Chapter 1
In 1990, Paris, during an extremely cold gloomy night, on my way back home from the first day of college, surprisingly a stranger bundled from head to toe only the tip of his nose could be seen, gave me a letter and vanished and there I read on the edge-burned cracky paper “you should be behind a yellow building at the end of this street by mid-night” I didn’t really know what to do, but I decided to go unaware of what’s waiting for me behind that building anyways.
I went there by midnight, unexpectedly nothing was there, no one nowhere. The horror of the situation was only heightened by the solitary sound of the leaves scratching and scratching each other. It was so dark I was barely able to see where I’m going. There was only small hints of stirring bushes and the cry of the breeze. I didn’t know what laid in the darkness. I decided to go back home. “MOLLY” suddenly a sound came from nowhere calling my freaking name. I looked around and saw a man blindly running towards me, I couldn’t recognize his face features because of the darkness.
The man said, “Please, can you take care of my cat as soon as I come back from my trip”.
I replied “Do I know you? And why me?”
He said “I am a student in your class. I chose you because I saw you perfectly suitable for this”.
I didn’t really think about it and just said, “Ok, it’s just a cat, what could possibly happen”.
He thanked me and gave me the cat. The cat was kind of weird, it was totally black and questionably quiet. His head looks more of a squashed pumpkin than a proper feline skull with a flat square face, and large paws.
On my way, the cat jumped then suddenly started running away. I ran after it. The cat entered an old hospital. Dust, cobwebs, broken tables, peeling wallpaper, holes in the walls, broken glass on the floor, spiders and cockroaches everywhere. To me it was more similar to a surrendered jail or insane asylum rather than a once living hospital. The entryways and windows were piled up with a thick layer of dirt that appeared as though it has been untouched for a considerable length of time. The windows glanced back at me like the eyes of an unfilled soul, alongside the grand entryway at the passage that appeared to give me the impression it was a door to hell. I followed the cat in and took it. Then I tried to open the wooden door, pushing, pulling, kicking but no it was absolutely locked, and all my trials went to vain.
I felt nervous about being alone in an old seemingly haunted hospital. I started to search for an exit. After a while, I heard some kind of sound. I followed the sound and saw a long haired, bronze young lady with a black cat, we had almost the same dark toned bronzish skin which gave me a sense of belonging. I went to her and asked “Why are you here? What happened to you?” But no reply. I honestly felt creeped out a bit, but I asked again “Excuse me, how to get out of here?”
She uttered “I’m here since yesterday, a man told me to go to a yellow building and there he gave me a black cat then the black cat ran away and entered this hospital and I.... I followed it then the door locked then... “.
I replied “But…but how, this is exactly what just happened to me, there’s something weird about this. However, I am Molly, nineteen years old”.
She responded, “and I am Anne nineteen years old too”. I said “Oh what a coincidence. let’s go and search for an exit”.
We started to search. And I recognized her long lasting silence. After hours of searching, we found nothing but creaky doors, wind scattering paper through a broken window gap, the scratch of tree branches scraping at the windows, and rats squeaking. I got tired and sat down. When I sat down, I felt there was something under me, it was door handle leading to somewhere.
