GENESIS (GODS CHAIN) (50 page)

She must be rescinded
...
.

The church passage
?

**********

In the darkness
,
Francesca imagined
a sound
far away
...
then there was again nothing.
It was a graveside qui
e
t
that enveloped her;
she almost tip
-
toed away, holding her breath and feeling with one hand, inch by inch along the wall with
the
other outstretched arm in front
,
probing the complete darkness.

Downwards the passage descended.
Francesca
could feel
the
change
,
the temperature
dropping colder
the
deeper
she went.
Down and round it
led
; travelling in a slow and steady decline.
She
had not dared reach into her tool-case
,
which she
had still strapped onto her shoulder
.
I
t contained her own headlamp and a few other tools
—the light would have been welcome, but she was afraid of revealing her whereabouts
.
How long have I been down here?
It
might
have been ten minutes or ten hours
...t
ime had become an illusion.

Francesca
’s
progress slow
ed
as she scraped and banged her hands and fingers again and again off the walls
, which seemed to have become rougher to the touch. She
occasionally toppled to her side
,
her arms flail
ing
about like a mad windmill
.
Then a
n opening would suddenly present itself
, and she would move on.
P
rogress
became
dangerous as
she
allowed herself more and more to realise that she had no idea where she was...or how to get back
.

H
er senses uncannily seemed to gauge th
e ceiling’s change in height
.
Occasionally
the ceiling
became
so
low that she might have hit her head
if it wasn’t
protected by her outstretched arms.
Her mouth was dry as a stick and felt sore all over.
Francesca needed water!
The woman was alone, and lost!

The wall in front
of her
disappeared
, and Francesca realized that she was
standing on a precipice of some kind
that opened into a wide, black void.
The girl stopped
, peering
blindly
over the edge.
There seemed to be a step or ledge directly below
her.
Edging forward
,
bit by bit,
she
almost
lost
her balance on
the
first large step!

‘Oh
,
f
uck! What the
...
?’ she exclaimed
out loud before
taking another step. ‘It’s a step
...
a
fucking step!
There must be more. I’d better be very careful here
,
or I’ll break my neck!’

The wall then came into view again
,
closer on her right
,
a
nd
she began
to
feel her way down
,
one
step at a time.
It felt worse than being on a tight rope with a blindfold
—
she struggl
ed
to maintain her balance
.

Step by step she precariously descended, steadily down thirty or more large
,
smooth
,
stone steps. Her blood
-
stained hands
on
the wall helped her keep balance.
Then
,
suddenly
, the wall disappeared!
She fell forward and off the step and away off to the
chasm on her
right!
Panic was complete in her mind.

‘Aagh!’
she shouted with
anguish
,
anticipating
a broken bone or worse...
.

She landed
...
on the last step!

‘Shit! Shit! I don’t believe it!’ Francesca
stood up, feeling
more surprised than hurt
.
L
uckily there was no damage
.
‘
W
hatever the fuck
is coming
next?’

Standing up
,
Francesca staggered a little in anguish
—
she fell
onto a shorter
stone
wall about wa
i
st height
. She p
rob
ed
the top surface with her hands
,
thinking that
it was like
the
flat surface of a balcony.
Fumbling across the short
,
flat surface,
which
was cold and frosty
,
she touched something different
upon it
, something round and smooth
.
It was not stone.

What is this?
S
uddenly she realised and screamed!

Her fingers touched an empty
,
smooth eye socket and then a lower jaw bone with broken teeth
—
it was a skull
.
S
he shrieked even louder this time,
screeching
her anguish
.
I
t was all too much!
Instinctively
,
the systems administrator jumped backwards
,
away from her revulsion
,
and hit her head
on
the opposite wall
.
This impact made the girl feel dizzy, forcing her
to sit on the cold floor, terrified and trembling
.
Francesca breath
ed
heavy
with
exhaust
ion
.

The girl began to sob a little with fatigue and shock
,
and then hope
filled her as she suddenly
remember
ed
her mother’s kind face as she caressed Francesca’s forehead, softly saying kind words
...
.
Francesca’s
mother was
always
in her mind.
She had died
a
long time ago
,
when Francesca was very young. The darkness mix
ed
and blend
ed
inside her
rattled
mind and
her shadowy surroundings
seemed
to
smother
her
.
Everyt
hing swirl
ed
around inside her head and then went black

**********

The young man sat waiting with eager anticipation, sitting alone on a tall seat
at
a
n
intimate
round table by the large window, drinking a small café
e
spresso.
Ciriaco was early.
It was a quality coffee of that brisk type and snappy taste that made the hot liquid so refreshing
.

Where is
Francesca?
She is late
...
a
woman’s prerogative,
his pleasure of
the
new romance excited
him
.
The young man’s view
,
however
,
was somewhat restricted
by
where he was sitting
—he
star
ed
out the window through
the
large brown italic
swipes
of the ‘D’ in “
s’izzurbbaD effaC”.