Underground

• Annabelle Blunt, Grade 6
• Short Story
• 2018

The skull’s large eye sockets bore into me and the long jagged teeth seemed to smile in a wicked way. I stood stock still in fear of touching one of those horror skulls and did not move until my brother roughly pushed me aside. He then started snapping pictures even though there was a sign clearly saying “please do not take pictures” a few metres away. “This is so cool!” Oliver said, his voice bouncing off the walls. I rubbed my sore shoulder and gave Oliver a stare that he completely ignored. I sighed and gingerly made my way around the piles of bones that were laid all over the ground. Why Oliver would want to walk around the underground of France to see bones, I have no idea.

Suddenly, I saw something moving out of the corner of my eye and I whipped around. One of my flailing arms brushed against one of the skulls and a vision flashed through my mind. I saw the streets of Paris, though I was sure I had never seen this part before. The street was bustling with people but no one was noticing the body that lay motionless on the ground. I shivered and started to back away. I was then pulled into the present, still shivering, and quickly pulled my hand into its sleeve. What had happened? What had I seen and how had I seen it? I jumped away from the skull that seemed to have shown me its previous life. I then crashed into a wall of bones and saw a man sitting in his carriage. Another man leapt from a bush on the side of the dirt road and the horses neighed in fright. The sinister looking man opened the carriage door and pulled a knife from inside his shirt. Then there was blood everywhere and I was pulled, yet again, back to the underground chamber.

I was lying on the ground. It just didn’t make sense. What was happening? Why was I experiencing these visions? I dragged myself down the narrow corridor, stumbling as I went. As the corridor widened into another room I groaned. The bones were stacked in a crisscrossed formation allowing very little room to pass by. I squinted and saw the staircase leading back up to the daylight. I held my breath and wove ever so carefully around the bones. I could see the exit coming closer and closer. Oliver tapped me on the shoulder and I spun around.
“Do you know that these bones are hundreds of years old” he said excitedly. “It would be so amazing to see what their lives were like and how they died.”He then continued taking photographs. I stared at him. I realised that what I was seeing must have happened a long time ago. I shuddered as my hair flicked a skull and I was pulled back into the past yet again.