Paris

9th August, 2011 : Paris


"Hey, wake up" the voice next to me said softly. My eyes opened and I looked around the blurred room slowly. I blinked a few times to clear my vision and realised I was sitting on a plane. The girl next to me, a friend I was assuming, had a large grin on her face. I smiled back and she shifted excitedly in her chair. "We're almost there". Shifting to a more comfortable position, I leaned over to pick up my handbag and its contents which were spread out on the floor in front of me. It must have fallen while I was asleep I thought. Grabbing my wallet I leaned back in my chair and stared out of the window. The city below was unfamiliar to me and I couldn't shake a slight excitement that coursed up my spine as I looked down below. The buildings were bathed in an orange hue and the water beneath us seemed to shimmer up, reflecting the night sky and it's thousands of stars. The plane began its descent and we landed on a pier, the city behind us and the ocean in front. I got up and off the plane, ignoring any luggage and grabbing at my camera in my bag. I stepped off the plane into the night air, it was cool against my skin and the air smelled of sea and what could only described as musty old library books. I turned around and the plane had disappeared and the group of people who I was with, who seemed more like a class than a random bunch of travellers, were standing discussing excitedly about where we were. I looked up past the buildings and made out the image of the Eiffel Tower in the background. Paris? I thought to myself. Scanning the buildings around it, it didn't feel like Paris, it didn't look Paris but I couldn't shake the feeling that this was where I was. I looked up across the water at a bridge in the distance. It spanned across the water from one side of the land to the other. I made out the faint lights of a train passing underneath the section of the road, and a few cars driving in and out of the streetlights on the bridge. I took my camera and began taking pictures of some of the buildings, the bridge and the surrounding landscape. A feeling of dread crept up as I took a picture of the old prison. Turning around to tell my friend about it, I found myself standing alone on the pier. I looked up at the bridge, there were not cars, I glanced around the street and not a person was in sight. The silence that sounded was deafening and was only broken by the occasional wave breaking against the wood of the pier's support stands. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a shadow disappear into the prison. I turned quickly and headed in the direction, calling out for whatever it was to stop. Throwing the door of the prison open I moved into the darkness.


Inside the prison, there was only a dark spiral staircase leading down below. Gripping the railing tight I began to descend down the stair case, taking the stairs one at a time for what seemed like a long time. The first section off the stairs was a door way to the right in the stone wall. I reached out and tried to turn the knob. The door wouldn't open or budge. Turning it the other way I threw my weight against the door. Still nothing. Giving up I continued down the stairs, the light seeming to get dimmer as I went down each stair. The second landing had an open door. The room itself was bare with only an old metal bed with no mattress sitting in the corner. An old pot laid cracked by the small slit in the room, which was lit up only by the full moon outside on the water. Walking to the small "window" I got the strange impression of a girl pacing back and forth by the window. She had no shoes and her hair was messed. I imagined she smelled from the look of her ratty clothes. I could feel her sadness and anger, which seemed to mix together in an overpowering emotion. I hurried out of the room, closing the door behind me. I could hear my heart in my ears beating quicker. What was this place? I saw a shadow moved below and again hurried to catch up. The next landing brought me to a small kitchenette. There was an old wood fire stove in the corner. The middle of the room held a large wooden bench which seemed to be rotting. I turned from this room and headed down again, ignoring 3 more landings before reaching the bottom. The bottom appeared to be a dungeon. I could see, or maybe it was a feeling or just my imagination the image of a man chained up against the wall. His head hung downwards so I couldn't see his face over the mess of unkempt hair. His hands where he had been chained were stained with dried blood. On the opposite side was a woman, her hair messed and tangled. Her body caked with months of dirt which just clung to her. Her feet were covered in dirt and mixed in with the red-orange of blood that had smeared as she walked back and forth over glass. I got a feeling of being trapped and turned to walk up the stair case, only the stair case wasn't there anymore. In its place was an old wooden door with a brass handle. I took a deep breath and turned the handle, opening the door. I stared into darkness. There was nothing there, no light, no shadows just black. From the distance I could make out a blur of something coming towards me. Faint at first, the white blur moved closer and closer, getting bright and brighter until it hit me, hard in the chest, throwing me backwards.


