Under Paris

Once the after-party of one of the members had to go home. Getting home wouldn’t be hard because he didn’t live too far. Some people may consider his building quite an unfortunate, sketchy place. To go home, he would have to go all the way down an alleyway. He was drunk too, which didn’t help his cause because most of the alleyways looked the same in Paris. As he kept walking, he was given looks from other people who pitied him. The smell of booze and alcohol was fuming off his body. It was like those bakeries on the side of the street when they just finished baking fresh bread. He had liked that a lot; baguettes were one of his favourites. The taste of them almost melted in his mouth. Getting further and further away from the after-party's house, he gets closer and closer to his own. With a few more turns, he would finally get there; home was no more than a few more streets away. And even then, it didn’t seem like it was that bad; the amount of alcohol he had in his system made time go by like dust in the wind.

“Hey, watch where you are going!”

One French man said to him, he had bumped into him without realizing.

“Oh fuck off. It wasn’t—wasn’t even that bad.”

His sentences are full of slurred words and hiccups. Noticing the intoxicated state he was in, the passer-by just left him alone.

“You poor drunken bastard.”

That passer-by said, leaving him. The drunken Frenchman was a bit of an ass, at least to other people, and spoke to them without a care in the world, like they wouldn't do anything about it. Finally, he saw it, his turn to get home. He gripped onto the pole that was on the corner of the street, and slingshot himself over into the alleyway. Stumbling down the way, he pushed himself from the wall, trying to keep himself balanced. On his way home, he was wearing a bag and a satchel, and inside was something very important to him. His journal. It kept a lot of who he was inside, like his own little memory. As he continued his way down, he felt the ground under him shift, and that was also followed by the sounds of cracking. Then it hit him. The paved ground below him opened up in a matter of seconds, like the Sarlacc in Star Wars. As he fell, he got caught on something. But inevitably fell, and as he did, he hit his head on the side of the ground, the edge of the hole. Losing conscience, there was help coming. Nobody was in the alleyway that he was just in. Like a ghost town, not a soul was present; nobody to hear or see anything.

***

After what seemed like only a few seconds, he came to. His mind felt foggy and empty, like a town evacuated from danger. Trying to stand made him feel lightheaded if he would faint. Sitting down, he leaned against the wall, and he could feel the blood being able to get across his body. Finally being able to stand up, he felt something. It was on his side; the Frenchman didn’t know what it was. Strapped around him, over one shoulder, across his torso and resting on his hip. His satchel, yet he couldn’t remember, he was going to open it, the sound of cloth tearing was loud, the satchel fell from his hands, and below. There was a crack. Too big to fit through, but just enough for the satchel, it slammed against the ground with a thud. Dropping to his knees, he outstretched his arms reaching for the satchel. Catching it just on the tip of his finger. Below, the sound of rushing water is persistent. Reeling in his arm, trying to keep hold of the strap was useless; it finally let go, the snapping of the last few strings. Pulling back his arm, the Frenchman watched as the pouch splashed into the water, all the contents flying out like a filing cabinet in those scary movies. And all he was left with was the strap. It lay limp in his hand, the light breeze down below causing it to sway slightly. He let go, letting it get blown away. Looking around, it was like he was inside a tunnel. Like a subway or maintenance tunnel, the only difference is the walls. Instead of being concrete or wood, or even just the exposed ground, the walls were bones. He gasped as he looked to the left, a human skull looking right at him. He took a step back in shock, sunlight pouring down on his face, looking up, he saw the sky. The place he fell from, he assumed, his head hurt like it had been drilled into; Over and over again. Taking a few deep breaths, he was finally able to calm himself down; he couldn’t even remember who he was or where he was from. All memory from his past was gone; he didn’t even remember how he got there, other than he must’ve fallen. Gaining his bearings, he started making his way down the dark and gloomy hallway. The smell of dust and bones that scatter the walls fills his airways. He coughed a little as he walked through the dark catacombs, but he couldn't see. There appeared to be a light, a polaris in a time of need. As the Frenchman walked to it, the light grew bigger, it grew bigger and brighter, the sun shining down on him, as he got there, bathing in the light like a moth to a lamp. It was a slightly different area; it was a room with cages and cells.

