Gare de Lyon

Best not to get too close to the Lyon's fangs.

Aaron Young — 25/09/2051

This article is part of the Baguette Update. It currently doesn't fit with the rest of the world but is considered the new canon.

The Gare de Lyon was one of the six major train stations of Paris, and the second biggest in frequentation. The trains launched from there to the southeast of France, about a dozen every hour, with a hundred of millions of passengers crossing every year. Back in the days, it must have been very crowded, people constantly bumping into each others, travelling to and from Paris loaded with luggages bigger than them. Now, only the ghosts of the past wander this accursed place from which even the mad dogs Does he mean the Foghounds? are wary.

The station is structured in three large rooms: the first hall, at the intersection of Lyon Street and Diderot Boulevard. Le Train Bleu, an ancient high-end restaurant, is the safest place in the whole building, and the only one we access anymore, from the large window panes. The second hall opens on the square Henry Frenay and is mostly out of reach, don't try it. Both halls are connected through the counter's room, a long hallway clad with empty storefronts and decorated by a nearly erased fresco.

The station is in a strange state. Where most of the city is outright destroyed, the building is nearly untouched. Even the glass panes are not shattered, contrary to all the surroundings. However, the inside feels like it has been abandoned for years, longer even than the mist has been a thing. The giant screens supposed to announce the arrivals and departs are corroded beyond repair, spider webs replacing circuit boards. And yet, sometimes a flash of information lights up the dead halls, the bright LED displays showing the schedule of trains that will never come.

I believe Aaron made a mistake here. There are only odd numbers of track in hall 2, which means there is no track 16. Hard to say what he meant, considering there are no trains on train 15 or 17 either. Also, there have never been more than 6 trains stationed at the same time.

A few trains lay in their track, idly waiting for long dead passengers. Seven of them are present at all time, but only four of them are actually safe to board, though there is very little point in doing so. The trains on track 11, 16, 23 and G are safe, but the other three are always shifting. They change tracks during mist events and are not actual trains. The few that entered one of them and got out all describe different, uncanny encounters. I detail some of them in the entry about the shadow trains of Gare de Lyon.

Yet the most unnerving thing about the station is how it seems out of time, in a moment halfway between now and the past before the fog. Sometimes, ghosts of passengers hurry through the hall, running to catch their nonexistent train; Empty stores restock commodity goods that nobody needs anymore: plushies, sunglasses, perfumes... Only for a moment before they vanish again; The roaring thunder of a train entering the station, the unmistakable notes of an announcement being made... They are not shadows, nor entirely mist either. Echoes of the past given form thanks to the eerie nature of the station and its many mysteries.

A lot of us find the atmosphere anxiety-inducing, grasped by a melancholy of a time they never knew. I don't. Actually, I liked coming here before, connecting with the world before us. A pity this is not possible anymore.

Rupture of block 12

The station was the breaking point initiating the rupture of bloc 12 that almost terminated all of the survivors. Being a major hub, it had numerous entries to the underground, some brittler than others. We still don't know what exactly happened due to all direct witnesses being killed in the accident, but since then both the previous block and the station's lower levels are bathing in a permanent layer of Mist. Of the station's many stairs, no more than four steps are visible before diving into one of the thicket fog I've ever seen, and I've seen a lot of them. This one is almost tangible, like a milk stream had flooded the underground. And before you ask: yes, it feels funny to the touch and no, you should not do it.

While it's not the only place where this phenomenon happens, it is by far the largest and most dangerous one. RenaudRenaud Perrault?? sent a team of 5 to explore the zone and gauge the danger. Aymeric was barely immersed under the surface that they all got sucked in by something. By the time we were able to react, it was over. Tiffany's severed hand was the only thing that we recovered from them. Poor Cyrielle had it land right on her chest. There are some screams you can never forget.

