text: I walk through the abandoned city, it is quiet out here. It isn’t night and the sky isn’t black, but it doesn’t feel like daytime either. The clouds are heavily overcast, a permanent dull grey sky like a looming presence above, the dreary atmosphere always giving the impression that the light is about to run out. No roads lead to the abandoned city, no birds tweet around the empty high-rise buildings and no rats rustle and scuttle along the ground. There is silence, save for the occasional passing gust of wind, travelling in a purposeful direction, the movement of condemned souls who never made it out, forever trying to escape this labyrinthine grey hell. I arrived by bicycle, riding through the uneven wasteland which surrounds this haunted former abode of civilisation. The nearest settlement is three hours out by bike, a depressed little village with all of the emptiness of this abandoned city yet none of the grandeur. Such is the personality of all that surrounds this hallow place. My destination is the city centre, that plaza of horror where all of this began, where so many before me have tried to venture, where from none have returned. I go by foot, my bike long invalidated by the sea of broken glass which scatters the outer limits of the city. I have no map, and the city is like a maze, the tall buildings enclosing around me, enveloping me in a monotone scene of terror. Yet I know that I approach the centre, that my direction is correct, I feel heavier and heavier the presence of this city, the air becoming thicker to walk through, more solid. The buildings themselves grow taller and become more terrifying. Faces begin to cover the walls, I scarcely noticed it at first but now I can’t escape them: tens, hundreds, thousands, more. I turn around and look back, the scene behind me now reflecting that ahead of me, faces everywhere, human faces. All depicting some image of abject horror and agony, faces trapped mid-scream. No painter painted these faces, no vandal graffitied them onto the bleak stone walls, these are real faces, faces of the damned. This whole abandoned city carries a foreboding aura, invokes a domineering fear in the mind, but only now does it begin to unsettle me, that latent fear in the pit of my stomach beginning to bubble and rise under the oppression of the surrounding supernatural: I look around and see a million silent screaming faces, and a million silent screaming faces look back. I can’t turn back now, I am so close to my goal. I break into a light jog, and then into a run, the fear rises, and now a sprint: I will get this over as quickly as possible. The city grows darker, a shade by shade of grey at a time, and the buildings loom ever taller, but still I run. The thick air drags against me, I am running through what seems a solid, a force pressing against me, the soul and terror of the abandoned city, my footsteps pound but they do not echo. I come to an eventual halt, I can feel my heartbeat throughout my entire chest, neck and head, my chest feels tight, my neck constricted and my head as if it is about to burst. My vision is unfocused, something in the grey is ajar, the faces remain on the walls but they are no longer at the forefront dominating my consciousness, the presence of the city is manifest, almost corporeal. A gust of wind passes by around me, perhaps even through me, I cannot tell, but inside of it I hear for a fleeting second a distant scream, a wail from the depths of this overland abyss. I look around but every direction is the same, I wonder if I am now in the centre, there is nothing identifying about the plaza around me, but there is no longer any single direction more pervasively terrifying than the rest. And then I see it, an anomaly up ahead, a lone building with no frozen faces upon its walls. I approach: there is no door, not even a window, only a vertical crack in the stone rising from the floor to about a metre and a half high. It is a deep crack and scarcely wide enough for a human to fit through, but I crouch and squeeze into it, this is what I came for, I know it somehow. It is dark around me, and the crack is too narrow for me to look back or turn around, in fact it grows tighter the further onwards I struggle. Just before me I see a light, a small window gap in the stonework, I no longer feel fear, I feel elated. I try to reach further forward to see the marvel through this gap, stone pushes against me, it swallows me up but I poke my head through the hole at last. I am stuck. The sensation of elation is over and I am paralysed with fear, no, not with fear, I panic, I can’t feel my body, my hands, my feet, I can’t turn my head, I am in agony. My face begins to freeze up, I scream but no noise escapes from me. I look ahead, I see the side of a building, a wall covered in faces, I concentrate closer, they are all my face. My face, the one I am looking through, not the ones opposite me, is locked but I can still move my eyes. A figure walks through the streets below and I notice a peculiarity: he is me. I call to him, to me, but a jet of wind rushes past and carries my call I know not where, but still, I call to him, noiselessly, we all call to him. To me.