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melit0n · 4 months ago

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Delicate Is The Flesh - Chapter 2

- Synopsis: On the brink of the bustling new city of Rosholt lies a forgotten palisade of abandoned homes, shops and streets that sit mummified after a chemical outbreak in the 70s, leaving the city uninhabitable.

Over the years however, the place has become a hotspot for urban explorers and crime junkies alike. Whispers of reanimated bodies stalking the dead streets and brutal murders worm their way into your friend's ears and, having nothing to do on your Winter break, you reluctantly agree to go exploring the abandoned city with them.

What could go wrong, right?

- Chapters ->

Prologue

Chapter 1: For Whom the Bell tolls

Chapter 2: Corvus and Krater (you're already here!)

Chapter 3: Belly of the Beast

Chapter 4: Something Forgotten

Chapter 5: Citrus and Cinnamon

Chapter 6: Mumbling Conscious

Chapter 7: Heavy is The Head that Mourns The Past

Chapter 8: Be Not Afraid

- Status: Work In Progress.

- Obsessive! Demon OC/Reader

- Word count (for chp): 7.2k

- Warnings for chp: None.

- Ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/55444003/chapters/143071153

“Come on then!” Jeanne exclaims, loose rocks clattering down the grassy hill as she makes her descent.

“Wait a second-” Noah grabs onto the collar of her crinkled jacket, using you as an anchor as he holds Jeanne in place, keeping her from slipping. It’s quite a funny scene; Jeanne slipping and grabbing onto Noah’s arm for dear life as he attempts to pull her back up…with very little success.

“Proper Heracles you are.” You giggle out. As much as you find their suffering amusing, you make the decision to help, Helen shaking her head and making a move to follow. Stepping out of the gloom–charcoal and old incense layered thickly on your clothes–you three hoist Jeanne up from the point of no return and back into the tree line.

“Let's-” Noah lets out a puff of air, “-think about this first, yeah?” he begins, looking between the three of you. “We know, for a fact, that the police patrol the borderlines. If we get caught, we’re done for.” He eyes Jeanne, who rolls her own in response. “So-”

“-What you’re forgettin’ about, Bonsey, is how lazy cops are when it comes to shit like this,” Jeanne interrupts. “That article was like, at least six months old.”

“Brilliantly encouraging to know you gave us out-of-date information.” You mumble to yourself, Helen nodding along. The adrenaline pumping through your veins at simply seeing the town was slowly ebbing away, your more rational side, worried about gunpowder and jail time, taking over.

She glances upwards and immediately begins attempting to placate you and Helen. “If anything, they probably have, like, one person on watch sat in his car half asleep.”

You begin another rebuttal, about how that was probably just one of her ‘lucky guesses’, but she beats you to it.

“Plus, I had a chat with a coupla’ people who’ve been here before, and, fun fact, they said that the cops don’t even bother patrollin’ this side because of the hill.” She pats her hands against the ground. “And the thick ass forest.” She nods her head back to the woods. Then, she goes on to talk about how ‘most people get lost’ before they even get here, and that they park their cars on the road outside the woods; a place the police patrol regularly.

Besides her thoughtful and strategic notes on avoiding getting caught, one thing stuck with you; most people got lost before they could even get to this point. You were sure you walked a pin straight route from the car right to here, following an old deer trail right to this point. But, as you look behind you, you see no trail in sight. No dirt road trodden by thousands of animals who will never again return to their burrows, no pine needle ridden route; no nothing.

Just darkness. Darkness and the trees overhead.

You think, no, you know, that it’s just lingering paranoia, but you can’t help but want to move back out into the cool moonlight. Swathe yourself in Her lambent glow and hide away from that of which you cannot see.

You feel more seen draped in shadows than you do surrounded by light.

Jeanne drags you out of your thoughts with a puppy eyed look towards you followed by, “You’ve just gotta trust me on this one, okay, Oiseau?”

Oiseau. It was a–or rather the–nickname she’d called you ever since she was a kid; Bird. Per her own words, it was because you were ‘too afraid to leave the nest, but sky bound nonetheless’. You disliked it at first, but, as you grew older, you began to understand that Jeanne could see right through you, right down to your thrumming veins and ebbing viscera. Too bad you couldn’t do the same for her.

She also knew using nicknames could ease your head on almost anything.

With a small sigh, you let your shoulders fall and nod.

“We ready, then?” Jeanne looks between the three of you and raises a questioning eyebrow. With hair still tussled from her previous escapade, it disappears behind her slightly wavy, dirty blonde locks.

You snort at the mental image of Jeanne without eyebrows, something you’re sure she’d do given enough encouragement. “Yeah.”

