The Ritual of the Forgotten Underpass
Dan realised he’d walked past the abandoned underpass hundreds of times without ever really seeing it. Tucked between two old warehouses and nearly obscured by overgrown brambles, it was painted with grimy graffiti that seemed to shift like old memories. The locals called it the Whispering Way, but only in jest. It was a circular joke, a light-hearted warning that left people chuckling nervously over pints.
“Don’t go down there after dark, mate. You might meet the spirits of the forgotten,” Brad had teased one evening, even as he shot a wary glance towards the underpass. “Someone went missing there ages ago. The girl they never found.”
“Wasn’t just a girl,” Sam interjected, crossing his arms. “There were others. Folk say if you go down to the end and don’t turn back before midnight, you become part of the underpass. It’s like a rite of passage.”
Dan had dismissed the banter with a scoff, but the words nagged at him in his quieter moments. A year had passed since he lost Fiona to a car accident, and with each day that went by, he felt increasingly distant from the world that continued to turn without her. He needed something—anything—that would lend purpose to his grief. So, on a Saturday night, he climbed out of bed, slipped on his shoes, and set out for the Whispering Way.
The moon hung high, casting a pale light over the landscape as he walked. The air held a chill, and a faint breeze stirred the leaves like distant warnings. When he arrived at the entrance of the underpass, he hesitated. With its dank walls clothed in decaying vines and its echoing emptiness, it resembled something concocted from a fevered imagination.
Gritting his teeth against the stories, he ventured inside. The air grew heavier as he walked deeper, the distant sound of a train rattling through the nearby tracks quickly fading behind him. Unusual shapes swirled in his peripheral vision but as he focused, nothing appeared. A measure of nervous excitement surged through him, mixed with an unnerving premonition that tightened around his chest.
As he reached the end of the underpass, his phone vibrated violently in his pocket. It startled him. Fiona’s favourite song played, and he pulled it out, puzzled. She’d set it as a reminder after she passed—an ever-present nudge towards living life fully. His will trembled as the weight of that memory crashed upon him again. He switched it off, shaking his head as he turned to leave.
Then he noticed them. Scrawled over the wall like frantic prayers were drawings—faces twisted in fear, hands outstretched as if pleading for help. They were worst at the entrance, where the light faded into shadows, and the farther down he ventured, the more detailed the figures became. Was that a child? Had someone really come down here and left their mark?
If he had any sense, Dan would have turned and run, but some part of him was incredulous. Were these mere accidents of paint or profound messages? Flicking on his phone’s light, he scanned the artwork, the gestural urgency pulling him deeper into the dark.
At the far end of the passage, there was a stone pedestal, weathered and half-rendered beneath growing moss. A dark stain pooled around the base, glistening with moisture, and Dan’s heart stalled. There were no signs to mark it, but instinct told him to touch it, to reach out for whatever this forgotten place held.
As he stepped forward, the ground seemed to tremble beneath him, a ripple of energy that set his teeth on edge. He placed his hand on the pedestal, feeling a vibration run through the stone, harsh and electric. In an instant, a cacophony of voices filled the space, shrill and overlapped—a mass of pleading words begging for release.
Desperately, he pulled back, stumbling, and with that gesture, suddenly all went still and quiet. Panic clawed at him, and he rushed back to the entrance. The exit loomed ahead, but the air clung tightly to him as if it sought to trap him within its confines. Out in the street, he inhaled deeply, the night air fresh against his face.
The next morning, he felt lighter, as if the night’s experience had cleansed him. He brushed away the hesitation and glossed over the voices, convinced they had been mere tricks of an anxious mind. However, Brad’s teasing smile crossed his thoughts, and he couldn’t help but transform incidents into a morbid curiosity that compelled him back.
Returning in the light of day, he found the shapes on the walls still horrifying yet eerily captivating. He set his phone to capture images, almost as if the experience deserved archival honour. A child’s face caught his attention, its mouth opened wide in an eternal scream. The eyes seemed to plead desperately, an invitation or a warning—he could not tell.
Weeks passed, and the initial thrill dissipated. Yet Dan, despite himself, returned to the underpass over and over. Each time, he felt the connection deepen. Devorah, a girl from work, had gone missing a week prior. Dan overlooked the murmurs surrounding her disappearance, distracted by his own strange fascination that unfolded like a lazy afternoon begin coaxing him deeper into the underpass mystique.
One twilight evening, thick clouds rolled in, casting a gloom over the street. He stood hesitant beneath the arch. Could he just go back to living normally now? But the truth was he was drawn. He had to—he wanted to discover what else lay entangled within its depths.
He stepped inside, resonating with imagined ghosts swaying around him. But that night felt different, tinged with an ominous tingle on the nape of his neck. He sensed it before he saw it—a presence hung in the air, thick and heavy.
He pulled out his phone, weighing his options. The camera’s flash illuminated the far wall, and temporary light revealed the child again—yet this time, there were new faces sculpted against her, twisted as if high-pitched screams escaped without sound. Their eyes blinked in disbelief and desperation, a haunting clarity punched through his chest, stabbing through his resolve.
With each heartbeat deafening, he felt compelled to approach the pedestal again, believing understanding could lift the weight. Closing the distance felt agonisingly slow. A sweat laced his palms as he reached the dark pool—the vibration thundered back to life, but this time, it seethed and coiled around him.
“Help us,” the air pulsated as words poured forth, and Dan staggered back, stumbling over himself as the voices manifested. He was losing himself to their haunted calls.
Trapped in this bitter whirl of despair, he screamed into the engulfing void of sound, “Get out of my head!” But all he received was mocking silence, an icy realisation washing over him. No one was coming. The reality that hung in the air flickered.
Dan fled, but the corridor stretched endlessly, an expanse he was shoved back into; the darkness pressed painfully close. His mind fractured, and the faces danced before his eyes, pleading with silent echoes. Every time he thought he had found an exit, another wall reared up, leading only deeper into cold torment.
Badges of fear hardened into inevitable truth: like the others, he would now share in their forgotten torment.
Days passed unnoticed until brackish water pooled at the entrance, mirroring the dread that began to occupy him—a mute echo of lost souls. With dread sunk deep in his gut, Dan remembered Devorah now for one final, clear moment and eased his hands over the base of the pedestal.
At sundown, he pulled the brambles aside, every fibre of his being longing to recede back into the shadows of the underpass where the world barely existed.
But Dan had left something behind. Perhaps he possessed a story that needed to be told.
And outside, unaware, the urban souls of the forgotten would continue their whispers, coaxing others along the path into the depths of darkness, where the weight of legend would only deepen.