Standing there, the air seemed to have less of a heavy feel, less like it was filled with dust. The room didn’t seem too bad, other than the smell. He couldn’t get past it; he didn’t even know how to describe it, given how bad it was.

“Christ.”

He muttered, his eyes horrified at the sight of the bones scattered along the ground. Part of him felt like he should sit down again and catch his breath, another part said he should try and run away as he could. He walked, though with haste, to one of the doors, which looked like one that would be able to let him out. He could see lanterns on the walls behind the cell doors. He reached out, gripping the door with his hand and pulling sideways. He heard a click, but nothing else. There was a padlock. To get through, he needed a key; there were so many places the key could be that it was a little intimidating, though the sheer will to get out of this place pushed him. he tried to find it, and he turned as much as he could upside down. Everywhere he had looked resulted in no key, and the main room he was in had nothing. After a few minutes of searching and mumbling swear words to himself, he gave up. Looking around the room again, he saw a door frame.  Walking through, he was hit immediately with dust, falling from the ceiling as if it was collapsing, he coughed greatly as it entered his lungs, drowning from how much there was. He eventually got better, catching his breath and managed to keep going. As he kept walking, there was the faint sound of something from inside the room that he was getting to. Inside the room, there was a candle, which illuminated some of the area, but not too much. As he stepped into the room, the sound stopped. On the desk in the middle was a candle wax dripping down the side, and the key. He walked forward and grabbed it, but as he did, he felt hands go around from behind him and reach in front, grabbing onto his face, like a mask. He struggled against the hands' grip. The desk was pushed over and causing dust to fly up like an explosion had gone off. As he fought with the constant grabbing onto him, he managed to pocket the key and finally broke free. Running out of the room and through the hall, he stumbled, almost tripping on a pile of bones in the hallway, making it back into the main room, the thing behind him caught up. He spun around to face it. He was a man, looking unhealthy and malnourished. The strange and aggressive man seemed to be so unfortunate, and down on his luck, the Frenchman almost bleeding for him at the sight.

He looked at him for a moment, both of them silent for the whole time. Just watching each other as they could see how dishevelled both of them were. Both of them understood how they felt; they had been through the same thing only difference being that the strange man had been there longer.

“Who—who are you?”

The Frenchman asked, his voice slightly sympathetic yet cautious.

“I’m Jean, what about you?”

He responded, also a hint of weariness in his voice. As hard as the Frenchman tried to remember, he just couldn’t, like it had been erased from his memory, like a lobotomy.

“I can't remember.”

The Frenchman admitted, despite how much he didn’t want to. It seemed like an obvious lie not to know who you are. Jean looked at him with a bit of confusion. He didn’t know for sure if he was lying, but it seemed so blatantly obvious, except for the river of blood down his forehead. Looking, he could see on the Frenchman's forehead where he had hit his head; it was hidden by his hair, but still, even with that, he felt like the truth was more prevalent.  He felt that the Frenchman was truthful, but it still didn’t seem right. He forgot his name.

“You are hurt.”

Jean said, addressing the wound on the head.

“I am?”

The Frenchman asked, concern fill- ed his voice.

“Yeah, you are bleeding, we should at least try and stop it.”

At first, the Frenchman was a little hesitant about what to do; he wanted the help, yet he wasn’t fully trustful of Jean.

“Yeah, we should, but how will we?”

He asked, trying to think, but his head was still full of fog, like the streets during the night after a rainstorm. Jean took off his shirt, and his body underneath revealed a slim and neglected body, one that also hadn’t seen light in days. In this room, the only source of light is the torches on the wall. He got the Frenchman to sit down with him, as they sat, Jean took his torn shirt, worn by the days he had spent down there, it wasn’t the cleanest, yet he could still use it. Wrapping it around the Frenchman's head, the blood seeping through the shirt slightly but still stopping it.

“There, hold your hand there.”