“The fuck you laughin’ at, huh?” She says, a toothy smile on her face.

“Nothing for you to worry about.” You grab Jeanne by the hand, helping her up from her still seated position, as you all walk over to the edge of the hill, and begin your downhill trek. For once, you’re happy that Jeanne let you keep these hiking boots. Even if the toe tip is scuffed and gradually fading to dust, they keep you steady as ever on the decline, even if a few old rabbit burrows attempt to trip you up.

“Remind you of anythin’?” Speaking of the Devil, she appears beside you, keeping two arms out for stability.

You frown, “What, Hell Hill?” She loses her balance for a second, almost trips and grabs onto one of your arms to regain it.

“Since when did you give it such a dumb-ass nickname?” She snorts, bitten down fingernails with chipping nail polish digging into your arm; she always had an iron grip, seemingly never knowing the proper time to execute it. You remember doing rock-climbing with her in primary school, and you found out quickly that she’d hold on to your hand harder than she would the anchors; you’d never been more glad for safety ropes in your life.

You huff loudly, “Since I fell down it twice and got thousands of brambles stuck on me. Still have the scars from all the brambles-”

“-the scars from all the brambles. I know.” Talking in tandem, she glances over her shoulder with a glint in her eye.

“Oh shut up.” You giggle. Feeling petty, you pretend to lose your own balance, and almost send her tumbling down the hill as well.

“You ass!” She pushes you right back, not caring how her voice somehow manages to get louder. Somehow manages to make the trees creak with annoyance above you. Looking back, they truly do tower over the four of you now; great shadows clawing at your heels and boughs groaning in the wind. Jeanne’s giggles are louder, though, taking your mind off of what looms over you. If only for a moment, at least.

With much tumult, something you probably could’ve avoided if you walked with Helen over the embodiment of pure energy known as Jeanne next to you, you finally reach the bottom of the somewhat steep hill. It wasn’t as hard as you thought it’d be, but you dreaded the climb back up. Still, easily, through the quiet, you can hear Noah huffing and puffing as if he just climbed Mount Everest.

Jeanne laughs, and knocks his back hard, taking even more air out of him. “Come on Noah, wasn’t that hard.”

“Says the person who’s got a set of properly working lungs.” He huffs with a smile, pulling his inhaler out of his back pocket. His asthma has gotten worse over the years, worsened by city smog and the few allergies he had. Jeanne poked fun at it often, but always kept a spare inhaler for him and, like the rest of you, sat with him through any asthma attacks he had. She whispers something to him. Something that brings a small smile to his face after he’s taken a few inhales. Something small, probably, and something you’ll most likely never know. In all her abrasiveness, she tends to have a way with things like that, at least when she isn’t pretending the issue at hand doesn’t exist.

Which is most of the time.

Turning away from the two, your eyes are now graced with the full wonder–or rather gloom–of the shell of a town. You stand at the brink of a small suburb, homes and shops left to waste away. Further in, further to the thumping heart of the town, apartments and high-rise buildings tower above. In the darkness, they’re like obsidian obelisks that rise from the dry ground, tearing at the night sky like astronomers of an age far gone. The wind whistles through each corpse, each dried lung, allowing what once was to howl and scream in the quiet of the night from the backs of their throats, fused by chemicals and memories.

They look more like enormous tombstones–carving the land and marking the death of so many–rather than dwellings of people you’ll never know. Rather than a place of memories, old and new, you look, and will soon stand upon, what is more of a graveyard than a home. You guess that two are similar, in some ways.

However, despite your own ideas and the thought of how many bodies have been buried under this concrete, your friends stare at the place with awe. You can’t really blame them. You yourself could feel another pump of adrenaline slowly making its way through you, and who were you to dampen the mood with your morbid thoughts? You already brought Noah’s spirit down, and that was with just talking about trees of all things, so you don’t bother to voice your unease.

The crinkled, blue and white police tape flaps in the wind.

Jeanne takes you by the shoulders, suddenly, and shakes you, excited jitters finally getting to her. “Are you fuckin’ seein’ this Y/N??”

You nod and giggle, shaking her back and grinning with all your might in hopes that it’ll hide the hesitancy returning to your eyes.

Eventually, she releases you, eyes still glued to the town, before she takes a glance left and right. Noah does the same, Helen following, then you. As you thought before; absolutely barren.

The next time you look over to Jeanne, however, she’s disappeared from your sight, and already on the other side of the tape. Jerking her head to follow, she clicks on her flashlight, and lets light flood the town of shadows. Ever the sheep, afraid of being without your herd in the endless night, you follow with ease.

