Spineless

I stare at the dark haze before me. It is hugging a body I cannot recognize. The haze is swallowing everything around me as if it were a black hole that began to implode, engulfing all of its nothingness. The body speaks like a final echo ringing off a cave wall, but, unlike an echo, it has a voice. I believe this foreign body and its disembodied voice are trapped in the all-consuming void before me; it is much like myself, real and at the same time a cloud of nothingness. I am nobody, much like this body is nobody; at the same time, we are everything ever have known.  Yet it speaks and I think, so maybe we are only real in my perceptions, and even still we are not quite anything. 

The body says, “Good morning, Elle,” and his knowledge seems infallible, much like how a black hole is sure it is swallowing all the matter it can find.

I want to say, “Good morning,” but I know nothing but the frigid embrace of uncertainty. I say only what I know, but I know nothing, so I say, “Hello.”

My words stumble and fall flat onto his ears. They come out clumsily and make themselves known as words and not a voice. 

He asks, “Are you ready to begin?”

As he speaks, his words step surely, strutting into my ears and shaking hands with the wisps of my memories. His words seem to know the ground beneath them. I become aware that a black hole knows every atom it has ever swallowed, but I am not a black hole; I am nothing but a name, and nothing is the only thing a black hole cannot consume. 

“Wait,” I say, “I’m not ready. What are we doing here?”

But black holes never wait for the matter to be ready before they collapse. 

He says, “Too bad,” and in an instant, the world goes dark.

I don't know how long it has been, but light seeps into my view from an unknown source. I am able to see walls. They are made of rough, brown clay. There are three of them, one behind me and the others by my sides. The ground is littered with bits of gravel, and the ceiling is made of packed dirt. The faces of the room stretch into the distance until they are stopped by the shadows. Whatever light I am seeing cannot extend past what I know, it seems, and as I take a step forward, the shadows do as well. 

I step faster. 

The shadows step faster. 

I begin to run.

The shadows run away.

My joints ache and clatter with every step. 

The shadows mock me by calling back with a replay of my agony.

But if I am hearing an echo, there must be another wall. 

I can feel my heart pounding as the adrenaline surges, but I look down and see emptiness encased in an ivory cage. I am nothing but bare bones, and though I know my flesh I cannot seem to see it. I feel every ache and scratch like there is meat encasing my bones, but I am nothing but malleable tissue and I have no exterior to hide it. I trip and kick a few rocks as I crumble to the floor. A loud rumbling emerges behind me. I turn to see the back wall hurtling towards me, closing in faster than I have been running. The shadows are not afraid of the wall; they do not move as the wall comes in like a wave crashing onto the shore. I climb to my feet and I begin to sprint, but I am losing traction. The wall is picking up gravel as it slides across the ground. It comes closer, and I see less light and more shadows. The shadows and the wall are working together. 

I know that, beyond the shadows, there must be another wall, but the wall cannot be real unless I see it. I continue to run as the wall scrapes and screeches behind me, until it slams into my back and I collapse. I grab onto the ground and find the edge of it, but looking down, ahead, and behind me, all I can see is darkness. I try to kick the wall back, but it is determined to have me swallowed by the shadows. 

“No,” I plead, “I don't want to know the darkness.”

The wall says, “You have to face it. And the day that you face it, you will want to know more than it is possible to know. You will want to know the darkness. You will want to know more than the darkness.”

I push the wall with my bony hands and watch them fight uselessly against it. The tips of my fingers drive into the clay deposits on the wall, but once I feel myself finally forcing the wall back, pain sears through my flesh; it has never seen such pain before. The pain crawls across my head, sinking deep into my skull and trying to gnaw its way inside. I let go of the wall and allow gravity to call me into the depths of the shadows. The pain subsides.

The ground catches me like the imaginary wall had caught my agony earlier, but unlike the wall, it does not send anything back. The ground embraces me like a black hole swallows up what doesn’t need to be. I lift my head and see a small figure sitting before me. He is pure white and human-shaped, his eyes permanently etched into a drooping frown. A little blue and yellow party hat sits atop his head, adorning his downturned eyes with shimmering ribbons. He is the only thing I am sure I have seen. He is gripping a fuzzy brown teddy bear in a way that reminds me of a porcupine with something caught in its quills. Black cracks sprawl across the top of his head. 

“Hello,” I say to the boy, “do you know where we are?”

The boy tilts his head curiously, and he says, “It’s my birthday. Will you celebrate with me?”

“No,” I say. “I do not know you.”

