Ratground

It was not long ago that society started to label me as an addict. I use through the pain of losing a loved one. She was the true force in my life, the joy in every waking day. My only hope, the flicker of a starshine in the sky even on darkest nights. I hate myself for using. My only consolation I could think of, that grief might be the best reason for using. But no matter how much I snort, Drink, smoke or shoot, nothing brings her back.

She used to say that I keep company like rats keep close to each other. Like I wouldn’t let go of someone because I see everyone in the same light as me. I guess even now she would know me best. I have my spots in the city and with many lowlifes I consider my favourite the one at the alley next to the long-forgotten children’s playground. The dealers like to hang out next to the sewers duct cover. They say the sewers go down to the old metro station beneath the playground, and the metro lines expand to a cave system big like the old labyrinths in those myths I use to read back in my youth. Well funny thing is, we call this spot The Ratground.

It was one of those dreamless dawns like it used to be. I don’t really sleep anymore, and I don’t really have routine for going to bed anymore. The ’time to sleep’ lost it’s meaning to me as now I just pass out. Not sure I would say I even get unconscious as the drugs keep ticking in my mind like when the train passes on railroads in rhythmic beats, every time those metal caravans passed on… Oh God I need another hit!

Thankfully the Ratground was not too far from my home. I wasn’t a homeless bum yet. I guess that does mean some hope that I wasn’t out on the streets, yet. I want to get better, really, I do. But some days… or even most days I’m just too weak. And most of this wretched time I don’t understand how is this stuff so strong to keep me wanting more. Why are we so weak against some little dust or crystal? why does this venom make our will bend around in a timeless warp? I use to think I could understand how months, and years define us. Now I just feel like they’re a mess and like this miasma it is everywhere around my body, in my brain and in my veins.

The journey through the usual alleys home was at least a pleasant one. With the poison in my body, I was able to feel at least some relief. I was ready to go to slumber, I was ready to wake up again tomorrow and give another try against the cold embrace of fate’s eternal tragicomedy. After I walked past the same street signs and down on the one lane, I have my home I saw something at the building I live in. It was the fuzz. Coppers, the blue force that serve and protect us. Thing is I think they were after me. It’s been rumoured that they are after the Ratground’s dealers for several weeks now, and they’ve been heavily asking around for suspicious drug activities. I really didn’t have the stomach for this now, I needed to lay low for the night. I stared at my window and took several heavy blinks at it, and after that I just started to walk back to the Ratground.

I got back to the playground of overconsumption, but feds started to ask the junkies here as well. I saw that some of the addicts walk down to the Ratground’s labyrinths. I never been there and I really didn’t want to go down there ever. I thought that if I keep myself out of the underground, I won’t be a part of it. But the blue coated men were already too close and I was pretty sure I wouldn’t be able to handle their interrogations and I would be an accomplice to my businessperson’s capture. I had no choice but to go down where this dark unending enslavement of a life takes its roots.

I jumped from the down from the ladder and put my two feet on the wet ground. It was the sewers no doubt. The rivers of disgusting used streams of water were running here, but there was a big street like platform next to the muddy flow. It was big enough to house other addicts escape route and evidently… mine as well. It was dark. Darker I think than any other place I’ve been really. the only thing I could see is the other escapees. Some of them used their phones to light the paths, I took out mine and started to follow the lights. The other ones probably know some way to a place where they could stay low, and keep themself safe in this night of craving.“What has my life become? What the hell am I even doing here?” There was no point in going back though, because the cops would definitely saw it suspicious if someone crawls out of the ground. I took the same road that the others took and hoped I wouldn’t have to go too far for safety.

As I followed the junkies, I heard small squeaking on the ground like rats or a mouse. “Disgusting.” I thought to myself. “But fitting name I guess”. As I remembered why exactly was it called The Ratground. This was the foundation of the Ratground community between the addicts. Probably the other ones were here many times, and they really know a way to an underground shelter or bunker. I looked around with my phone and saw some strange drawings and writings on the walls with white charcoal. The drawings seem to represent some mythological creatures. They looked like the common rats but with a weird anthropomorphises body. They somehow looked like hideous humanoid beings, but strangely mixed with animal qualities. The writings however were in a language that I never saw before. I was never much of a linguist but I was pretty sure that they couldn’t be in any frequently used wording. But these just only meant one thing for me, people often go down here so there must be something here. A sudden inquisitiveness came to my mind, like the sweet release of the dope I injected into my body at the Ratway’s playground.

A few T-Sections emerged Infront of me, but I still saw and heard which way the others went, although they were much fewer now, not unlike the Rat squeaking that got more frequent and much lauder even beneath my legs. Small rodents ran through my vision, they seemed like they were all going in one place, oddly the same place as the drug cravers ran too. What was even more odd that I didn’t find this frightful at all, like some kind of a force was drawing me deeper and deeper inside the Ratground’s labyrinths.

