He had no choice but to admit that he was shut inside a coffin-like box.
A substance called darkness filled the space around him, finding every way it could to bore in through his ear holes, in through his nostrils, in through the cracks of his eyes and mouth, in through wounds that had not yet healed, in through every pore of his skin, drilling into his body. He felt very tired, because of resisting all this darkness. The only thing left to support him now was this coffin-like box. Steeped in the dark, he felt fear close around his throat. Countless times he tried to shout at the top of his lungs, but always afterwards he would have a kind of illusion of having shouted -- he believed he had cried out -- when in fact he had not. He and the darkness were both very quiet. He tried to forget all of it. He tried to seek comfort in dreams. But -- he couldn't sleep. It was too noisy. He could clearly hear his own heartbeat, thump-thump, thump-thump. He could clearly hear the sound of blood flowing out of the heart, hear the sound of blood returning as the heart contracted, hear the roaring inside his head. Surging waves. Tides. He thought of the sea. Endless fine lines came sliding in, one by one, from places his gaze could not reach. In those days when there had been no darkness, light had freely suffused everything. It had whitewashed all the darkness from his body. He vaguely remembered the warm waves striking his legs again and again, drawing him for a long time into a strange kind of pleasure. What had no color was water. He felt very thirsty. But he couldn't open his mouth. The dryness had already glued his lips together. Was what was flowing inside his body blood? Or water? He was still very thirsty. But he had no way of drinking water -- in this cramped, dark container, every move he made was tightly bound. He had no choice but to admit that. What he was grateful for, though, was that within the darkness there still remained a thin trace of air for him to listen through. The memory of nothing but blood flowing was truly painful to him. The pain came and went in the depths of his mind, catching him off guard. He couldn't help but begin a countdown.
But he didn't want to recall from where the countdown should start. More importantly, why count down at all? He didn't know, and he wouldn't know. He only felt that the sound of blood flowing was growing louder and louder. He only felt that the surrounding darkness was still endlessly multiplying. The darkness had taken over the place that should have been his. He really, simply could not bear it. The coffin-box still sat there as solid as ever. He didn't think he would be rescued -- more precisely, he had never imagined that anyone would come to rescue him. Was he still a person? Was he a person of any value? -- But then, was it only valuable people who deserved to be rescued? -- And then, why would a person of any value ever soak himself in this damned darkness? He felt his breathing growing heavier and heavier. His lungs no longer had the strength to fight the darkness for what little air there was. The sound of flowing blood grew more and more deafening. He felt as if he were about to sink to the bottom of the sea. -- And what was so bad about sinking to the bottom of the sea? He would no longer feel thirst. His lips would no longer be glued together. There was nothing to be sad about, and nothing he needed to be sad over. He only felt himself beginning to swell endlessly, pressing tightly against the box. But he still couldn't outpace the darkness.
The empty coffin-like box was filled with darkness.