EPISODE 17 — The Whisper of Lost Souls
Clarisse closed her eyes, her last breath merging with the cold night wind. Her body was an empty shell, a vessel awaiting its macabre passenger. Then, silence swallowed everything. Not the silence of peace, but that of suspended waiting, a leaden pall that crushed the usual sounds of the port city.
Under the Marseille bridge, where the city lights no longer ventured, the age-old shadow loosened its grip on Clarisse's fingers and hands, a sign that she had successfully bound her essence to her body. It was not the end she sought, but the beginning of a complete possession.
With a shudder that was not Clarisse's own, the detective's eyes opened again. It was no longer the clarity of her gaze that shone, but a greenish light, faint and unhealthy, that betrayed the entity's presence. Her pupils had widened, dark rings surrounding them like halos of death. The cemetery spirit, now freed, cackled with silent joy, a sound only the soul could perceive, a cry that seemed to echo from the very bowels of the earth.
The shadow stretched, growing immensely until it merged with the bridge's pillars, its blurred contours blending with the cold, damp stone. It yearned to fully anchor itself in the world of the living. A murmur rose in the air, the whisper of all the forgotten souls, of all the regrets and sorrows that had washed up beneath this bridge. This murmur seemed to concentrate, condense into a precise point: Clarisse's body. The entity, through her, drew on the energy of the city's wandering spirits, the homeless, and the lost souls.
What Clarisse didn't know was that this bridge was more than just a passageway. Its foundations had been laid over the ruins of a forgotten mound, an ancient place that sailors of old had nicknamed the Altar of the Abyss. The stones of the arches still bore, hidden beneath the moss, spiral engravings and runes erased by salt. Each symbol was not decoration, but a seal. A seal that contained.
Clarisse's once agile body began to move with the rigidity of a marionette, her limbs twisting in a grotesque dance, the invisible strings pulled by a distant hand. On the ground, the symbols traced in her half-burned notebook began to pulse in unison with these ancient markings. Bridge and ritual merged, transforming the place into a reawakened altar.
At the same moment, thousands of kilometers away, Léandre felt an icy chill run through him, more intense than the wind surrounding him. The Codex, still luminous in his hands, began to vibrate. The silent wind's hymn to freedom transformed into a sigh of alarm, a warning that left no doubt. A long shadow, cast by the book's light, quivered on the ground. The golden pages beat like the heart of a caged bird, trying to escape.
"The balance is broken," murmured a deep, ancient voice from the depths of the book. "A door has opened. The shadow dances. It's not looking for a body, it's looking for an altar."
Then Léandre understood that it wasn't just Clarisse who was threatened: the entire bridge was a key. Beneath its stones, in the city's forgotten flooded galleries, lay a black core, a cyclopean stone nourished for centuries by the drowned, the missing, and hidden sacrifices. If the entity awakened it, it would no longer be a possession: it would be a return.
Urgency rose within Leander like a wave. The force that had guided him thus far was now a shrill alarm. He didn't understand the connection, but he knew, with primal certainty, that something terrible had just happened. The Codex trembled in his hands. He had to act, but how?
Under the bridge, Clarisse raised her arms, her fingers deforming like roots trying to pierce the dark sky. The runes blazed, the mound was awakening, and the bridge was becoming what it had always been intended to be: a threshold.
The mound beneath the bridge now echoed like a gaping gorge. Every stone vibrated, every symbol lit up in a macabre ballet. Clarisse—or what remained of her—opened her mouth, and what came out wasn't a human voice, but a deep, guttural chant, like the roar of a deep sea.
Above her, the Marseille sky cracked with greenish veins, a sickly network of light that spread like a web. Passersby, a few meters away, felt an unexplained fear tighten their throats. Some stopped, unable to understand why the air had taken on a smell of salt and burnt flesh.
In Léandre's hands, the Codex opened of its own accord. The pages, stirred by an invisible wind, froze on a passage written in a language he had never been able to decipher until then. But at that moment, the words became clear:
"When the altar of the Abyss awakens, the sea will reclaim what was stolen from it."
Léandre reeled. Clarisse was no longer just in danger: the entire city risked becoming a sacrifice.
Under the bridge, the black waters began to boil. Pale, translucent hands burst from the surface, clawing at the pillars as if to pull themselves out of the river. The drowned figures, called by the entity, came back to life in a silent procession.
Clarisse looked up at the horizon. His distorted voice echoed like a verdict:
"The altar is erected. Let the doors open."
The river roared, the ground trembled, and the first crack opened in the heart of the cyclopean stone, pouring forth a black glow, darker than night.