Jean said moving the Frenchman's hand towards the wound site to put pressure, the bleeding had to stop.

“Thanks, I didn’t even know. But I think I have the key to that door.”

The Frenchman said he took out the key from his pocket and stood up, but as he did, he needed to take a small break. His head got dizzy, and his vision was a little blurry. Regaining his composure, he made it back to the door that he was stuck behind. As it opened, Jean took one of the torches off the wall, and they both walked down the hallway. It was more of a ramp downwards than it was a straight way out, like he had hoped.

As they made their way deeper into the catacombs, it got a little colder. The further they went, the lower the temperature. They figured being cold was better than being stuck, and the torch let off a little bit of heat, even if it was barely anything. The hallways started to branch off, and the sound of running water was getting louder. A slight draft is persistent in the catacomb hallway.

“What's this?”

Jean questioned getting down on one knee to pick up the paper, on which was a name: Malo. The Frenchman's name, finally learning his name, he could feel some of the fog leave his mind. Unlocking a forgotten memory.

“I think this is my name…”

The Frenchman said, trying to recall. With only a moment of stopping to think, he realized. Malo was his name, the page they found was out of the satchel that fell down the hole. The water they heard was the same river that the satchel had fallen into.

“So, Malo, what now?”

Jean asked, testing the newfound name to hear how it sounds.

“We must keep going. I want to find more of these papers. Maybe I will learn more about who I am.”

Jean agreed and they kept walking, the torch burning out and becoming dimmer and dimmer. Their source of light and heat slowly fades away, yet their hope of getting out grows stronger. A drop of water hits Malo in the head, and he looks up to see where it came from. A small spot in the ceiling is open, letting out a minuscule amount of water. His hand was still holding onto that part of his head that was bleeding; the water that fell seeped in, but not far enough. Now his hand was red, but that wasn’t a concern for him; he was still hellbent on finding a way out, driven by sheer will. The pathway came to a stop and then split off into only two ways, one seemingly more ominous than the other, yet the one that wasn’t as bad seemed off. There was a feeling about it that neither of them could put their finger on; they didn’t entirely know what they wanted to do.

Malo was about to go down the path on the left. Still, Jean protested, he didn’t want anything to go wrong. Down the dark and decrepit hallway was silent, yet down the brighter and slightly more inviting path, they heard a low growl and some shuffling; it was a person or creature rummaging around. Jean didn’t want to find out what was on the other side of the path, but Malo insisted.

“Look, I don’t think it will be that bad. What if it is another person? They could find a way out.”

Malo tried to convince him, but it wasn’t working, so Jean had no other choice but to say what he knew: he wanted to lie to Malo, to try and keep him safe from the horrors down there. But now Jean knew that wasn’t an option.

“There are things down here you may never fully understand.”

Malo looked at him like he was crazy, speaking complete nonsense.

“What do you mean ‘never fully understand’?”

Malo asked, trying to get a better view of what was going on.

“There are things down here that aren’t human.”

Malo looked at him now, instead of confusion, it was concern.

“How can something be not human?”

Jean didn’t say anything else, just looked at him, even though no words were said, he seemed to understand.

“Ok.”

They walked down the dark and cold path, the last bit of warmth and light falling from the torch as they kept moving it around. Walking down the catacomb, blinded and searching around for the way like mole rats in the ground. Finally, they made it to the end of the tunnel, and their torch was of no use; it had died out. Just as it died out, Malo felt a breeze past his shoulder, a movement just to the right of him. Jean was to the right of him, so he assumed that it was a bat.

“Did you feel that?”

Malo asked, turning to see if he could make out what it was.

“Probably a bat, it is dark down here after all.”

Jean responded, sounding like those know-it-all kids from classrooms. But Malo accepted, other than the fact that there wasn’t any clicking from the echo location. But there was one noise, deeper into where they were. The sound of rumbling, like big trucks driving over you.

They looked at each other. As long as they stayed, they wouldn't lose each other, and they started cautiously moving their way into the tunnel. The sound of water drops hitting the ground echoed throughout.