“This place is mad…” Jeanne yet again mumbles out with venerance, letting her flashlight grace over the dead, or, rather, sleeping buildings.

“Mhm,” Helen responds, “So many homes, abandoned and left to rot just like that.” Even in all your fear, even with the story behind why this place is how it is, you’d easily admit how–for lack of better words–fucking cool this place was. It was like walking into those dystopian books your English teacher always set for home reading.

Having lived in suburbs most of your life, Noah and Jeanne included, seeing what was almost a mirror of one of your many childhood neighbourhoods was…eerie, to say the least. You can almost hear the sound of kids giggling as they chase each other down the road, the smell of somebody’s Summer BBQ, a distant radio playing some 80s song which you’d somehow be able to recite word for word. The daydream brings a smile to your face, but it’s ruined the moment your eyes adjust better to the dark: glass diamonds reflecting your flashlight’s light, littering overgrown lawns, bikes slowly being dragged under the soil by weeds and faded plastic toys staring into you with their beady, faded painted eyes.

Helen shifts closer to you and weaves her arm with yours. You appreciate the distraction.

Watching videos and looking at photos of abandoned places, especially places where the owners just got up and left, doesn’t compare in the slightest to actually being there. It’s like dreaming about an old memory where something isn’t right, but you just can’t put your finger on it. Makes it all the more creepy only being able to see what your beam of light allows.

Jeanne glances towards you and Helen, a snide smile appearing on her face. “Looks like someone’s getting a case of the heebie-jeebies!”

“Am not!” You call back, Helen’s shoulders shaking lightly in laughter.

“Are too! I can see the goosebumps and the way your hands shake from here.” She states, matter-of-factly.

“Even if I was, at least Helen isn’t making fun of me for it.” You joke back, holding your chin high, only to earn Jeanne shaking her head back and forth as a response.

While you hadn’t known her the longest, especially compared to Jeanne, you would easily consider Helen one of your best friends. She was almost regal and spoke in prose without even meaning to.

Unlike Noah, who Helen herself took in later down the line, you met Helen while simply waiting for the bus home. She’d recognised you from one of your classes–which you apparently shared–and began talking to you. You were sceptical at first, and already had your social battery drained by Jeanne each day, but within the half-hour bus trip home, you two clicked; the rest was history.

She always made sure you were comfortable and gave off an undeniably calming aura that kept you grounded when you needed it. Technically, it was the bare minimum, but having a very limited friendship group your whole life, you didn’t really care. Either way, you had to admit that she truly did live up to her name: moulded with all the grace of marble and eyes that you were sure you could go to war for if asked.

Plus, she was a brilliant cook, and who were you to say no to her Baklava?

After a while of walking through the preternatural suburbs, Noah asks, “So…what buildings do you guys want to check out first?”

“How much time do we have here?” Helen responds, tilting her head slightly.

“‘Bout six or so hours, but we could go longer.” Jeanne cuts in, flipping her flashlight around in her hand. “Just depends on how much you want to explore, and when we’re all free next. I don’t think we could explore this whole place in one night anyways.”

As much as you all wanted to look at every inch of the town, you knew that it wouldn’t be possible with your time limit, let alone the fact that this was an entire town you were talking about, and not a small one either. Plus, as far as you knew, none of you had a map, so you didn’t even know where anything actu-

“Check it.” The bright light of Jeanne’s phone paints her face pale and ghastly at first glance. Looking over her shoulder, you spot that she does, in fact, have a map, albeit grainy and pixelated. If you squint, you think you could count each pixel with ease. She begins pointing out the general area that you're in, and then listing different so-called ‘famous’ locations for you to visit.

First, there’s a shopping centre, void of time and most likely frozen in the 70s. Although you'd imagine that place would have been heavily looted; people taking ‘souvenirs’ until all that was left was barren clothes hangers and dust ridden shelves. They could have fun with their chemical infested merchandise all they wanted; you wouldn’t be touching a thing in there. Jeanne should’ve brought gloves for you all instead of the tiny pocket knives…

Second is an old primary school, which both you and Helen immediately say no to. Abandoned houses are one thing, abandoned schools are a whole other thing. Places like that keep memories soaked into the walls, and, you have to admit, children’s drawings always look demonic in the dark. There probably wouldn’t be anything interesting in there anyways, just a bunch of dust and forgotten childhoods.

Third is the town’s old hospital, complete with an extensive psychiatric ward and paired with a small tuberculosis sanatorium. It’s another small reminder of how old this place is, well, old enough for most of its inhabitants to live with the fear of the disease for a few years. You haven’t been to many hospitals, let alone a sanatorium, since most are privately owned and very expensive to visit legally, so it catches all of your eyes.