The boy’s frowning eyes droop more at my words. A black line crawls from his eyes up to his little party hat, sprawling out like a river that has decided to part ways with itself. He trudges into the shadows, and I follow. 

“Wait,” I call out to him, “Where are you going?”

“Home,” he says, “where they might want me.”

The walls surrounding us are made of piles of jagged rocks. As we step further into the shadows, the tunnels bend and warp away from themselves. I follow the boy and notice he is following a trail of blue and yellow ribbons. He has marked a path from the pit to “home.” 

“Why did you mark a path?” I ask, picking up the ribbons one by one. “You could’ve made a map.”

“It’s always different,” the boy says. “The tunnels always change.”

He steps through a small archway that has streamers and balloons tied to it. I trace my fingers along the rubber balloons. I see my reflection in the balloon, and with the dim light of the tunnel, I can make out a large crack on the top of my skull. I trace it with my finger, but the boy tugs on my leg. 

“Don’t touch it,” the boy warns, “or you’ll get more.”

“What are they?” I ask. The boy shrugs, wandering into the distance. 

“Cracks,” the boy mumbles. “Everyone else has them.”

I pause, crouching down to the boy’s level. I grab onto one of his arm-like appendages. He tilts his head again, clutching the teddy bear tighter. 

“There are other people down here?” I ask. The boy pulls his arm away. 

“There should be,” he replies. I stand and wander into the room beyond the archway. 

A banner hangs from the stone wall opposite the archway and reads, “Welcome to the Catacombs. Enjoy your stay.” The lettering is painted on the cloth in black, but it appears to have been painted with shadows. I tug on the banner, but it doesn’t give. I grip the banner tightly in my hands and start to step backward. It should’ve come off the wall by now. 

“You’re not strong enough.” I whip my head around, searching for the voice speaking to me. The boy pushes me off the banner. 

“That’s Dieu,” he says, “and you should listen to him. You’re gonna crack again if you don't.”

I feel my skull start to split, and I release the banner from my grip. I look around the room for another body or another black hole, but it is just me and the boy. The boy scampers off, his teddy bear dragging behind him like a sail. 

“Who is Dieu?” I ask, following the boy. “Where is he coming from?”

“Dieu is the shadows,” another voice speaks. It reminds me of hard candy gone sour: bitter because it was once sweet, and sweet because it does not want to be known as bitter. It clings to the air like moss on a rock, floating along with the draft. “Dieu is the walls, and Dieu is the ground. He is everywhere where there isn’t any light.” 

A porcelain doll emerges from the direction the boy ran off to. She has rosy hair with curled bangs and a tight bun on the back of her head. Her cheeks are a lighter shade than her hair, but they are more vibrant when the light makes them gleam. Cracks stream across her body like an array of branching rivers, swirling around the curves of her shoulders and neck. Black paint strokes cover her cracks like sutures. She extends a gloved hand to me. 

“My name is Elle,” I say, and my words slip off the curve of my tongue. They hit the floor with a splat, like a drop of paint falling off a drying canvas. She tilts her head and smiles. “What’s your name?”

“Everybody calls me ‘Stitches,’” she says as I reach out my hand to shake hers. I look down at myself and see only air between my bottom rib and the top of my hips. “Oh, my. You don't have a spine.”

“Doesn’t look like it,” I mutter, withdrawing my hand. Stitches pats the boy’s head. 

“This is ‘Birthday Boy,’” she explains. “Why are you called ‘Elle?’”

“I don't know,” I admit, tracing a finger over the rocks on the wall by my side. “They told me I was ‘Elle,’ so I must be ‘Elle.’”

“You must be like Adam,” Stitches says, “but Adam isn’t as defined as you are.”

“Adam?” Stitches nods. 

“He was the first inhabitant of the Catacombs,” she explains, “but he doesn’t remember that anymore. He doesn’t remember anything.”

I see what appears to be a melting silhouette caressed by the penumbra of the walls. It twitches and warps its undefined outline. It reminds me of the black hole, but this body seems blissfully unaware that he is being swallowed. He is like Dieu; he is the shadows and at the same time he is not really there, but I notice that this figure can enter the light. The shadows of the wall attach to him and drag behind him like a cape. Stitches turns when she notices me staring. 

“Yes,” she confirms, “that’s Adam.”

Adam speaks, but his words are not discernible; they drill into and grate against my ears. For a moment, I can hear a warbled word, “tonight” or “tunnel”; I am not sure which. He wails and wanders back into the shadows. Stitches sighs and shakes her head. 

