Halfin, part 3

Harrison Moore
Sep 7, 2018 · 2 min read

Being a loner has its benefits.
Getting stuck upside down in a hole with no help around is not one of them.

The initial shock of falling quickly turned to claustrophobic frenzy. Halfin scraped and wiggled to give his arms room, working his shoulders free. But then there was nothing to wedge him in the hole, so he slid to the bottom with a squishy thump.

Stretching to either side of him were long, dark passages of dry earth, coated in a cold, odorless mucus. An earthworm hole.

Here the tunnel was slightly wider, as if the worm had come from one direction, dug up to the surface, come back down and resumed its course. He had just enough room to twist himself around and sort of upright, enough to look up at the blue sky and waving grass far above him.

Down a hole, his closest company being the hungover crowd outside hearing distance, Halfin’s morose side took over. The careless joy of a holiday, the fright of a misplaced jump, the thrill of getting free, and now the despair of having no way out, was too much to pass up.
He had to write it down.

The Kopalti were never ones for preparation, but Halfin had learned to always have his pen and parchment handy, just in case. Another reason he was an oddity.

Both hands went into his pockets. The left grasped the remains of his dry grass parchment, now dirty and crumpled from his exertions, and the right groped for his pen, with no success.

It wasn’t there.

Casting about for the beloved instrument, something glimmered on the corner of his vision. There it was, its bugfoot construction making it reflect the few rays of light that glistened off the slimy walls.
There it was, further along the narrow tunnel, out of reach.

New readers start here…

Read the next installment.

Harrison Moore

Written by

Independent Indiana filmmaker. Twitter @harrisonrmoore1 . Watch my films at https://vimeo.com/hrmoore

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