Finally, Jeanne notes the chemical plant; the heart of the town that left everybody’s bodies and minds to rot. Even a mention of it sends an uncomfortable shiver down your spine. A quick flash of lidless eyes is enough for you to voice your discomfort, and you’re immediately put at ease when everyone agrees.

Jeanne pauses, having you believe that those are all the big locations.

“Right then,” you look up from the tiny screen, “hospital it is? How far is it?” You all look questioningly towards Jeanne.

“Hold your horses,” she laughs. “I’ve got one more.”

You all lean back into Jeanne’s too bright phone to try to spot whatever she’s pointing to. It’s nearer to the centre of the town, more low-rise and mid-rise buildings appearing…but, all you can really see is a couple pixels of gloomy grey.

“These,” she pinches the screen and zooms in further as if in hopes that it’ll make the image clearer, “are the infamous block A and B apartments.”

Helen nods, then questions, “Why, exactly, are they infamous?” and glancing towards Jeanne to catch her eye.

Jeanne smiles one of her devious smiles, half smirk and half grin. “Well…”

“Here we go…” Noah mumbles, earning a half hearted glare from Jeanne.

“They’re mainly known to other explorers, and the internet, because they’re one of the few buildings that are pretty safe, structurally at least. Most people tend to leave all the shit there because it’s way closer to the old chemical plant than the other sites, so it’s pretty much exactly as it was in the 80s. However, they’re infamous because anybody who enters always sees some weird ass shit in there.”

“‘Weird ass shit’ as in drug deals, or ‘weird ass shit’ as in corpses?” You raise an eyebrow. While it was nice to know you wouldn't have a ceiling collapse on you, you don’t think you could mentally brace yourself for the sight of a human corpse. Ever. You could harbour all the disgusting and horrifying memories you wanted, but nothing would haunt you more than the hollow eyes and the uncanny stiffness.

“Weird ass shit as in ghosts.”

Now that, that catches your attention.

Noah huffs loudly, vocalising his disinterest with the topic and rolling his eyes so hard you think he’s been possessed for a second. All the same, you and Helen lean in further. Helen hadn’t ever, and never will be, one for horror. She could put on a strong facade all she liked, but sometimes slashers in masks were enough to scare her. Although, you think she’s more afraid of the things she can’t see–let alone understand–rather than the characters themselves. She’s right to be so, she and more than half of the planet’s population.

“I’m talkin’ full body apparitions. Hearing people talkin’ that ain’t there, seeing things move right in front of their eyes-”

“-Do I need to remind you all that this town was evacuated because of a chemical outbreak from a chemical plant that is near the apartments that caused hallucinations?” Noah pauses, looking between the three of you incredulously before continuing. “If people truly saw a ghost, it’s either leftover chemicals causing them to hallucinate, or become paranoid for that matter, or because they’ve been told they’ll see ghosts. It’s like The Baader-Meinhof effect.”

You all look at him with utter confusion.

He sighs loudly–something you’ve become accustomed to in the years you’ve known him–somehow expecting you all to just know what that is off of memory. “It’s a cognitive bias stemming from a phenomenon where something you recently learned seems to appear everywhere, making it feel like it's more common than it actually is. If someone tells you that a house is haunted, then, your senses become heightened and you carefully analyse every little thing with the expectation of ghosts. A creak in a hundred-year-old house’s floorboards becomes a footstep, the whistling of wind through a cracked window becomes a breath in someone’s ear, etcetera.”

There’s a heavy pause as you all process the information.

“Did your mum drop you on your right side when you were a baby? Have some whimsy, Jesus.” Jeanne mumbles.

There it is.

Noah scowls. “It’s not my fault you have the intellectual and cranial capacity of an artichoke.”

“Oh, okay mister ‘I cut my hair with a knife and fork’-”

“-Says you, you-

“-May we not? Please. The longer you two argue, the less time we have.” Yet again, Helen intervenes in what you’re sure would be an absolutely hilarious back and forth between Jeanne and Noah. Even if he parades himself around to be above the ‘childishness’ of Jeanne, he’s most definitely not immune to her insults.

After a disapproving look from Helen, the two of them zip their mouths shut, and you fall into gentle silence. Looking between your friends, you try to determine if they’re finished talking yet so you can get your two cents in, before repeating your earlier statement.

“So…apartments?”

“Apartments.” They all speak in tandem with each other, nodding in agreement like Roman scholars.

