you begin to wonder whether you are making any sound at all as there is no response. Your legs are now covered and you are unable to move them now, the weight of the earth on them pinning them into place. Someone else has now taken control of how much you can move and they have deemed that there is to be no movement, at least from the waist down. Still that steady and rhythmic motion can just about be heard above you as the dirt continues to fall, a steady curtain of earth which is creating your tomb. The encroaching earth has moved over your chest and you look down, arms tied in front of you as you lift them up and down breaking the layer of earth for a little longer.

On it continues as more and more dirt tumbles onto you now making it seem as if the ground is swallowing you. How many times had you wished that would happen when you were on the receiving end of one our vicious tirades? You try to move your arms but the weight is too great and now the terror has taken your voice so that your once hearty yells and piercing screams are replaced by a strange strangulated rasp as the cries for help become lodged in your throat, just like the earth will do so very soon. Your pleas to be spared, your bid for clemency and begging for mercy has gone unheeded as the earth continues to rise and you shake your head from side to side, trying to fight off the onslaught. The whole of your body, save for your head, is now paralysed, trapped by the significant load of earth which has been dropped on to you. You can feel your lungs being squashed as your breathing becomes harder. You wish you were dead. A gun shot to the head, quick and instant. That would be better than this lingering, slow and crushing descent into suffocation. Sounds suddenly become muffled and you realise that the earth has now begun to cover your ears. You still twist your head but the room for movement has become even more reduced. Your eyes are shut now otherwise they would be filled with grit and crumbs of dirt. You spit and blow away the earth which lands across your mouth as just an oval of your face breaks the surface of the soil.Your terror and panic is at its zenith and then there is a cessation in the onslaught. You cannot feel anything dropping onto you any more. There is a spark of hope. Is this it? Have you been spared at the last moment? Have you perhaps been rescued, your tormentor now pinned to the ground by the timely arrival of law enforcement? Will it be only a matter of moments before the shovel tentatively digs around you to free you? You blink furiously and open your eyes hoping to see the glare of a flashlight.

Your vision sharpens into focus and you see the silhouette of somebody leaning over the edge of the pit, shovel in hand, peering down at you as if scrutinising you for the last time. You cannot make out any of their features against the darkening sky behind them as they stand and then the earthen rain begins again. You manage to muster a final scream of defiant protestation as the soil begins to gather over your face, covering your eyes, blocking your nose and sealing your mouth as a thousand thoughts flash through your mind, mixing with the terror as you wonder how long you have left?

Such a thought of being buried alive by an unknown aggressor or waking in a coffin having been mistakenly thought dead and thus buried alive, hands scrabbling at the smooth wood, yells and shouts unheard through the coffin lid and heaped earth above, causes considerable anxiety in many people. Such an imagined experience is akin to the way we treat our victims. We control them and restrict them, steadily and effectively, through the always used slice, slice, slice technique as we little by little reduce their movement, just as if we were heaping soil onto them. We create that sense of rising panic as there remains some movement but it is insufficient to escape the looming threat. Through our manipulations we keep you rooted to the spot with nowhere to escape to, nowhere to turn,just as if you are lying helpless in the bottom of a pit.

The steady and repeated accumulation of our manipulations make you feel as if you are being slowly suffocated. You cannot speak without approval or reprimand, your thoughts no longer feel your own as you are left to second guess what we want in order to try to avoid a further consequence. You close your eyes hoping it will all end and then your heart sinks as it does not. Each day you feel the air being drawn from your body, your strength sapping away, the will to fight back being diminished and stolen from you. The walls seems to close in on you, the air becoming stale and foul from you being kept indoors for so such long periods of time, prevented from seeing other people and leaving our sphere of influence. We invade your spaces, reading your messages, your e-mails and post. You have nowhere to go to in order to escape our incessant and all-consuming presence. We are like a weight on your chest, around your neck and about your heart.Your identity is steadily squeezed from you as we impress our thoughts, needs, desires and demands on you. Every day the pressure increases, just like the weight of the earth piling on your chest. You beg and plead for relief from this incessant pressure but just like the silent and unresponsive wielder of the shovel, you receive no respite from us either. The panic rises and the anxiety robs the breath from your lungs, forcing you to gasp as the panic attack takes you in its grip. You are suffocating. You cannot breathe. We are all around you, pressing against you, holding you, pressurising you, leaning on you, invading your space and driving the breath from your body. Being with us is just like being buried alive.