Another T-Section, a right turn and then… I think I lost the others. I was alone. “How was this possible?” I thought. “They were Infront of me the whole time”. No longer. I needed my own artificial lightning because I saw something. Hundreds of candles brightened a big corridor where mattresses were laying on the floor. The place was empty, but I thought it was odd that candles were burning. Somebody had time to light all of them. People were really living here. I curiously walked between the mattresses and saw some rotten chairs as well that were run over by the wet mold. Not surprisingly resembling this grim place. At the end of the corridor was a strange big rock-like statue erected high above 8 metres. The light was focused here, and the rock figure was shining by the brightness of the candles around. It was at that moment that I realised that it’s a monolith, for… “some kind of a God!? When did religion and taking drugs mixed together?” The walls were covered by the alien-esque calligraphy and several forms of the rat-like creatures that I saw before. Some of them had octopoid tentacles coming out of their body like legs. “What kind of a cult is this?” And with that thought I turned around, but I didn’t want to go back. No not yet. Something must be here if a place was decorated like this.

Behind the stone Idol, I saw that at the corridor's corner were two tunnels leading down to the same path. The tunnels had railroads on it. This must have been one of the old Terminus stations of the metro underground used before. I took the right tunnel and went up on the railway. Thankfully, some old lamps were still in operation above the rails so I no longer had to use my phone for light, and I could see much clearly. After a few hundreds of meters of walking, I saw some old, occupied trains. I think I finally found the other addicts here. They were laying down in the trains in there craving slumber. Nobody talked. All I heard was their heavy breathing and painful moaning, but still, I didn’t disturb anyone. I think most of them didn’t even realised I was there.

The lights above me started to flicker. First just one of them. Then another, and then another. As I reached the last wagon of the trains suddenly all of the lamps started to violently flash like during an electrical surgency. The rats squeaking returned, and they were louder than ever before down in this rotten tunnel labyrinth. The black rodents beneath my legs started to run amok but all of them hastened in to one direction in front of me. I look at where they were running and hear a foul growling. Immediately the shivers ran down my spine, like in a cold shower of ice cubes.

Smoke started to pour out from the dark, and from the blackness emerged a foul monstrosity which looks I cannot and will not describe in detail, forever when I try to recall it my mind goes berserk and scared beyond insanity. All I remember clearly was that it was huge, like several of those train cars stacked on each other. It oozed out from the dark, it had a giant rat’s face where I think its head should have been. It crawled on its scaly tentacles, yet it had disgusting animal hair and on its body was an open giant mouth with laser sharp teeth. I wanted to run but I was paralyzed by fear. The other junkies just laid down on the grounds and on the metro chairs, nobody started to run. “Have I really gone mad? Am I the only one who is seeing this?”. Yet as frightful as this experience was, I couldn’t move and some kind of force didn’t allow me to move from my position. The monstrosity was getting closer every second, rats ran all around its body, and I felt that the black smoke from its body was slowly suffocating me with its grip. I didn’t remember anything else after that. I think I fainted or something, because I woke up in my flat, and in my bed. At first, I thought this was a horrible dream from the meth, but the thing is I still had my clothes on, and I couldn’t find the money I spent on the drugs, so it must have happened. I quickly checked the date on my phone, but it had no battery. Hastily I turned on the computer to check the time. It was the day after I went out to the Ratground. “Was that even real??…”

That day I had the worst drug induced hangover in my life. I tried to fall asleep and rest, but I just couldn’t and kept tossing and turning in my bed. The images of last night wouldn’t stop popping in my head. I took a walk outside, and as I went back to the playground I asked around. I questioned cautiously the other drug fiends; I didn’t want them to think I went mad. I wondered if anyone else had ever seen that monstrosity before. No one gave me a real answer, but they did look very suspicious when I asked if they knew about the shrine down at the old station. “Must have been left there when the metro line was still in work.” Said one of the clear minded meth-merchants. “Look, I suggest you don’t go any deeper down this rabbit hole. Men still do not know about what perception drives them, and why, what. Or who…” I thought this was a half-assed philosophy but the more his words echoed in my ear, I was entangled by it more. “Who??

I heard about folklore forces that drove users into obsessive worship. ’Yal-Hutta’, ’The Rat-God, ’Deity and Slaver of Addicts’ was one that I read about, but I always thought it was just fabricated names of a nightmare creature to scare away people from the poison. I could only think about that freakish abnormality down under the city. Well, that and one other thing…

“GOD, I need another hit.”