You jolt awake to the crunch of gravel under tires. A dim bulb swings overhead, casting sickly arcs of light across the cab of an old pickup. Tom’s profile sits rigid behind the wheel: jaw clenched, eyes fixed on the road that snakes toward the looming silhouette of the Hanniger mines. Your wrists are bound, but the tape at your mouth is gone. He must have removed it while you were out. “Tom,” you rasp, voice thin. “Why?”

He doesn’t look at you. “Couldn’t let you leave like everyone else,” he mutters. “You’re different. You see me.” His grip tightens on the steering wheel until it creaks. You notice dried specks of rust-colored grit on his sleeve; iron dust, maybe something worse. When the truck finally stops, he reaches across and cuts the zip-tie at your ankles. “Walk,” he says, not unkindly, but with a finality that drills straight through your ribs.

The elevator cage groans as it lowers you both into the shaft. Wood beams scroll past, damp and splintered; the air grows colder. Tom stands inches away, his eyes darting over your face as if memorizing every flicker of emotion. “I worked down here with my dad,” he says softly, like he’s sharing a secret. “All the good memories I have are buried in this rock.” A tremor runs through him: part nostalgia, part something darker.

You choose your words carefully. “You don’t have to do this. We can leave the memories where they are.”

“I need you to understand,” he whispers. “Nobody else ever does.” When the cage grinds to a halt, he leads you along a narrow drift. The mine’s ribbed walls glisten with moisture; puddles reflect your unsteady flashlight beam. Somewhere deeper, a drip echoes like a metronome marking borrowed time. He stops at a hollowed-out side tunnel: an old break room, long abandoned. A rusted table, a couple of overturned lockers, and a mattress salvaged from God-knows-where sit like relics in the gloom. “It’s not much,” Tom admits, almost shy, “but it’s ours.”

You swallow. “Ours?”

He nods, earnest, desperate. “Here, no one can pull us apart.”

Your pulse skitters. The room feels like a tomb. Still, you force calm into your voice. “Tom, locking someone away isn’t love. It’s a cage.”

He flinches as if struck, then kneels down and slices the bonds at your wrists. “You’re right, it’s forever.” You rub the angry red rings on your skin, half shocked by the freedom. But when you glance at the tunnel mouth, his hand closes gently, yet immovably, around your arm. “Don’t run,” he pleads. “If you leave, I’ll break again. I can’t break again.”

You shift tactic: “I understand the loneliness, Tom. But trapping me won’t heal you.”

“I know it’s hard right now,” he murmurs. “But you’ll understand. You’ll see what I see.”

“And if I don’t?” you whisper.

Tom’s smile doesn’t falter, but his eyes flicker, something snapping just behind them.

“Then I’ll wait,” he says. “A year. Ten. It doesn’t matter. I’m not going anywhere. And neither are you.” He stands, the sound of his boots echoing off the walls. You think he’s leaving, but instead, he drags a second chair closer, sits down across from you like you’re just two lovers having a quiet evening together. “You’ll come around,” he says. And you realize: he truly believes that.