Within a few moments, you all determine which direction you have to go, with much debate on what way is West and which is East which has you losing brain cells every statement, and you begin the so-called ‘short, twenty minute walk’.

Being careful not to trip over any debris, you have the underlying feeling it’s going to be much longer than that.

Ahead of you, Jeanne and Noah are mumbling indistinctly to each other, and you watch multiple–failed–attempts at trying to scare each other play out. Quietly, Helen walks next to you, her footsteps somehow silent on the dusty road. As you walk further into the town’s centre, buildings rise up around you like great maze walls, hiding the past in their shadowy alleyways.

“It is weird, isn’t it?” Helen begins, her soft voice like the plucking of harp strings.

“Yeah, this place gives me the creeps.”

“What? Oh- yes- it does, but I’m talking about how it is strange that it is already our final year. I should have made that more clear…” she mumbles the last half to herself, kicking the odd stone from her foot and keeping a keen eye on the two in front of you. Even if Noah was typically smart and sensible, Jeanne had the tendency to bring out a much more brash side of him.

“Oh, yeah.” You had met Helen at the beginning of this part of your education, and, suddenly, you were all nearing the end. Noah described it as happening in the ‘blink of an eye’, but, for you, it was a very languid, tiresome blink that left you burnt out and hating the education system more than you had as a teen.

Plus, as far as you knew, they were all going to different courses at different schools, aside from Jeanne, who insisted you applied to the same school. You haven’t yet built up the courage to tell her you don’t even know if you want to do more higher education anymore. Either way, it’d be…odd to not see their faces every day.

“Where’d all the time go, hm?” You half-joke, not completely sure how to respond.

“My point exactly.” She agrees, and then you both fall into an awkward silence. You roll different thoughts around in your head, different words and conversation starters to help fill the quiet gap, before she beats you to it. Like everyone always seems to do.

She begins with a pleasant laugh, and, even in the dark, you can just imagine the nostalgic smile on her face. “I remember when I first met you and Jeanne. I thought you were both so odd.”

“What? Why?” You laugh out, utterly surprised. While you had technically met and became friends with Helen on the day of the fateful bus ride, she only met Jeanne about two weeks into knowing you. Half because you and Jeanne were stuck to each other's hip, and half because you had mentioned her off handedly to Jeanne and she became determined to meet and talk with the person who managed to befriend her ‘introverted homebody’. Even if she gave you those titles from a place of off-handed care, you never really liked them. Even if they were true.

Still, in all her grace and sensibility, you never would have thought her first impression of the two of you would be ‘odd’, of all things, especially since she was the one to start talking to you.

“Not in a bad way! Not in a bad way; I promise!” She repeats, laughing again. “It’s just…Jeanne was, well, is, an impulsive adrenaline junkie who would rather climb a cliff than study. Admittedly, not someone who I’d ever thought I’d be good, close friends with.” As she speaks, she glances over to you, careful to earn your acceptance with her descriptions of your oldest friend as if you’d fight her or something if she overstepped. You just laugh and shake your head; she’s right, as per usual.

“And you…” she trails off, letting a thought simmer on the tip of her tongue before she speaks it.

“And you…what? Are we insulting each other now?” You laugh out. You had to admit, her descriptions of her first impressions of Jeanne were dead on, as funny as it was.

“You’re…you. Tired-eyed, reserved Y/N who is…much smarter and complex than they look.”

“I don’t know whether to take that as a compliment or an insult.” You grin, looping your arm with hers as she did before.

“Well, since it is coming from me, it is a compliment. I’d never insult you.”

You snort, “Oh, Queen Helen of Sparta, daughter of Zeus-” She begins laughing, telling you to stop through her pearly whites as her skin changes to a deep shade of rose. “-With thy beauty matching none!” You unloop your hands and skip in front of her, curtsying and bowing deeply. “How graceful of you to gift praise to my humble vessel of a body with such praise.”

Helen’s loud laughter bounces off of the decrepit buildings, causing Noah to turn around and send a blinding beam of light your way. You watch as your bowed form casts an elongated shadow across the concrete, reaching for the suburbs now merely incongruous shapes in the stygian distance.

You hope you look holy, bathed in all this light.

“What are you two laughing about?” Noah calls out, walking backwards.

With a smile, you recite a part of your conversation to him. He shakes his head back and forth, then slows his gait until he walks with you two, Jeanne eventually following along after realising she’d lost her walking buddy. Aimless conversation fills the cool air and you can’t help the way your body relaxes.

The talk begins on the topic of pets and Noah starts with how his snakes–affectionately named Ekans and Arbok–at home are doing, mainly how big one of them has grown. If you remembered correctly, one was a Hognose, an absolutely adorable thing with the cutest face on a snake you’ve ever seen, and the other was some fancily titled ball python.

