8 Squares in Hell: Not Everybody Made It.
INTRO
They started next to each other because that’s how the position demanded it, not because anyone thought it would matter later.
Two pawns on two side-by-side files. Same rank. Same color. Same quiet expectation that their job was simple: stand there, don’t collapse, and move when told. If you asked anyone watching the board, they would’ve told you they were interchangeable. Just another pair in a boring, repetitive central structure.
But to each other, they were everything.
The one on the d-file was named Jonah. The one on the e-file was called Micah. They didn’t name themselves; pawns never do. Names just appear once you’ve stood somewhere long enough and shared enough silence. Eventually, the other pieces just seemed to give them names.
The Game
The game started out the way most games do, not with immediate action, but with possibility and tension. The Pieces slid out, eager to feel out the game and test how far the opponent was willing to go. Knights jumped around, making their way into the game, and per normal, were a little showy. Bishops stretched their long arms, preparing the scope down the diagonal, ready to snipe at a moment's notice. The kings stayed put, they stayed safe, they stayed away.
And the pawns waited, and they waited... Seconds turned into minutes, building the tension, building the pressure, and building Micah's anticipation.
Micah liked waiting less than Jonah did.
“Feels like we’re wasting time,” Micah complained after a few moves that didn’t involve them.
Jonah didn’t answer right away. His attention was dominated by an enemy knight bouncing back and forth, probing for an opening, and dangerously at that. “Time isn’t being wasted,” Jonah said, finally. “It’s being spent. Big difference.”
Micah snorted, chuckling. “You always say stuff like that.”
“And you always move before thinking,” Jonah replied, without judgment.
Micah took that as a compliment. He thought of it as less a danger, more so a style, more so a way to make it all the way.
They’d been placed in front of their king, part of what the players liked to call a solid center. Nothing fancy. No gambits. No early sacrifices. Just a position that promised a long game if everyone behaved.
Micah loved that promise. A long game meant a chance to make it. A chance to get there. A chance to fulfill one's purpose.
Jonah liked it because long games rewarded patience, precision, and strategy.
The First Move
Their first move came when the player finally decided it was time. One square forward. Clean. Controlled. The board clicked beneath them routinely, but suddenly the square behind them felt farther away than it should’ve.
“That’s it?” Micah asked. “Just one?”
“For now,” Jonah said, "be patient."
Micah leaned forward, peering down the file. Eight squares didn’t look like much when you stared at them, but they had a way of stretching out once you started walking.
“Hard to believe anyone makes it all the way,” Micah said.
“Some do,” Jonah replied.
“Yeah, but most don’t.”
Jonah smiled a little. “Most things that matter aren’t common.”
They learned early what each piece was like.
The rooks scared Micah. They didn’t move much, but when they did, something disappeared. Rooks were like avalanches, coming and going few and far between, but when they did, little could be done.
The bishops made Jonah uneasy. Too quiet. Too patient. Always watching from angles you forgot existed. Like snipers waiting patiently on their camouflaged pirch.
The queen fascinated Micah. “Imagine that,” he whispered ti himself once. “Moving however you want." All of the freedom. All of the power. All of the responsibility, He thought.
Jonah didn’t respond. He was watching the kings, who stayed close to home but somehow felt like the most important pieces on the board.
“That’s business,” Micah continued, undeterred. “You start small, you keep your head down, and one day you’ve got options.”
Jonah glanced at him. “Is that what you think promotion is?”
Micah shrugged. “Isn’t it?”
What the Future Holds
Jonah thought for a moment. “I think promotion is what happens after everything else goes wrong and you keep going anyway.”
Micah laughed. “You really know how to sell it.”
They advanced again. And again. Looking for their opportunity to break thorugh.
Not recklessly, but eagerly. Micah always wanted to go first, to test the space, to feel pressure. Jonah followed, making sure nothing collapsed behind them. They became known, in the quiet way pieces know these things, as dependable. The center didn’t crack while they were there.
They stopped an early attack together. An enemy pawn lunged, hoping to disrupt the structure. Micah captured it without hesitation.
“First win,” he said proudly.
Jonah studied the empty square left behind. “Someone always pays for space.”
Micah didn’t answer. He was already looking forward.
As the game stretched on, the board changed its tone. Pieces disappeared. Files opened. Diagonals sharpened. The safe, symmetrical world of the opening faded into something more exposed.
That was when Micah started to feel important.
A rook lined up behind him on the e-file, a silent weight of expectation. The enemy’s pieces hovered, unsure whether to commit.
