Day 578

Pill boxes had once been scattered about the english coastline, lying in wait for invasion.
They were the last resort, manned by whatever men were left behind when the useful went to war.
After all was said and won these concrete rooms were left to rot with all inside.

Of course it had to be this way, couldn't have everyone know where these little outposts were.
Just in case.
Their entrances were sealed, left exactly as they had been manned the day the war was declared over.

Of course people lamented the loss of their loved ones in some kind of top secret war project.
Their names went on the memorials while they hammered at concrete with bloodied fists for weeks.
They stopped once concrete was poured into the windows.

Some still tried to claw their way out but their hands stuck within the slurry.
The terror of being trapped was only outweighed by the agony of losing their hands.
There couldn't be any outward signs of life after all.

What few had sense to stay away from the panicking ones managed get to the centres of the boxes.
In those hollow spaces they waited, breathing shallow as their friends died slowly around them.
It gave them a food source for a while and by carving away at the trapped limbs they had air holes.

Some lasted for months in those concrete tombs, others didn't last the night.
Eventually people forgot about pill boxes and lost relatives and the faint screams along the shoreline.
And then the cliffs began to erode, bringing the boxes down with them.

With the first bodies came a wave of questions and hastily smothered investigations.
Skeletons trapped with concrete? Scratches on the walls spelling names and the truth?
Covered up with pranks, false truths and comedy.

With the masses appeased a government division was created to take care of the rest.
The boxes were destroyed at first until reports of living people came back.
Seventy years trapped with only their friends to survive on left them utterly inhuman.

Eyes a yellowish white, pupils rotted to nothing, skin and teeth much the same.
Speech reduced to incoherent sobbed apologies while their hands scratched and tore at the air.
They were silenced soon enough, bodies burnt and ashes left in landfills.