Two inmates and a ghost boy walk into a chapel.
That's not a joke.
Liz hadn't been talking nonsense when she'd said we'd be going to church. As soon as we were allowed to go outside the next day, she dragged me out, mumbling about dirt and a half-hearted plan to wipe Korea off the Earth. It took a lot of coaxing and questioning on my part before I could finally put the pieces of cryptic comments in place and see what was going on.
As it turned out, Liz meant she'd made good use of the dirt she'd dug up on Officer Davies while sniffing around Doctor Jones' computer. She'd approached the poor man moments before dinner, armed with blackmail material for a weapon and unafraid to use it. Davies had gone down without protesting or putting up much of a fight. Of course. The guy didn't have much prison experience yet and was still young, a mumbling newbie with a crappy buzzcut and as much acne as the teens he supervised. It made him an easy target.
The officer's compliance would allow us to run Kim Sarang's errand. He'd cover for us and throw any potential meddlers off our trail while we did whatever would be necessary to earn the desired Ouija Board and bag of chips. While I felt a little bad for using Davies like that, blackmailing him and hitting him where it hurt in order to succeed in our endeavours, I wasn't going to tell Liz to dream up another plan for us to work with. It was do or die in the most literal sense.
Our end would have to justify our means.
I let Liz drag me to the old, abandoned chapel in the prison yard: a small, unwelcoming building made of stone, its unhinged door covered in chipped red paint and the rusty bell in its tower seconds away from crashing down through the roof. The chapel hadn't been in use for decades, I could see that much. Would've been a damned safety hazard, too. The once-holy place reeked of earth and bacteria, moss claiming large chunks of the walls, and I half-expected to find something dark trapped between them: a demon thirsting for blood or some other monstrosity with sharp claws ready to strike.
Lonewood's old chapel contained no such horrors, I discovered upon entering with Liz, quietly, as to not attract the attention of curious fellow inmates. It was dark inside; only a few rays of sunlight managed to seep through the cracks in the walls and the murky stained glass windows. Fallen stone and other rubble cluttered on the ground, surrounded by long green vines creeping high and weeds conquering the floor.
A spectral man in a cassock roamed the ruins with an empty look in his eyes. Beneath a tarnished bronze cross hanging askew on the wall knelt another ghost, her head bowed and mouth whispering silent prayers for all eternity. Other than them, the only ghost we had with us was Michael. I was grateful for that; three ghosts was already quite the crowd.
Liz, unbothered by our dead companions, made straight for the altar, ancient and wrecked and covered in dust like the rest of what remained of the chapel's interior. I followed her, holding my breath, trying to avoid sneezing and tripping.
Behind the altar lay yet another pile of rubble, through which my partner in crime began to rummage. She shot me a warning look, asking for my help wordlessly. I complied, crouching down beside her and helping to remove sticks and stones and rotten leaves. When we'd shoved it all to the side, I found myself staring down a gaping hole, a black void waiting to swallow us and never spit us back out again.
"It's cold down there," Liz said, as if that was the most interesting thing she could find to comment on. "After you."
I had nothing against being told what to do from time to time. Hesitant, I placed a foot on one of the first rusted iron rungs of the makeshift ladder leading down. I didn't dare look beneath me, afraid of what I would or wouldn't see. Liz came after me and the farther we descended, the more the caustic, musty stench of the underground became ingrained in my nose.
In the late nineteenth century, Liz told me, when Lonewood was still young, many underground tunnels had been dug in order to provide the prison and its inhabitants with a supply of fresh water. Said tunnels had been closed off decades ago, deemed too hazardous and primitive, and yet someone had once dug a new tunnel in the old chapel to access the network.
The boys' facility, if Liz' sources had been correct, also had a tunnel connected to the system. If we didn't get lost underground, we could find it, climb up and arrive in the boys' facility, in what was apparently referred to as the Forgotten Block. It was the oldest cell block in the boys' building, closed like the underground tunnels: too outdated, too dangerous to keep using. There hadn't been funds or resources for a proper renovation and shutting the block down had been the cheapest option. But, like the chapel and the tunnels, it was still accessible to those brave and stupid enough to try their luck. It had become the perfect location for smoking, contraband deals, or being alone and unbothered by fellow inmates for a bit.
I wondered why no one had tried to use the underground network to escape, but that question died on my lips the moment I set foot into the tunnels. Everything around us was pitch-black, save for the light from the small flashlight Liz had managed to get her hands on and the soft white glow of Michael and the other spirits wandering around. The thought of all the bugs and rats living in the tunnels made my skin itch and crawl, and the silence was deafening, allowing the rhythmic echoing of our footsteps to pound against my brain. Long, uncaring tunnels stretched on and on through the cold world below the surface. There seemed to be no end to them.
Spend too much time down there, and I assure you you'd lose your mind and your entire sense of self, lost and alone in the dark. Was it worth it, going through the effort of digging and searching your way to freedom, knowing you could be crushed under collapsing roofs or buried alive forever, or die of asphyxiation and have your corpse gnawed on by rats with sharp teeth? Knowing the odds weren't and would never be in your favour? Even if you did end up liberated, you'd still be doomed to wander the woods surrounding the facility and make it out alive, miles away from civilisation. It would have been a suicide mission more than anything, especially considering the fact most juvie kids served comparatively short sentences.