“Look!”

Jean exclaimed quietly, the thoughts of those creatures shook him, a shiver going down his spine at just the thought of it. They slowly moved towards it, also because they had nowhere else to go, going straight into their mut had been the only way out, even so, they were all turned around.

“How do we even know that this is the right way out?”

They speak in hushed tones. And Jean isn’t too sure how to answer.

“I don’t see that we have much of another option.”

Malo reluctantly agreed, but silently, they grew closer to the rumbling sounds. Now they finally see a massive, grotesque creature, its bones striking a horrifying pose, and they stick out of its body, almost as if the skin is too tight and too small. Small sounds came from it, like groans of pain. Malo could hear it, begging for help with no mouth to speak with, ithads rotted and looked like it was decomposed, the creature's jaw hung off, connected by nothing more than the ligaments and flesh. Malo had a disgusted feeling, the need to vomit growing. Jean looked at him with pleading eyes, not to make a sound. Every breath the creature took was laboured and painful, razor blades shooting down every time it did breathe.

“What the hell…”

Jean quietly asked himself, terror filling his mind. Though even then the creature tried standing, its body too mangled to walk like a human, it had to use all fours. Below it lay a few bones, and the most notable being a human skull, staring right back at Malo and Jean. The empty eye sockets still left them feeling like it was watching. Judging. As it walked away, the creature groaned in pain. By how it looked, it must have been excruciating. They went into the area once that behemoth of a monster left. Inside the area wasn’t that bad; it was warmer and brighter than it was in the cave-like tunnel.

“What now?”

Malo asked, looking around and examining the room.

“What's this?”

Jean picked up a few more pieces of paper. Malo went over and looked at them, more entries to his journal. They were more recent than the other one.

“It says something about a party and… oh, I think this is one of my journal papers.”

Malo said that reading more, he continued, about how he felt that he didn’t have many friends and that he was going alone, he lived by himself. As he read, a depressive feeling seeped in.

“I feel that remembering certain things isn’t as good as I hoped, but I don’t know if it will help me or not. I can only hope that it does.”

Some dust from the ceiling came down upon them, Malo looked up as this happened, his face being painted slightly with the dust from it. He wiped his face, the ground seemed to rumble with fierce force. It must’ve been coming back Jean thought, he looked at Malo trying to think of what to do, just across from them was a big wooden door, a double door. Jean ran to the door, his steps heavy with the fear of that thing coming back. He slammed up against it, pushing the door with all of his might, grunts coming out as he pushed, Malo wasn’t slow to follow behind, a silent agreement to do this. After a grueling time of pushing they managed to open it just enough to slip through.

Falling through to the other side Malo turned around. He looked through the jarred door, the light from the room illuminating only a strip of his face.

“What are you waiting for?!”

Jean quietly concerned.

“I’m just trying to see if it is coming back.”

Jean sighed while taking a look in the area they are now. Darker but the little bit of light coming in from the door helped, even if it was only just a little bit if at all. Malo waiting by the door eventually satisfied his curiosity. He was both right and wrong at the same time, instead of there being just the one creature more of them were there. Like an entire family of them, every single one of them is different but similar. Malo stepped away from the door, trying to be less visible even if he wasn’t before. Following closer to Jean they look for a way to get away. Now at this point they have been getting hungry, the only food was human that those things have yet to claim for themselves, probably others who have found themselves unlucky enough to be down here just as Malo and Jean are. Jean sat against the wall, he closed his eyes a little, fatigue crawling over his mind. Taking over little by little.

“What are you doing?”

Malo asked looking at Jean, at this point now he is slumped over. All that he got as a response is a light grumble.

“We can’t just stay here.”

Malo tried to speak again but once again Jean didn’t respond. Malo sat down next to him against the wall, the cool air of the room brushed against them. But the smell was horrible. Malo could feel the wake and awareness slip from him.

