By Matthew James - taken from 'The Chronicles of the Storyteller'
He stood still and listened intently,
Above him the structure of the great church would be in shadow
It was night … he was certain … he’d lost sense of time …
After making his escape from the soldiers … he’d found an entrance to the underground world
And had remained there ever since…
He’d waited at the rendezvous spot … and watched as she arrived over the bridge
Walking towards her, he’d realised it was a trap …
His senses detected something wrong about her ….
And then he’d seen them … two soldiers at the end of the bridge …
He’d watched transfixed as she went down with the bullet fired from one of the soldiers … he knew she was dead
And then … he turned and ran for his life ……..
A handful of soldiers ran a close second ….
Until, he was able to find the entrance to the church crypt ...
And in the nick of time had made it down the steps into the coldness of the crypt itself
That had been hours before … but still he was uneasy … there would most certainly be soldiers looking for him
Taking the chance … he began walking down the tunnel deeper into the tunnels
He knew the tunnel system … he’d been down there dozens of times before
He was aware then of a strange metallic sound somewhere behind him … it was a odd sound
And then it was ahead of him … he was suddenly feeling uneasy
He had never experienced the sound before …
He felt a brush of cold air across his face … and a odour he did not recognise
He shivered like someone was there beside him …
It now scared him … and made him walk more quickly down the passageway
He’d reached the edge of the tunnel system that he knew and stopped walking …
He was expecting one or more of the others to be waiting there for him …
But he was very much alone in the strangeness of the labyrinth
And then the metallic sound once again … this time next to him
Then it there was a prod on his left shoulder … from an unseen finger
He was now scared ….
There was something there … and he hadn’t a clue just what it was ..
Then suddenly right beside him … a female laughed
And he felt the soft touch of a hand across his face
The scent of perfume …
And he had the strong urge to turn and run in fear
But he stopped … and turned around ….
He saw the spectral figure of a woman standing there
She appeared younger than him … and he could see her long dark hair that fell onto her shoulders
He noticed then the strange clothes she was wearing …
And realised he was looking into the eyes of a ghost ….
It was a truly weird experience
‘What is your name?’ he heard her ask then suddenly … he heard her voice perfectly ….
‘My name? My name is Pierre. Pierre Anton Dubois.. Why do you ask?’
‘Pierre, can you tell me how you died? And why are you down in the crypts of the dead?’
He was shocked by her strange question …
Then suddenly he felt a jolt … and a realisation came over him
Looking down at his chest … he saw the bullet hole and the dried blood
It was him who had died … he had been fatally shot by the soldier.
The realisation was overwhelming … and he suddenly felt so very alone.