“He’s going to disintegrate soon. I know it,” Stitches says.

“Wait,” I say, “what do you mean by ‘disintegrate?’”

“If you crack all the way, you’re gone,” Birthday Boy says. He sits, facing the wall, and starts flapping his teddy bear up and down violently. “Gone. All gone.” 

I trace the cracks on my skull and glance at Stitches. She stares back, shrugging nonchalantly. She strides off, and I can hear the clicking of her heels. I chase after her, waving my arms over my head frantically.

“What does he mean by ‘gone?’” I ask. “Stitches?”

“You ask a lot of questions, Elle,” Stitches comments. “But we have bigger things to worry about, and to be completely honest with you, I don't know what happens when we disintegrate. We just… disappear and don't come back.”

“It’s death?” I ask, but the thought falls out of my mouth like someone else has spoken for me. 

“No,” Stitches replies, “it’s not death. It’s something similar. Like…I’m not sure.”

“Okay,” is all I say in response. Birthday Boy stops whipping the teddy bear around and looks up at Stitches. 

“Where’s Mallory?” he asks, crossing his arms. 

“That’s what I’m trying to find out,” Stitches says. I don't ask, this time, who Mallory is. “She shouldn’t have gone anywhere.”

Birthday Boy points towards the shadows and shifts his weight rapidly. 

“There,” he says. “Mallory is over there.”

I follow the boy’s finger, which makes a straight line to the center of a girl’s forehead. She is shivering and spasming, her limbs jolting like she’s being shocked with a violent pulse. Her bangs frame her face, which is plastered in white face paint and detailed with small triangles above and below her eyes. She reaches her hands out, but her palms flatten before she can fully extend her arms. The stripes on her shirt start to warp in on themselves. Her head tilts back. She cries out. Her screams pierce my ears deeper than the cracks had infiltrated my skull. I can feel her agony scraping at my head like an abandoned dog at the door of its old owners’ house. And then she collapses and melts into nothingness, like a star exploding into a black hole.

“That,” Stitches says, wiping away the stream of black paint falling from the edges of her eyes, “is disintegrating.”

I slowly move towards where Mallory had been. In the space where she stood, her presence swells around me like I’m the black hole that swallowed her matter. Part of her remains. I know she is still here. I know she is here, like I knew there was another wall; it was just in a different place than I had imagined. 

“When are we leaving?” Birthday Boy whines, tugging on Stitches’s skirt. “I don't wanna watch people leave anymore.”

Birthday Boy’s cracks start to rush across his face, connecting his eyes and wrapping around his round head. Stitches places a hand on his head. 

“We’ll leave soon. We’ll find a way out,” she says. 

“You are not allowed out yet.” Dieu’s voice booms like a bass sound over a blown speaker, crackling but definitively deep and impactful. “We are not done.”

Stitches makes no reaction to Dieu’s voice. Like a statue being gawked at in a museum, she is elegant and perfectly still. I turn my focus to the ceiling and lift my chin. Maybe Dieu is beyond the Catacombs. 

“Where are you?” I ask. Dieu chuckles at me, his gravelly voice scraping against my ears. “Why can’t we leave yet?”

“It is not time,” Dieu says. “You haven’t let me help you.”

“You aren’t helping!” Birthday Boy cries. His cracks begin to stretch like spider legs down to his neck. “You’re taking everyone away! Everyone is going away, and it’s your fault!”

“Now, settle,” Dieu warns. Birthday Boy thrashes violently, whipping the teddy bear around as the cracks embrace his limbs. 

“Everyone is gone! Everyone is leaving! You’re taking everyone away!”

“Stop!” Stitches shouts, grabbing Birthday Boy and shaking him back and forth. “You’re going to disintegrate if you don't stop.”

Birthday Boy begins to jolt and spasm. He tears himself away from Stitches and falls to the gravel floor, crying out, “No! No! No!” 

The shadows clutch him and drag him backwards as he flails and screeches. Bits of his body fall off in sprinkles, and then he goes limp and melts into himself. A soft glow of light remains for a moment in his place, but it fades soon enough. 

“We’re going,” Stitches announces. “There’s no other option.” 

We have traveled through the tunnels in every direction and still have not found an escape. Adam follows us from far behind, moving at a normal pace but flopping and squirming like a slug. He doesn’t want to leave whatever comfort he finds in the shadows.

“I feel like we’ve been going in circles,” Stitches sighs, tracing her finger along the gaps in the rocks. She leans against the wall and looks up. 