After that, Renaud decided to forbid any attempt to go down to the lower levels. He insisted on making the station his base camp in the retaking of Bercy. Me and many others were opposed to the idea, but there weren't many who could make the man change his mind when it was set. I'm not even sure it was possible at all. In retrospect, we should have done all we could to convince him.

Spontaneous Mist

A few places have been abandoned as base camps over the years, mostly due to the same phenomenon that we call spontaneous Mist: in a few seconds to a minute, the building is suddenly drowned in a thick fog and overrun with what lurks in the Fog. Contrary to what happens in the Grand Palais or the Pantheon, this events in Gare de Lyon are easier to react to and follow a pattern.

One would think that the spontaneous mists would be caused by an elevation from the lower layer to engulf the station, however the mist seldom works as expected. A cloud forms between 100 and 300 meters on the train tracks then rapidly rushes toward the station at the speed of a full-speed train. Once it reaches the platforms, it fills one hall in a few seconds, then spreads to the other one in up to three minutes. All this process lets the people inside a good enough window to prepare and shelter the non-fighters in mist-proof room on the first floor or barricade Le Train Bleu. At least that's what Renaud believed.

Lyon's Shadow

For a while, this system worked fine, thanks to a phenomenon even Nadège failed to explain: the spontaneous mist and the permanent one from the underground never mingled, preventing the things below from climbing upstairs. It was without a doubt the greatest threat out of all in the vicinity, and this unexplainable property was a great safeguard, until it wasn't. I wasn't there when it happens, but everything leads to believe that the two mists finally mixed together.

Two weeks ago, the 13th of September 2051, a spontaneous mist engulfed the station. It was the seventeenth recorded time, nothing unusual about it at first sight. According to the survivors, the monsters inside were not extraordinarily powerful, just another life and death situation like we are used to by now. However, there was something else. Something sly, and clever. It took out the mistproof rooms one by one, then weakened Renaud's forces by targeting the isolated members. It was too late when they realized what was happening, and Renaud called for a complete evacuation.

In the chaos that ensued, only 24 members of the camp's 250 people stationed there escaped. Renaud didn't make it, probably staying behind to earn time for the rest to flee. This is just like him. Maybe he thought he had a shot at felling the beast, it's hard to say. Either way, he failed. We could not recover his corpse, but the rescue team found traces hinting that a massive slithering creature crawled back to the lower floors.

With the monster that destroyed the invincible Renaud's force in one sweep still lingering near, the station has been declared off-limits. The Zoo installed zip lines from nearby buildings to and from Le Train Bleu, but it is to be used only as a crossing point or to store supplies.

Edit 12/04/2072 — Vernereine

Since then, Gare de Lyon has always been the topic of spooky stories and stupid tests of courage. There was too much to do to risk bothering an unknown threat, and then I guess we just forgot about it? Anyway, that was until Raymond Prigent's reckless expedition. He's may be full of himself, I have no choice but to acknowledge his skill as a high-risk trailblazer. He entered mist below the station with a team of eight, fully armed and ready to fight as soon as they stepped in. They chose to approach it from the metro lines instead of the stairs to surprise a potential ambush.

What they found is maybe even more unsettling than them not coming back at all. Nothing. Nothing at all. They wandered for about two hours in the three foggy levels with no more than a meter of line of sight, with not a single peril or even a sound to trouble them. As they joked afterward, the worst that happened there was the dampness that made them feel like they took a moist bath. They identified multiple stores that may have products of interest and began a basic map of the area, undisputed.

After that, there has been talks of establishing a base inside the station again, but I stepped up against it. Without knowing what happened to the Lyon's shadow, I deem too dangerous to just expose more people to it. As the Renaud incident taught us, the mist can give birth to devious monsters with high intelligence. What if it purposefully let Raymond's team explore to their heart content, knowing that they would bring more the next time? The Council shifted in my favour eventually, but I could tell Raymond was not pleased.

I conclude this entry with what I hope is a final point: don't attempt any careless settlement project in the station until we can prove for sure that the shadow is dead.