It was quiet and dark, the walls were closing in on me as I shivered in the cold, and I couldn't help but feel the whole destination wasn't all that ideal for a fun field trip out.
"Are we still going the right way?"
I'd never been the biggest talker, the loudest voice in the room. But in the tunnels, I had to talk, or my sanity would slip away right before my eyes. The silence would suffocate me if I didn't speak and my anxiety would crush me like the tunnel's roofs just might. The last thing I needed was to be getting consumed by a mental breakdown.
Liz marched on at a steady pace, the scrap of paper she held rustling between her fingers. Instructions on where to go, along with a crude map of the tunnels drawn in blue glitter gel pen; courtesy of Nari, provided on Liz's demand.
"It said to take a right turn at the big pile of steel beams, and that's what we did, so… So far, so good."
I was happy to have the human equivalent of Google Maps with me, at least. Wandering through dank, haunted tunnels was one thing, but doing it alone? I wouldn't wish that on anyone.
"That message for Mark Chen… What do you think it is?" A rat scurried past us, startling me. I picked up my pace. "Like… business or something? Some sort of agreement to kill a gang member or anything juicy like that?"
The exasperated sigh I got for a reply made me realise I'd suggested something stupid. In the silence, it was comforting to hear all the same.
"It's a love letter."
"You're sure?"
"We might be in prison, but not everything's doom and gloom. Do you douse ordered hits in lavender-scented perfume?"
I wasn't one for lightening a mood, which made me pretty fun at parties. Didn't mean I couldn't try, though. "I dunno. When I start handing out murder notes to get rid of my enemies, it could be an awesome trademark."
It was too dark for me to see, but I thought Liz was smiling. "If. You mean if."
"Do I?"
"Yes. You don't even know enough people in Lonewood to want to order a hit on anyone."
I pulled a face involuntarily. "Are you saying I've got no friends?"
"Prove me wrong. Name one and it can't be Daniela. She's your cellmate, I'm not counting her."
Liz did not have to expose me like that, but that didn't take away the fact she was right. I never did have many friends, choosing to keep to myself whenever I could. Most of my life had been me and my ghosts, nobody else. Who'd want to have a quiet, anxious kid haunted by the dead in their life, anyway?
"Pretty incriminating silence there. Why aren't you saying anything?" Liz asked, impatient.
I swallowed what little pride I still had left. "Because I don't have any names for you, except maybe yours."
We took a right turn into yet another dark shaft. The spirits of workers who'd been dead for decades stared right through us, undisturbed by our presence. We just kept going.
"I'm not trying to confront you with anything," said Liz, inspecting her map in the dim glow of her flashlight. "But… Ugh, I don't know you well enough to be telling you this…"
"Telling me what?"
"I don't know, but just interacting with you, it's... sometimes… Sometimes it feels like you've spent so much time with the dead, you've forgotten how to be alive."
I took a moment to let that particular statement sink in.
"That kind of does sound like you're trying to confront me with something."
What terrified me most was that she was right, again. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't remember the last time I'd actually enjoyed myself and my life, with the few friends I'd had or my family or even alone in my room with only ghosts to keep me company. I'd let my world become a monochrome, colourless, a space in which there wasn't any room for sunshine and rainbows.
Liz simply confirmed what I'd always known: that I moved through every day of my life like a zombie, going through the motions, watching everything and everyone pass me by and fade. The miserable consequence of not allowing anybody to enter the gloomy little cage I'd locked myself into, for no reason other than that it felt like that was what I ought to do.
"Liz, are you my friend?" I asked the question before I could stop myself. It wasn't like it mattered in the grand scheme of it all, in the cold darkness of the underground. But I did think an answer could be nice.
Liz replied tentatively, testing the waters. "What would you do if I said no?"
She'd be living proof of my self-destruction if she did. That and nothing more.
"Your name will be the first one I'll write on the lavender-scented murder notes I'll be handing out in the near future."
Radio silence.
"It's a joke, Liz. Your answer, it doesn't make a difference."
We came to a halt in front of yet another makeshift ladder, as old and rusty as the first one. The way up to the Forgotten Block.
"We're here." Liz folded the scrap of paper in her hands. Once, twice, four times.
"You can't fold a piece of paper more than six times," I shared without quite knowing why. "Six is pretty much the maximum. It's because…" My voice trailed off. "…I don't know why that is."
Liz laughed, genuinely, and for a second I didn't think about my ghosts anymore.
"For what it's worth," she said, "I don't let people I don't like come with me when I go wandering through dank underground prison tunnels. Interpret that in any way you like."
I decided to take it as a yes to my initial question. Liz didn't mention it anymore, choosing instead to focus on climbing up, cautious where to place her feet as she worked not to fall. I followed her, wondering what challenges we'd face next. And maybe I was smiling.