It was dark and cold. Darker and colder than she had ever experienced, in life and death, and god, it was nearly impossible for her to breathe. Her hands reached out in the darkness, pushing their way past shards of some type of construction she did not care to identify at that point...and there was the reason why it had been so dark. Sand. Bucketloads---no, more than that. She clawed for life, now, wrestled her way up with the last bits of energy she could muster, until with one sharp, final burst, she had managed to dig through the top layer. The cool air against her fingers felt like a long overdue blessing, but she wasn't there yet; due to the thick layer of dirt and the weight of it, her last breath was running out fast---there was only so much she was capable of, especially in the weakened state she seemed to be in.
Her whereabouts were of lesser concern, then. Survival instincts had kicked in, thoughts consumed with mustering up all the strength she had left for that one final push upward. Air teased her from above, she could already feel it wafting gently down to her, as though it was beckoning her, but her mind told her "not yet". It was almost like a mantra;Â not yet, almost there, keep on going. Funny, really, because those were the exact same things she habitually told Sam when he was facing something difficult. No giving up. And she didn't.
After what seemed like an eternity, she finally managed to crawl her way out of the hell-hole she would later identify to be a grave. One breath of clean, fresh air and she was out; body sprawled over the mound of dirt she had pushed upward, her chest heaving under the strain it had been put through.
Had Jessica Moore been saved? She hadn't the faintest clue.
