Word for Word: Worm

I’m in a writers’ group that meets on Zoom, though before the pandemic we met in the back room of a nonprofit bakery. Every week, we do a writing prompt: someone gives a page number, and our organizer picks a word from a huge dictionary. In this example, the word is: Worm.

A tombstone in a seventeenth-century burial ground in Cambridge, Massachusetts

With bare hands, I dug my way up out of the ground. Reaching, I touched a wiggly, slimy worm and jerked my hand back with a gasp. Dirt got into my mouth. Just as I was spitting dirt out and struggling to breathe, light streamed down on me, and I shoved my way through the last inch of dirt.

I clambered onto cold, damp ground and didn’t stop crawling until I was entirely above ground, pulling up my feet.

I lay still, gasping for breath. Though the outdoors felt chillier than ideal, I relished the fresh air. I gasped in deep breaths. I rolled over and confirmed that the full moon had lit my way.

Still lying on the ground, I peered around and observed that I occupied a cemetery.