Le Chat et Le Serpent

Chapter 29: Fight, Flight, Freeze, or Insanity

Trigger Warning***

This chapter is grotesque.

Death, blood, and vomit are the centerpiece to this chapter.

Luka pinched his arm to verify that he had actually arisen. Waking to immediately transport through a hole in the floor seemed too far fetched for his mind to accept it as reality. Unfortunately, the abrasion from his self-inflicted test proved that he was truly lowering into a hidden area within Adrien's house.

Adrien continued to resemble a plank of wood. He was unmoving in his forward facing stance. There were too many conflicting emotions within him to act on any of them. Hurt, pain, anxiety, confusion, betrayal, the list went on; it was far easier to focus on facing whatever lay beneath the manor.

Light shone through the opening of the tube as they approached the lavish ecosystem thriving below. The familiar stench that had plagued the house a few months ago retingled at their noses, but it was still far more subdued than what they had encountered before. Instead, the strongest smell was putrid water juxtaposed by the lavish vines that had thrived without human control.

"Did your dad just really like gardening?" Luka mumbled as he crinkled at the slight pungent smell orbiting through the room.

"I don't... I don't understand." Adrien began to walk forward on the catwalk, diligently avoiding the vines that crossed over the metallic path.

Plagg was spinning around the room in utter stupefaction. He couldn't believe that a whole different world was right under their noses and they never realised. That he never realised. From his aerial vantage point, he saw the casket at the end of the walkway, more specifically, he saw the skeleton of Adrien's mother. "Uh guys, maybe this isn't the greatest idea."

Adrien motioned his hand to shoo Plagg away, not noting how far above him he truly was. He continued to bustle forward, determined to know the truth.

Sass, intrigued at what Plagg must have seen, flew from Luka to investigate. In the millenia that he had known Plagg, he had never witnessed the Kwami worried. He constantly held a 'devil may care' attitude about anything; Plagg could handle nuclear war events as if they were a normal monday. This was the first time Plagg looked genuinely panicked. That alone discomforted Sass; but once he witnessed Emelie's darkened skeleton, he fell into a cataclysmic state himself.

To the Kwamis, death had its place. But this was morbid, and the holder of one of the greatest powers was about to face the gruesome scene head on. If Adrien broke from this scene, it could be catastrophic. There could be a chance they would need to take down Chat Noir.

Luka stumbled over the vines, he still fought to gain the fineness that came with coherence. The silence emanating from the Kwami's was unnerving. He tried to follow their gaze, which he noticed was not incredibly difficult considering she rested just at the end of the path.

Adrien was too focused on the mechanics of the machine itself to notice the obvious. "What the fuck is this machine?" He started pulling at the cords, trying to determine where the energy source came from and why it was broken.

Luka grimaced as Adrien inspected the tubes coming from the base of the coffin. There was a knot in his throat that prevented him from calling Adrien back. From telling him that they should never look back. Trying to move forward, he couldn't break eye contact from the dark holes within her skull. Her once golden hair had turned to frayed hay, surrounding her jaw that had seized shut. His body did not want to cooperate with his mind; he had entered flight mode and did not want to stick around to see from a nearer vantage point. Unable to push forward, he collapsed onto his weakened knees. The vines had microscopic bugs crawling around them. Just like the ones that were probably crawling over her. His stomach couldn't take it anymore. He leaned over the edge of the walk to vomit into the mossy body of water stories below.