“You see that?” Micah whispered.
Jonah nodded. “You’re becoming a target.”
“Or an opportunity.”
“Those are often the same thing.”
Micah didn’t like how Jonah said that.
They had their first real argument not long after.
Micah wanted to push. The square ahead of him was contested, but barely. Jonah thought it was premature.
“If you go now,” Jonah said, “you can be pinned. Or worse.”
“If I don’t go now,” Micah replied, “they’ll lock the position and I’ll be stuck here forever.”
“Forever isn’t that long,” Jonah said. “Most pawns disappear before the endgame.”
Micah turned to him. “I don’t plan on disappearing.”
Jonah looked at him carefully. “Neither did the others.”
The Attack
They didn’t speak after that. When Micah pushed anyway, Jonah didn’t stop him. He just adjusted, covering what he could, hoping it would be enough.
It almost wasn’t.
A knight jumped in, attacking Micah from an angle Jonah hadn’t liked from the start. The pressure mounted. The rook behind Micah couldn’t help yet. Everything felt one tempo off.
Micah felt it then, real fear. The kind that doesn’t announce itself loudly. The kind that sits in your square and waits.
“I might be gone,” he said quietly.
Some Will Make it
Jonah stepped forward without hesitation, placing himself where the knight would have to choose.
“You don’t have to,” Micah said.
“I know.”
They both knew what it meant. Jonah was offering himself, not dramatically, but deliberately. If the knight took him, Micah lived. If not, the tension eased.
The knight backed off.
Micah exhaled. “You didn’t even think about it.”
Jonah shrugged. “I did. It just didn’t take long.”
That night, if you could call the pause between moves a century, Jonah spoke again.
“You keep thinking success is about getting somewhere,” he said. “I think it’s about who’s still standing with you when you stop moving.”
Micah didn’t answer. He couldn’t. The idea made him uncomfortable in a way he didn’t want to examine yet.
The game simplified.
Queens were traded. Bishops vanished. Knights fell. The board became quieter, but every sound mattered more. Kings stepped forward, suddenly exposed, suddenly brave.
And the pawns, the pawns became everything.
Micah was free now. No enemy pawns ahead of him. A clear file. A path.
“Passed pawn,” someone murmured above the board.
Micah felt something swell inside him. Not pride exactly. Something sharper.
Jonah was less lucky. His file was clogged with resistance. Enemy pawns refused to move, refused to trade. Every advance was a fight.
“Sorry,” Micah said once.
Jonah shook his head. “This was always going to be uneven.”
Micah advanced again. Seventh rank. The square felt strange beneath him, like standing on a ledge.
“I’m close,” he said.
Jonah smiled, tired but sincere. “I know.”
Then it happened.
An enemy rook slid behind Micah, threatening everything. The kind of move players love because it looks simple and brutal at the same time.
Micah froze. There was no square forward that was safe. No retreat. No clever trick.
Some Will Not
Jonah saw it instantly.
“This is it,” Micah said.
Jonah didn’t answer. He moved without hesitation. He knew exactly what to do.
Not Everybody Made it
He slid, forward into capture range, interposing himself in the only way that might give his brother a chance to keep going. The rook took him without pause.
No flash. No hesitation. Just absence.
Jonah was gone.
Micah felt it like the board had tilted.
“I didn’t ask you to,” he whispered.
The game did not care, the game continued.
With Jonah gone, the file opened. The rook behind Micah surged forward. The king followed. Everything aligned, horribly and perfectly, beautifully and unsightly, all at the same time.
Micah advanced, knowing his brother's sacrifice couldn't go to waste.
Each square felt heavier than the last. Not because of danger, the danger was mostly gone now, but because of memory. Every move forward was a move away from where Jonah had stood. Where Jonah had observed the position and remid Micah to be patient.
When Micah finally reached the eighth rank, the joy of the occasion had been stripped from his fingertips.
The player chose a queen.
Power flooded in, but it felt late, it felt underwhelming. Like applause after the room had emptied.
The game ended soon after. Checkmate. Hands shaken. Pieces reset.
But Micah remembered.
He remembered Jonah counting squares. Jonah hesitating. Jonah calculating. Jonah stepping forward when it mattered.
He had become everything he wanted to be.
And he had never felt smaller.
If pawns could go backward, Micah would have.
If Micah could unpromote and start it all over again, he would have done it in an instant.
But chess doesn’t allow that.
You move forward.
You remember.
And you live with it.
And just like that, another Eight Squares in Hell.
