The last brick slid into place in the ceiling, sucking with it all light from the small room. Jiyani brushed off her hands, the darkness emphasizing the gritty feel of brick dust and dried mortar. She coughed once, sensing more than seeing the particles in the dry air.

Here she thought, Here I can think. Her voice echoed in her head, the memory of the sound making it seem she had spoken aloud. Solid cold stone seemed endless in all directions as she sat; it seemed endless and encompassing. As her body numbed from cold she could not tell where stone ended and where she began. Her breathing burst through the silence as she inhaled, but as she relaxed it slowed to a gentle nudge.

Here, she did not think of work or school or social absurdities. She did not think of songs or poems or paintings. She did not think of formulas or equations or theorems. Here, emotion was thought, heart was mind, and body was stone. Dense as stone, hollow as emptiness, it was symbolic suicide.

Void of sights and sounds and time and thought, she lay there. It was peaceful, but somehow ominous as well.

She sat up, and sighed.

It's not that I can't handle it, she rationalized, rising to her feet, but it is a little boring. As blood flowed again, she could feel every individual vessel throbbing, warm. She took up the sledgehammer she had brought against this very possibility.

Finding the wall did not take long. She chose a spot at about arm level, and swung. The crash-crunching noise assailed her, rebounding off the walls. She swung again, ignoring the assault on her ears and the jarring in her elbows.

Again.

Again.

Surely, I must be through by now. She felt the wall in the death-black darkness. Finding the hole, her hand slipped through it into nothingness. Jiyani's eyes widened, in surprise or an attempt to catch any ray of light. She swung again, harder, her momentum spinning her into the wall. Hammering, pounding, and searching repeated until she slipped through the hole from familiar into foreign blackness. Her hair was tangled and dirty, and brushed against her face, animal-like.

Free of her sanctuary, she ran, ran until taut legs matched sore arms and further. She wished she would trip, or run head first into something, anything, but her emptiness conquered more than just her small room. Her sanctuary had become her tomb.