“I’ve been leaving a trail of ribbons,” I say, gesturing towards the shimmering, canary yellow plastic behind us. Stitches’s lips curve upwards slightly in the corners. “Birthday Boy used them to go home after he found me.”

“Right,” Stitches says, “he always left the ribbons behind. He didn’t want to lose us.”

“Why are you trying to leave?” Dieu demands, his voice ringing off the walls. It towers over my memories. 

“We don't want to be here anymore,” Stitches says. “Let us out. You won’t tell us why we’re here, so there must not be a reason.”

“Just because you don't know something doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist,” Dieu taunts, and I am reminded of the body in the black hole. 

“So there has to be an exit, even if we don't know it’s there,” I suggest to Stitches. She is clouded by the shadows. 

Dieu growls. “You will not find a way out.”

I turn towards Stitches, but she has disappeared amidst the nothingness in the tunnels. Adam is lying on the floor behind me, throbbing and letting out a high-pitched whine. 

“Where’s Stitches?” I ask him, but he groans in response. I reach out to touch him. “Adam, where did Stitches go? Do you remember Stitches? Where is she?”

“Tunnel.”

“That doesn’t help me, Adam. Where did she go? Which way? Do you remember?”

“Tunnel.”

“Adam, you need to help me. Please. It’s the only way both of us can get out. What do you remember?”

“Tunnel.”

“Stop saying tunnel. Which way did she go? Do you remember?”

“Tunnel.” I kneel next to him and, as I place my hand on him to shake sense into him, he convulses and melts into the shadows. 

I do not remember my life before the Catacombs, but I remember loneliness. Its cold hands are permanently on my shoulders, squeezing every time I remember the other inhabitants. I’ve spent nine more rests searching for Stitches or an exit. In some parts of the tunnels, light seeps through the cracks in the rocks. I’ve tried pulling the rocks away, and I’ve tried kicking them in the hope that they will fall and I will reveal the light. All I get with each kick or pull is another crack. Another deep, stinging crack. Dieu still taunts me, but I’ve heard his voice less the further I force myself to travel into the tunnels. I have to find Stitches. I am traveling after my tenth rest when the ceiling starts to leak light. I hear voices coming from all sides. They sound like a song playing on an old radio two rooms over, hushed and overwhelmed by static. 

The rocks begin to fall. 

The walls begin to cave. 

The dirt on the ground below me slips as if it is falling through an hourglass. 

At once, I am weightless, and I feel myself warping away as the light begins to blind me. 

The lights begin to dim enough that I can see a room around me. The walls are stark white and have children’s finger paintings hung on them, along with more elegant artworks. The finger paintings are of a birthday party with no attendees, aside from a small humanoid figure with a blue-and-yellow party hat and a brown teddy bear. They are surrounded by balloons and streamers. The more elegant artworks depict familiarity. They depict oceans and skulls and emptiness and porcupines and rivers. I trace my fingers over the brush strokes, noticing that the paintings are stained with the darkness of the black hole. I get up from the couch I have been sitting on. A room in the distance has its door open, and it is leaking shadows into the room with the light. I feel compelled to go towards the darkness, like the black hole is sucking me in. As I walk towards the room, I see my hands have found their flesh again, but the flesh is covered in darkness, as if the black hole wants to stick to me forever. My forehead stings with a familiar ache, and as I trace it, I feel scars in the shape of my cracks. 

“Good morning, Elle,” The shadows say. Their voice booms like Dieu’s. 

“Good morning,” I say, noticing the sun beginning to rise from the windows outside. A man in a white coat steps out of the shadows and extends his hand. 

“Today’s the day,” he says. I tilt my head as I shake his hand. “You can go home.”

“Home? But what about the others?” I ask, looking around the room. “Where did they go?”

“I’m afraid they’re no longer here, Elle. They weren’t as successful as you. You know that.”

He smiles and places a hand on my shoulder, guiding me towards the shadows. They recede as we come closer. I stand in the doorway, watching the shadows settle under awnings and open doors. They return to where they belong, nestled between tile cracks and underneath chairs. I don't know what to do with freedom, but I am drawn to it like a moth to a light, or matter to a black hole. I can still see the stars surrounding the sun as it draws upwards from the horizon. A shop with vintage dolls sits directly across the street, and in front of it, a street performer dances like she’s trapped in a box. The wind whistles softly, comfortingly, and I begin to remember. 

I let the star of freedom implode and swallow me whole.