Helen notes on her cat, Αστέρι, of which you could never pronounce properly no matter how many times you’d heard it. It was a stoic white and grey thing that kept itself well groomed and, no matter how hard you tried, seemed to hate you.

Jeanne doesn’t own any, unfortunately due to her land-lord's policies, but it sends her down a rant of how shitty the said landlord is and, if and when she moves again, she’ll get something like a Husky.

Then, after Jeanne has finished her aforementioned rant, the conversation shifts to places you all want to visit outside of urban exploring, and you find Jeanne is planning a gap year to go travelling. By the glint in her eye, you can tell she’ll ask later on if you’ll want to come along, which you’ll probably think about for a week or so before saying yes.

You think you’d follow her until you were both nothing but dust, if you were honest.

Eventually, someone brings up the topics of bands, and sends Jeanne down another tangent, which you all listen to intently, storing the information away for future birthdays and Christmases and conversations.

The three of them are chatterboxes, so they easily allow you to zone out and just simply listen–if you chose to–instead of keeping up with every word.

With full admittance, you felt much more at ease than you did back up on that hill. Even so, with a flashlight, each shadow moves as if living. Everything always looks much more haunted in the low light. It doesn’t help that each building feels…alive. Alive and hungry, albeit bleary. You can’t help but wonder if you look palatable. Appetising, even.

“Hey,” Noah gently nudges your side, “look up.” You’re confused at first, sending him a questioning glance, before you follow his gaze and look upwards. From high above, thousands of silver eyes stare down on your forms. Like a great snake of a time far past, a faraway galaxy ebbs and flows across the charcoal sky. Sparks of blue, almost like lapis lazuli, glimmer within the silver, framed by the ever-changing colours of a humming nebula.

…you’ve never seen something so bright in your life.

“Well, would you look at that.” Jeanne mumbles, eyes stuck on the extraterrestrial gold that glitters above.

You’re in utter awe of what you’re seeing; living near big cities meant that the sky barely got dark when you were younger, let alone to this point. Still, in all your wonder, you can’t help but catch the frown on Noah’s face. You wait patiently for him to voice his thoughts, but he simply stares and stays silent as a tomb. Rolling the thought around in your head, you open your mouth to ask what exactly has him looking so confused in the face of something so beautiful, but Jeanne seems to beat you to it. As per usual.

“Hey, Helen,” you swear you haven’t heard her voice so soft for, well, years. You guess even she feels a bit humbled by the endlessness that stares back at her. “You’re big on stars and astronomy and shit, right? Spot anything you know?”

Helen tilts her head back and forth, before obviously seeing something recognisable in the endless cluster of stars. “Yes, um…see the large gathering of stars to the right- follow my finger.”

“There’s a lotta’ clumps of stars…” Jeanne mumbles, but diligently follows Helen’s hand, as do you and Noah.

“Those are the Antennae Galaxies. Do you see them?”

“Where?” Jeanne squints at the sky.

“To the right, Jeanne.” You grumble, placing your hand on her head and turning her.

“I still don’t- I see it!” She shouts happily, earning a smile from all three of you.

Helen chuckles before speaking again, smiling to herself as she does so. “They look like a heart on a telescope…”

“They’re a pair of colliding galaxies, right?” Noah questions, earning a nod from Helen. Because of course he knows about stars too.

“Yes! It causes a lot of new stars to form around that area…okay, now, look slightly to the left, there is a trapezium type shape of pale blue stars with a, um…a leg?”

“Mhm.” You agree, squinting but being able to spot the small shape in the sky.

“Good, and to the right of it is a similar shape, but with two antennas of sorts?” She looks between the three of you, watching for your reactions and smiling again when you all nod almost in tandem. “The one on the left is called Corvus, and the one on the right is called Krater. The line of stars that runs underneath them is called Hydra.”

“Wicked.” Jeanne whispers, and you have to admit, you don’t think you’ve ever seen her this entranced. “They got a story?”

“Everything that has and will be has a story.” Helen begins, slipping her arm back into yours yet again. “There are two stories to tell here. The first one consists of Apollo, the Greek God of poetry, music and archery. He had a lover named Coronis, who was to bear one of his children. While she was still pregnant, she slept with a mortal man. Apollo was told this by a white crow, and then turned its feathers black in a fit of rage. Subsequently, she was then killed by Apollo–or his sister, Artemis–as punishment. To remind her of her betrayal, Apollo then turned her soul into the constellation Corvus.”

