Silent Hunger

The heavy cathedral doors groaned against the night wind as Isabelle and Estelle hurled themselves back inside. The darkness swallowed them whole, the only light coming from the fractured moon through the broken windows above.

Isabelle clutched Estelle's wrist, dragging her deeper into the ruins. Their breathing was harsh, ragged, too loud against the vast, dead silence pressing down around them.

"We can't go back out," Estelle gasped, eyes wide with fear. "They're everywhere."

"I know," Isabelle said grimly, scanning the cavernous nave for any sign of shelter—or an escape route. "We have to hide. Regroup."

They darted behind a fallen column, crouching low. Isabelle's mind raced. Two masked figures. Two clear threats. And maybe more lurking unseen in the bowels of the cathedral.

The thought barely formed before a glint of metal caught Isabelle's eye—a rusted iron grate half-buried beneath debris near the side altar.

A basement.

It wasn't much, but it was something. A chance to disappear, even if only for a moment.

"There," she whispered, nodding toward the grate.

Estelle hesitated, clearly torn between terror of what was behind them and terror of what might be below.

"We have no choice," Isabelle said, already moving.

She pried up the iron grate with a groan of protest, the hinges shrieking into the night. They slipped inside just as a shadow passed near the altar above them—too close.

Isabelle pulled the grate closed, heart hammering so hard she thought it would shake the stones around her.

The passage below was cramped and damp, the air thick with mildew and something sourer—something metallic.

Blood, her mind whispered.

They descended carefully, feeling their way down narrow stone steps slick with moisture.

The basement was not what Isabelle expected.

Instead of the expected storage rooms or tombs, they found themselves in a narrow hallway lined with doors. Most hung ajar, leading into small, barren cells. Some still held remnants of old wooden furniture, long since rotted to splinters.

But it was the writing on the walls that made Isabelle stop cold.

In long, fevered scrawls, phrases covered every available surface:

Witness. Silence. Feed.

Witness. Silence. Feed.

Over and over, layered and bleeding into each other, scratched deep into stone, wood, even what looked like human bones nailed to the walls.

The mantra had been written in different hands, different pressures—some desperate, some methodical.

It wasn't random.

It was a ritual.

Estelle clutched Isabelle's sleeve.

"What... what is this place?" she breathed.

Isabelle didn't answer. She was staring at one of the doors farther down the hall—still intact, still locked.

From behind it, faintly, she thought she heard something.

A voice.

A familiar voice.

Estelle heard it too. Her fingers dug into Isabelle's arm.

"Isabelle," the voice called softly, distorted by the thick door. "Isabelle... please..."

Vivienne.

It was Vivienne.

Isabelle's knees almost buckled with the force of it. After everything, after the letters, the ghostly sightings, the whispered warnings—it was her.

It had to be her.

"Vivienne!" she called back, voice cracking.

No answer. Only a soft, broken sob.

Isabelle lunged at the door, trying the handle. Locked.

She slammed her shoulder into it, pain jolting up her arm. Again. And again. Estelle joined her, both of them throwing their weight against the thick wood.

On the third try, the door splintered with a loud crack, swinging inward.

The room beyond was shrouded in darkness, broken only by the faintest sliver of moonlight cutting through a high crack in the wall.

"Vivienne?" Isabelle called.

Something shifted in the corner.

A figure, curled into itself, chained to a rusted iron ring bolted into the floor.

Vivienne.

Isabelle rushed forward, heart in her throat, but Estelle caught her arm.

"Wait," she said, voice trembling. "Something's wrong."

Isabelle froze, squinting into the darkness.

Vivienne's figure was too still. Too perfect. Like a statue posed mid-sob.

And then Isabelle saw the thick black cords attached to the figure's wrists, the way the head lolled unnaturally when the draft stirred it.

A mannequin.

A lifelike, horrifying replica.

The sobbing sound stopped.

Isabelle whipped around—and realized the door had swung shut behind them.

The handle rattled.

Locked.

Panic flared in her chest.

Estelle slammed her fists against the door. "Let us out!" she screamed.

From somewhere behind the walls, mechanical clicks echoed, soft and rhythmic, like a machine winding itself up.

The faint sound of a music box began—a slow, discordant melody that made Isabelle's blood run cold.

And then a voice—not Vivienne's this time—crooned softly through unseen speakers:

"Witness. Silence. Feed."

The mantra echoed through the chamber, growing louder, overlapping itself until it was a deafening roar.

Isabelle covered her ears, trying to think through the noise.

The floor beneath them began to tremble, dust falling from the ceiling.

"They're going to bury us alive," Estelle choked out, realization dawning.

"No," Isabelle said fiercely, scanning the room. "There's always another way. There has to be."

Her eyes landed on the crack in the wall where the sliver of moonlight shone.

Small. Barely enough.

But maybe.

She grabbed a piece of broken chair leg from the floor and jammed it into the crack, levering it wider.

Stone dust rained down, the gap growing inch by agonizing inch.

Estelle was sobbing now, but helping, digging with her nails, her bare hands, anything she could find.

The floor shuddered again.

A deep, grinding sound from above.

Isabelle didn't dare look up.

Finally, with a sharp crack, part of the wall crumbled away, revealing a narrow passage beyond.

"Go!" Isabelle shouted, pushing Estelle through first.

She followed, scraping her arms and legs raw as she squeezed through the jagged opening.

They tumbled into another corridor, this one even older—almost like an abandoned catacomb.

The mantra still echoed behind them, but farther away now.

They didn't stop to catch their breath.

They ran.

And somewhere, far ahead in the darkness, came another sound.

A voice.

A real one.

Broken. Weak. Human.

"Isabelle..." it whispered.

Vivienne.

To be continued...