I landed hard on my behind on the stone street beside the peer. My friend offered a hand to help me up and laughed that I was "such a klutz". She said she had been looking for me everywhere and that we had to head to the hotel. We started walking in the direction she claimed was the hotel. I followed her, looking at my surroundings. The buildings were the same, the bridge was the same but there was something different, something not right. As we got closer to the hotel, I began to notice that while it resembled a hotel in size, it felt more like the prison that I had just been in. I grabbed my friend's arm and told her that we shouldn't go in there. She turned around to ask 'why not' only it wasn't her face I stared into; it was the girl pacing in the first room. She grabbed my arm, squeezing hard and just said "run" before she appeared to burst into a dark liquid which seeped into the ground. I turned and ran towards the bridge. I could hear my feet thumping against the floor and then a pain shot up my leg. I looked down and saw that I wasn't wearing shoes. Where had my shoes gone?? I stopped to pull the large piece of glass that was gutting from the sole of my right foot. Warm blood filled up the gap where the glass had been. I tossed the glass aside, hearing it break on the side of the street as I continued towards the bridge. A train pulled in to the right of me, from the train got off a guy friend of mine. I ran towards him, screaming his nickname, "A", and he caught me just before I tripped over, slipping on the blood from my foot. "What the hell happened to you?" he said, helping me to my feet. I gave him a quick hug and said "we need to get out of here now, it's not real". He looked at me puzzled. I continued running up the metal staircase leading to the bridge. Hesitantly, he took off after me and finally I was standing at the start of the bridge. "A" caught up behind me and stood next to me. The bridge was covered in a white-grey fog that seemed to get thicker and thicker. In the fog I could make out a guy walking towards me. He was dressed in a suit with a cowboy hat on covering his face. He's voice seemed to come from everywhere as he spoke. "It's not going to be that easy". From behind me was a large crash. I turned to see the hotel disappear down into the ground, debris flying towards other buildings. A large black figure seemed to creep up from behind us. Its arms hung down low past its knees and seemed to almost drag against the ground. The shape of the creature seemed to be about four or five stories high. I took off along the bridge, A followed me. As we headed along the bridge, I could make out small white creatures coming at us. The appeared to be cat-like in shape, but had fangs that protruded down past the creature's chin. They also had razor sharp claws and tails in the shape of arrows. The lunged at us, I dived down past the first one, wishing I had kept that piece of glass with me. Another creature lunged at us and I rolled over to the side of the bridge, almost falling off. I balanced myself and got up. I moved towards the deserted cars that were sitting on the road. None of them would open. "Fuck I swore", as I saw one of them come up behind me in the reflection of the window. I ducked down at it went through the window. Its tail caught on the side of the car and ripped. I grabbed the arrow, and drove it into the stomach of another creature that had crept up behind me. I could hear the large black creature coming closer as I took off, A was nowhere in sight, I hope he had gotten away.  More little creatures came at me, I dodged left and right, however they just seemed to grow in number. I could see that I wasn't even half way through the bridge and I was growing tired and dizzy. My foot ached and my hands were covered in blood. A few of the creatures lunged at once, scratching me deep in my shoulder. I kicked out hard, connecting with one of them in the face. I rolled to the left; however the bigger creature stomped hard at this moment. I was unable to stop and rolled off the side. I gripped onto the ledge with both hands; however the blood made it hard to hang on. My right hand slipped and I struggled to re-grip onto the bridge. The creatures came closer and ran their fangs along my knuckles. Unable to hold on, I let go and fell down into the water below. It was ice cold.  I could make out A in the water, he was just floating there. I dove down and grabbed him and began to rise to the surface. Breaking through the water I took in a large gulp of air. A looked up at me, coughing up water. In the water I could make out the images of a lot of people, including the girl who had told me to run. A looked at me and said "definitely should have stayed home". I heard a deafening roar and covered my ears with my hands. I was feeling lightheaded, and I assumed I had lost too much blood. I looked up at the bridge to see the little creatures jump into the water and head towards us. "Fuck" I swore. But that wasn't the worse of my problems as the large creature also jumped from the bridge into the water. They swam at us, moving faster and faster along the water, a blur of white and a dark shape in the middle. From the bridge I heard laughing.  The man with the hat stood there, watching.