It was just her and him, left alone in the dark unknown sewer. Confused, stunned, and perplexed, she hesitatingly bent on her knees, leaned forward, and shook the man. She wanted to know where she was. How she… they had gotten there, and where the way out was. She remembered partying. She remembered drinking more alcohol than she should have. But she also remembered leaving with Nicky. That part was a little fuzzy in her mind. Did I really leave with her? She couldn’t remember.

“Did we even leave the club? Was I… drugged?” aware of how these things usually go, she panicked. And not finding Nicky anywhere nearby didn’t calm her either.

“Did she… she couldn’t have, could she?”

Jolted back into the present dark and stinking sewer by the cold water, she looked ahead. She was still shaking the man, but he was not waking up. “Oh come on!” She snapped and clicked her tongue. Then slapped his head -hoping that would jolt him awake- but still nothing. Not a single groan or shiver. A small fear grew in her heart. He was as cold to touch as the water beneath. The fear grew into a shiver, which shook her completely awake. Her hands quivered. She yanked the man’s shoulder and turned his face up. His eyes were open. Red, blasted, hateful, and still. His pupils were blown and mouth open. He was dead. She drew a sharp breath and screamed.

Screaming she tried to push him away but stumbled -her feet slipped on something moldy- and splashed into the dirty sewer water. The sewer tunnel screamed with her in her voice. Then her voice screamed back at her from the distance. The echoes echoed until she finally stopped and closed her mouth. Her hands trembled in fear as she brought them to her face. Something brown, maybe mud, covered her palms. Shocked at how ridiculous her morning was turning out to be, she put them back into the flowing water to clean them.

Eventually, after her heart calmed down and her breathing stabilized, after the thought that she was currently trapped inside a sewer with no visible exists settled in her mind, she stood up.

Her eyes peered at her surroundings. A small emotion urged her to do something. She looked for something, for someone, but found no one else in the tunnel beside her shadow.

“Nicky… are you here?” She whispered. Then taking a step away from the corpse she ran into the darkness. With no light to see and no sound to follow, she ran practically blind. There must be an opening somewhere. Somewhere- She thought and yelled as loud as she could, “NICKY! WHERE ARE YOU!?” She did stumble once or twice while running but managed to remain balanced. Unfortunately, there were no footpaths in this sewer. She felt disgusted moving through the brown, muddy water which splashed and rose dangerously close to her face with every step she took. Helplessness drowned her in sorrow.

He was dead. Nicky was gone. And she was alone. “HELP!” she kept screaming and running. Hoping someone would hear her. She screamed while running. She ran screaming. Her naked feet kept splashing and sloshing the dirty water. She squirmed and shivered every time she stepped on something soft. She ran straight, for almost twenty minutes. She didn’t look back once. But half an hour later she had to stop. The foul odor was horrible enough on its own, but her rapid expenditure and brisk intake of foreign gases had left her wheezing and out of energy. Using once of the rounded walls as her support she walked forward, and just when she thought of giving up, she found sunlight. She knew it. It was lighting a portion of the rounded concrete wall and the patch of green and brown moss covering it.

“HELP, me, somebody, help me!” with newfound enthusiasm she moved forward. A big smile grew on her face. Her strides got bigger the closer she got. “Somebody-somebody-” she neared the source of light yelling. It was coming from a hole in the rounded ceiling at an angle. She wanted to look outside but the hole was out of her reach. She jumped and failed. Frantically, she searched her surrounding for something to hoist herself up, but what she found made her stagger. She wavered; her face turned pale. Her legs lost power. She became stone still under the sunlight. Her feet were in the dirty water. Green moss grew from the stained walls. A man lay dead at some distance, naked.

She had run straight. “I-I ran strai…” She hadn’t experienced a single turn. So how could she be back on the opposite side of where she had started from?

“What is happening… what is happening to me!” She yelled and yanked her hair. Stopping her madness, she ran back into the darkness, onto the path, into the tunnel she had come from, mumbling, “it can’t be happening..” again and again.

Her journey remained the same- exhausting. The water remained brown and bubbling- filthy. The walls didn’t change. The light came again. The corpse still remained.

“Third time… third time’s a charm” She ran back once again. She came back and fell knees first into the stinking cold water, under the light, in front of the body.

“Wh-why-” she asked completely drained, but no one answered. She remembered getting up in the evening. She remembered getting into the car, them driving down the 54 street into Dunworth Avenue. Then they entered the Hola-hub club where she danced under the red, green, pink, blue, rainbow lights. On beats which sounded alien to her now. On songs, she didn’t understand. She remembered drinking soda, some cocktails: few drops of lemon, some gin, brandy, a pint of milk. It tasted disgusting, like sour milk. There she met a man. There she saw Nicky winking at her. They leaned into each other and danced. She remembered kissing a girl she didn’t know, remembered walking backstage with her. Then she remembered nothing else.

“Please God, help me.”

There- a sudden burst of something foul and disgusting yanked her out of her thoughts. The songs from the party rang in her ears. She heard music. Carnival sounds. It was soft on her ears. Like a feather moving round and round at the edge of her ears. She licked her dry lips at the sound. Hope was slowly growing inside her.

She looked up. The music was real. It was coming from the darkness, past the light and the body. She could see a wavering light glowing there at a distance. A light of white, like from a television. She crawled forward with shivering hands and pushed to stand up. Stepping unknowingly on the dead body, she walked first and then ran toward the sound and light. Tiredness disappeared from her face.

The sounds grew louder the closer she got to the source. There it was… a door. A big wooden door which was assembled from large planks nailed together with crossing planks at the top and the bottom. But where did the door lead? Ria didn’t know. She stopped in front of it, breathless. A sense of dread enveloped her.

What am I doing?

The water was cold here- Too cold. It awoke her. She was senseless before. The cold water soothed her. Light leaked out from the gaps where the doors met the walls. The sound was penetrating its shabby build easily.

She placed her hand on the door then hesitatingly peeked inside through the keyhole. She saw light. A room enveloped in fiery orange. She saw a painting on the wall over the fireplace where a big fire burned. The burning logs produced cracking sounds- a peaceful sound. A couch sat a good few feet from the door. An old black and white television glowed brightly at a healthy distance from the couch. The lively music was its creation.

“At last-” she found her voice back. “Is there anyone…”

“Come inside, little lamb. Me don’t want to wait any longer.” the voice came from inside. A grumpy, somewhat heavy voice it was. The voice of steel grinding upon rusted iron. Not really awe-inspiring or calming.

“Who-” she asked, the words slipped out of her lips which she hid quickly behind her hands.

A step back, but the darkness scared her. The endless looping tunnel scared her even more. The corpse reminded her of her past. She felt helpless. What was she to do? Where was she to go?

Without letting the man inside answer her, with shaking hands she opened the door and stepped inside. The door, it remained opened behind her.