***

After an unknown amount of time Malo finally had woken up. His eyes still heavy from sleep, feels like he hasn't rested in days. Jean was still asleep. Moving over with scoots, he rested his hand on Jean’s shoulder, giving him a bit of a shake, he remained asleep against what Malo wanted. He could feel a slight heatwave go to his chest, like when you are in the sun for too long. His hands started shaking slightly as he tried to figure out what was wrong but there was no point. Jean’s body was unmoving, and cold. He lay there with the glint in his eyes missing, Malo stood, he felt so guilty knowing he didn’t want to let him rest. There was nothing he could do now though. Going a little closer he brings Jean to his shoulder and lifts him up. He was heavier than he looks, the weight of him slowing him down horribly. A wrong step on the ground turns and twists Malo’s ankle, he stumbles, almost dropping Jean but he holds on. The sound was loud and the door opened a crack, impossible to tell if the creatures were there. It wasn’t impossible though, the sounds of them grumbling and groaning was present, especially after the twist. He bit his tongue to stop from lashing in pain, his ankle swelling every step. Walking became increasingly harder every time he wanted to stop but he refused to believe what was true. Jean grew colder as time went on, Malo felt his clammy skin. The ground wasn't smooth, never really was but he could really tell now, from the ankle.

“Please… Jean don’t do this to me.”

Malo begged, he kept going until he fell to his knee. Jean landed just beside him, the sound alerted the monsters in the other room, they came with the not quite right walk. Their limbs are limited from the skin and muscles not fitting them right. Their eyes set both on Malo and Jean, both of them vulnerable, both of them defenseless.

“No.”

Malo muttered to himself as he tried to think of what to do. He looked down at Jean, and he looked down at his own self. He didn’t have time to think, turning around he looked for an escape, an entrance to another room, maybe how he gets out. Limping to it he could hear the sounds of chewing. All he could think of was Jean, his horrible fate. Taking the turn he groans in pain, his struggles met with a statue. A massive cross standing before him, towering with incredible height. He got closer, words etched into it, not French, Malo couldn’t read it.

As the monsters got around the corner they screeched, and they cried out with agonizingly loud power. Malo covered his ears trying to protect himself. They ran off, as their limbs stretched they tore, and they bled, and they fell. Malo turned back to the cross, he could feel something about it, like a pull to it. Like how gravity works, only instead it is like a small magnet attracting metal. Light beamed him in the eye. He was so thirsty, his throat a desert. Just underneath the cross was a bowl of what seemed to be water, though it had a slightly grey tint to it. Going over to it he kneeled down and dunked his hands down to the bowl, lifting them he took gulps, the water hydrating him letting him carry on, it even seemed to give him extra strength as he felt decreased. And even then his ankle stopped hurting. Looking down at it the swelling went down as well. But coming down, a piece of paper fell from a hole in the ceiling. He caught it out of the air, reading it was another one of his journal entries. This one is titled differently than the others. This one had messy and unorganized writing. But maybe not at the same time, like he couldn’t quite figure out what it was saying, or why it was even here since he wasn’t close to the river he dropped it in. Maybe it wasn’t even his but it also glowed against the gold of the cross. It hurt his eyes, unbearable and worse than any other hangovers he ever had. The light from the outside world was bright, but also inviting. He went towards it, the sun against his skin nice after the long time he spent from inside of the catacombs. The small crack revealed a tomb-like area, a small concrete shack. Climbing up the ladder felt awkward, his arms and legs felt sore and uncomfortable. Climbing into the casket he slides off the lid. The sound of scraping played along his ears. Stepping out he stumbled, he was in a cemetery. Surrounded by graves he starts walking the paths of the cemetery. One of the gates to it slightly jarred, after leaving the catacombs a burning feeling went away. The only thing that didn’t go away was the pain, all that did was get worse and there wasn’t anything he could do. He leaned against the gate, the metal cold on his hand. He let out a scream of pain and anguish. Malo gathered himself before stumbling into the street. A passerby looked at Malo, their eyes widening, her mouth dropping, a few mumbles before a scream like a banshees. It caught the attention of the others who have been walking around. Their reactions are little to no different than hers, the new sight of Malo was nothing short of horrific.