“That’s one way to punish cheaters, I guess.” Jeanne frowns, eyes still fixed on the stars.

“What’s the other story?” You ask, taking your eyes off of the sky for a second to look at Helen.

“It is a lot less angsty,” she giggles. "Per his request, Apollo tasked one of his crows with fetching water. However, the crow stopped to wait for figs to ripen on a tree. Instead of telling the truth when asked, he lied and said that a snake–Hydra–” She points to the string of stars beneath the two constellations, “kept him from the water. Realising the lie, Apollo flung the crow, Corvus, the cup, Krater,” She moves her hand to point at the second constellation, “and the snake, Hydra, into the sky.”

“Apollo sounds like a fuckin’ asshat.” Jeanne scowls, tearing her eyes away from the sky and back towards Helen.

Immediately, she snorts, covering her mouth with her soft hand. “Yes, but so are most of the Gods. I think, when you have all that time and no fear of the end, you tend to take more pleasure in tragedies and horrors that will teach respect rather than kindness and sweet nothings.”

“Okay, so they’re all asshats, then?” You add on with a smile.

Helen simply laughs and shakes her head, Noah mumbling something about immortality that you can’t quite catch.

You all begin walking again, but you stop when you notice Helen still transfixed with the stars.

Walking back to her, you ask, “You okay?” Standing at her side and glancing up again at the sky, trying to see whatever has caught her eye.

“Quite,” she mumbles, eyes still searching the stars like a prophet searching for a sign. “I am just a little confused. I’m sure it’s just my bad memory, but Virgo and Leo, the constellations above Corvus, have swapped places. And, to the far left,” she points, and you do your best to follow, “I think that is Orion? But it just looks…off. Orion is not even meant to be anywhere near the others.”

“Give me a second…” you mumble, shimmying your phone out of your pocket. You were no star expert, so you couldn’t really give any helpful opinions. Tapping on Oogle, you begin to type up the constellations she mentioned with her peering over your shoulder. But, alas… “No service, shit.” Grumbling, you shove your phone back into your pocket and stare back up at the sky with her.

“I’m sure it’s just my bad memory.” She shrugs, and drags her eyes back down to Earth with one last glance. “I’ve never even seen them so bright, especially since we’re still quite close to a big city.” You think she mumbles the statement to herself, but you hear it loud and clear, and think you’ve got an idea of what Noah’s frown was for.

Almost in response, as Helen turns her gaze and begins catching up with the others, you swear you see the thousands of eyes above you blink in tandem, the night sky becoming Cimmerian–utterly pitch black–for a split second.

“Y/N! Hurry up!” Noah calls you, tearing you out of your star gazing.

“Coming.” You whisper, barely a breath and no louder than a blink.

The pit in your stomach is back.

Eventually, you reach the decaying innards of the town. Despite the lack of skyscrapers–buildings that might as well touch Heaven–each building still towers over your small forms. You twist and turn through broken streets and alleyways, Jeanne your only wayward guide.

As you thought, the so-called ‘twenty-minute walk’ turned into a forty minute one, with Jeanne getting lost twice–even with her rebukes that she swears the roads are changing under her feet–Noah tripping over an old bottle and falling flat on his face and both you and Helen almost undergoing multiple heart attacks with Jeanne jumping out from the dark to scare you both.

Admittedly, you weren’t immune from the fun. At all. You got a good laugh out of scaring Noah shitless after jumping on his back; the bruised pelvis and numb upper arm where he punched you were well worth it.

As you wandered through the streets, you couldn’t help but keep your eyes glued to the sky, keeping diligent watch on the silver and gold stars that felt less like balls of gas and more like omnipresent, ever changing eyes. And, now, as you stand in front of the apartments, you can almost feel the little confidence you had seep out of you and puddle on the concrete below like mercury. They look like ancient monoliths, grey and cracked and dystopian. Seemingly never ending layers of stubborn concrete left to crumble and crack like a father’s name; eclipsed by the son. From where you stand, they just manage to block out the little light of the new moon, leaving only the pewter stars to watch over you. They’re surrounded by what you’re sure was once a lovely community garden, now a mess of tall grasses, nettles and indistinct weeds that hide any path that might’ve once been there.

No matter how many abandoned buildings you explore, you don’t think you’ll ever get used to seeing places that should be so full of life absolutely devoid of it. There’s always a small square of harsh light in every apartment building, always someone cramming, getting a late-night snack, or trying to stop the baby from crying. Always. Seeing a place so similar to where you live, even if the only real similarity is that they’re a pair of apartment buildings, sends an odd feeling crawling up your back.

