[writing] Darkness: The Greatest Prank Ever Played

[Mewthriii]

I stood on the doorstep of the old, rundown house. The other kids stood behind me. I could hardly call them friends. At the moment I strongly resented them.

Somehow I had gotten roped into a dare. I had to go into this creepy old house down the block from mine. Its previous owners had been evicted ten years back; all the windows were boarded up, and even after all this time the bank still had yet to make use of the land. Even still, there was something off about it.

The dare? I had to stay in there for an hour.

Without freaking out.

Had I known the house was just an ordinary house, I wouldn’t have been scared at all. But since I didn’t know, I couldn’t help but be a bit afraid.

One of the kids pushed me towards the house, shouting “on with it!”
I went up to the front door. I grasped the knob weakly and turned it. The door stuck; it didn’t come open. Some of the kids behind me snickered as I yanked on the door endlessly.

Finally the door came open. As it opened a loud whooshing sound came through the doorway. Frigid air stung my face.

I entered the house.

The door creaked shut behind me and closed on its own accord. As the pitch-black enveloped me, my other senses kicked in. The first thing I smelled was mildew. Soon my vision cleared of the darkness; my eyes had adjusted.

I found myself in an entryway. There were stairs going up and stairs going down. I had a choice to make; I could go downstairs and let my far-from perfect vision drive me insane as I saw non-existent shapes form from the darkness of the basement. Or I could go upstairs in search of light and stumble upon something that was both creepy and real. OR I could stay here and let my imagination run amok with what I believed to reside in either one and be scarred for life by both. By the workings of the cruel kids outside I had been made a guinea pig for the effects of the house, to either confirm or oust the rumors. And at the moment I wasn’t ready to do either.

I sank to my knees and closed my eyes. An odd vision came to me; I pictured myself talking to all the kids at lunch in school, telling them about the creepy things I found. I would shock them; I would amaze them; even if I didn’t find anything in the house I would be a hero among the other freshmen.

I had to go into the depths of the house, and there was no way in heck I would go downstairs. Getting to my feet and trembling the whole time, I made my way to the stairs.

I lifted my foot and let it down upon the bottom stair. There was a loud creaking sound that I imagined was audible throughout the house. I looked up the stairs; I had about thirty more to climb. By the time I would reach the top, I’d have awakened the dead or whatever lay resting in this godforsaken building.

I took another step. Then another. My confidence in exploration didn’t increase even as I got closer to the to the top. Eventually I reached the top. I was in a hallway. There were six doorways all down the hall. I took the last one; that was on the corner of the house and it would probably have the most windows.

The door opened much easier than the front door. I went inside cautiously. Surely enough, light poured through the torn shades. Rolling Stones and Beatles posters covered the walls.

I went over to the window. Looking down, I saw the kids gazing in horror at the door. They thought something was going on; they must have assumed I would come back out immediately. I stepped away from the window.

But then something caught my attention. I saw something in the corner of my eye that made me shout out in horror.

Hanging in the closet was a skeleton, still with some cartilage and muscle tissue on the bones. The surface was moist and I could smell the rotting flesh even at this distance. I had to turn away. I closed my eyes tight and willed it to be a figment of my imagination.

When I had regained composure, I risked another glance. It was still there. Upon further inspection I found it to be hanging from a rope. The poor guy must have been depressed and hung himself. It was sad and disturbing at the same time.

But then I saw something that didn’t seem right. Something moved behind the corpse. It stuck it’s head out.

A cobra wound up the arm of the corpse. It hissed at me. I ran. I ran from the room, down the hall, down the stairs. I tugged at the knob on the front door. I had to get out of here. I would go insane if I spent another minute here. The door would not come open. Not like it was stuck before, rather that a force was willing it shut. A voice echoed from the walls.

YOU SHALL NOT LEAVE. YOU BELONG TO ME, AND TO MY FRIEND, THE SERPENT. YOUR SOUL IS OURS AND YOU WILL NEVER SEE YOUR FRIENDS AGAIN.

I shouted into the darkness, at the voice in the wall. With the little courage I had left I yelled my rage and my fear until I had nothing left and I collapsed, gasping for breath. And like that, the front door opened. On it’s own accord. I was astonished.

I crawled outside; down the porch; down the front steps. I reached the grass. I felt dizzy and my vision skewed. I felt like I was going to be sick.

***

I looked up at the kids staring down at me.I could tell by the looks on the kids’ faces that they heard everything that happened.

They totally bought it, I thought. I held back a smirk.




This was a story I wrote about a year back for an English assignment. I was hoping to get some C+C on this.

A side note: there is an alternate version of this story, a rough draft if you will, in which the ending is different, and when I go into the room down the hall, I open the window and flip everyone off.

[Gollum]

Lovely.
Though, you should have gone fore something more realistic than a cobra amongst the bones of the skeleton.

[Mewthriii]

Yeah, I kind of regret that...but I had to come up with something that was just absurd enough to come from the imagination of a freshman.

And even if I wanted to revise it, I just couldn't. To me, this story marks the turning point of my style, when I really got a grip on what I meant to say, and when my confidence in my writing style became solid.