Death Stories with Zoe

The Late Mrs. O'Brien

It was a dark and stormy day when the flight taken by @lil_evelyn to Paris touched down at Charles De Gaulle airport. It was the first time @lil_evelyn had ever been to the City of Light, and she was out of her mind with excitement. Not only was she thrilled to see the Eiffel Tower and L'arc de Triomphe, but the purpose for her visit filled her heart with joy, as well. She was visiting her husband, Dylan O'Brien, on the set of his new movie, Marcel. They had only been married for six months, and for the last three weeks while they'd been apart, she'd missed him terribly.

A car sent by the studio picked up @lil_evelyn just outside the airport and whisked her away to the five-star hotel in the Eighth Arrondissement where Dylan and the cast and crew were residing during the production. Her flight had been delayed; she had originally been expecting to land the previous evening and now it was morning. Dylan was already on set for the day and wouldn't be returning to the hotel until that evening. That sucked. She was eager to be reuinited with him.

Antsy and eager to explore the city, @lil_evelyn asked the concierge in the lobby for a recommendation on how to spend her first day in Paris.

"There are many things to do in Paris," the concierge said. "What sorts of activities do you enjoy? Art museums? Shopping?"

@lil_evelyn replied, "I like shopping, I guess. But I also like history and movies. Horror movies, especially."

The concierge sent @lil_evelyn straight to a tour of the Catacombs, a system of tunnels that run 20 meters below the streets of Paris. What was fascinating about the Catacombs was that they were ossuaries, tunnels filled with the stacked, well-arranged bones of over six million dead Parisians. There were over 200miles of tunnels to explore, but the tour would lead @lil_evelyn down thesystem's most well-traveled path, which would take about 45 minutes. 

@lil_evelyn was psyched. This was going to be the most Instagram-worthy moment of her life since her small, intimate wedding in New York City.

@lil_evelyn followed her tour guide through a doorway underneath a sign which read, "Arrête, c'est ici l'empire de la mort!" (Stop! This is the empire of death!). She climbed down a ladder along with all of the other people on her guided tour, and put on the headphones she had been issued so that she could experience the tour in English since the guide would be speaking mostly in French.

But those headphones were a very bad idea. When she paused to take a few photos of a particularly ornate arrangement of skulls, she became caught up in her audio tour's explanation about a tunnel off to her left. Curious, she took a few steps toward it, and didn't hear the sound of the French tour guide's voice and the footsteps of the other tourists growing fainter behind her.

Suddenly, the lightbulb hung from a wire overhead turned off!

Surrounded by darknessand rows and rows of stacked bones, @lil_evelyn felt her heart skip a beat fromsheer fright. She took a step forward directly into the wall of bones and heard some of them shift, which made her leap backwards for fear of finding herself in a bone avalanche! In surprise, she dropped her phone, and even after her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she couldn't see the ground well enough to find it.

I just need my phone, she thought to herself. I'll text Dylan and someone from the studio will send help to get me out of her!

Her heart raced. She wondered how far away the others in her tour group had walked, if they'd hear her if she screamed. But she was too terrified to scream, so instead she called, "Help! Help!"

But no one came.

After a moment, she decided she'd try to feel her way out of the tunnel she'd walked down, and took a step forward. She planned on givingthe kid at the ticket counter who'd sold her a ticket for the guided tour apiece of her mind once she got back up to the ground level.

Crunch! She heard her iPhone crack beneath her heel.

She wandered down the tunnel in total darkness for a long while, feeling her way by following the cavern's cool, damp walls. She began to wonder if she'd perhaps gone the wrong direction,    traveling further down tunnels that tour guides didn't explore, further away from the possibility of anyone finding her.

Hours had passed, she was sure of it, but had no way of telling time.

She wondered if she'd ever see Dylan again. Or the sun. Or her parents.

But she had wandered three miles down tunnels that no one—no one—ever explored. Her throat grew so dry that it burned to inhale. Her stomach growled with hunger. She hallucinated about seeing lights and encountering the ghosts of the dead people whose remains surrounded her.

It took three and a half days for her to die from dehydration. Her last dying thought was of Dylan, and how she'd never get to say goodbye.

Her body was finally found and shipped back to her home country for her funeral. Her beloved husband was deranged with grief and the entire production of Marcel was delayed. The body of @lil_evelyn lay in its grave, light as a feather, stiff as a board.

Light as a feather, stiff as a board.

Comment below if you'd like for me to write a death story for you, and I'll select several (un)lucky readers throughout the month of October! Check out my book, Light as a Feather, available from Simon Pulse on October 9, 2018, and watch the Hulu original series inspired by the book on October 12!