Ba-dump. Ba-dump. Ba-dump.

The quickened heartbeat under your feet does nothing to help the pit in your stomach, crawling slowly up your trachea and settling heavily in the back of your throat.

You’re brought out of your stupor with the heavy weight of somebody colliding onto your back and clinging to you like a koala. Easily, it knocks the air out of your lungs, and sends an out of breath shout tumbling out of your throat, as well as your flashlight out of your hands.

Helen and Noah quickly turn around, surprise and a speck of fear in their eyes, sending blinding flashes of light your way as you try to uphold the weight–of who you guess is Jeanne by the maniacal laughter–on your back.

“Ha! Got you good, didn’t I?” She leans over your shoulder, still attached to your back, and sends a proud grin your way. You grumble, annoyed, before attempting to put her down, only for her to wrap her legs tighter around you.

“Are you really gonna make me carry you?” You ask, exasperated.

“You bet.” As Noah walks up to grab your flashlight, she points forwards with her own and exclaims, “Onwards, mighty steed! There’s a back entrance on the furthest part of the left building that’ll be unlocked!”

“You sure?” You hoist her up further as you all begin walking, allowing her to hook her legs over your arms as you feel your back muscles ache with the sudden weight. “Considering you’ve gotten us lost so many times…”

Jeanne simply scoffs and points her flashlight in the direction you need to go. Your group stumbles through overgrown weeds as you pass by the cracking concrete walls, void of any vines, unlike the rest of the buildings you’ve passed. The apartment blocks are designed in a right angle, gazing down at an overgrown garden with, by the faded white paint, you guess to be a parking lot behind it, which then links up onto a main road. The grounds are bordered off by decrepit buildings, mainly old corner shops with the occasional homewares.

After you’re sure you’ve been stung by stinging nettles on half of your body, you reach the other end of the leftmost apartment block. A rusted, possibly iron door stands before you. Locked and layered in thick chains that look like they could hold a God down. Unlocked your ass, this looked like you’d need the world’s most powerful pair of bolt cutters–maybe even a saw for that matter–to get through.

But, suspecting Jeanne may want to get down, you decide to take the chance to make it evens with scaring her. Without warning, you pretend to almost drop her, relishing in the surprised shriek and angry grumbles of “Putain de- oh, toi petite merde-” that leaves her as she grapples for any part of you to hold on to. She laughs sardonically, more like an annoyed chuckle, before you let her down and she wags a finger at you “Good one, good one…so gonna get you back for that…” She mumbles the last half to herself, but you catch it easily.

She approaches the heavily locked door, and Noah begins voicing your exact thoughts with, “Unlocked door my a-” before she tugs gently at the heavy chains, which fall to the ground with a metallic thump.

Ba-dump-ba-dump-ba-dump

You can’t tell if that’s your own heartbeat thrumming in your ears or not.

She sends Noah a shit-eating grin as he shakes his head and forth, and you find Helen at your side once again. She then grabs the chains, an easy weight to lift for her toned arms, and, with a rattle, chucks them in a nearby bush.

“You ready?” She glances between the three of you, awaiting a response as Noah stumbles through the overgrown grass over to the door.

“As I’ll ever be.” You shrug, Helen nodding along with you.

Even with the knowledge of many explorers having been here before, the opening of the door feels like the opening of some ancient tomb, especially with the scent of stale air and thick dust that greets your nose. Little vines that had wrapped themselves delicately around the hinges are tugged away as the door opens its gaping maw. Jeanne and Noah peek over from the edges of it as Helen’s torch light illuminates a dank, monochrome hall.

“Looks right out of a horror film.” You mumble, eyes attempting to adjust to the darkness as shadowy figures peek at you and your light from their dusty home. You almost expect a masked slasher to jump out of you, or some long dead spectre wrapped in the weight of their living sins, but nothing comes. The hall simply sits eerily quiet, almost like it’s holding its breath.

Jeanne walks in first, not a single bone in her filled with any hesitation, who’s then followed by Noah and Helen, who tugs you along with her. Despite the way your feet feel frozen to the cracked concrete below, you let her tug you along, and let the dark swallow you whole.

-----------

I wonder if those same Gods, timeless and easily bored, watch over you now.

I’d also like to remind my new readers that I have a very big soft spot for extended metaphors and symbolism; look close enough and you might find something interesting.

Plus, I made a little playlist for this, for anybody who likes listening to music while they read: open.spotify.com/playlist/1rw21OGGHndcHrNEPfdvv5?si=31a14ddea2b84d4f

Putain de- oh, toi petite merde = Fucking- oh, you little shit-

Αστέρι = Star

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