Home
Suddenly, I felt the cold, dead fingers wrap around my ankle. I shrieked and dropped the paper. The body sat up in the water, staring at me through empty eye sockets. It let out a gurgling groan. I screamed again and kicked at the fingers clutching my leg. I felt the bones snap under my toes and the dead hand fell away. The body let out a pained yell as I sprinted toward the house.
I flew up the stairs and slammed into the front door. I tried to open it, turning and pulling at the knob. It was no use. I was locked out. Panicked squeals escaped my throat as I tugged at the hopelessly locked door. I kicked it with a yell of frustration, and then cried out in pain. I leaned with my back against the door, then slid down to the ground and sat there. I slammed my head against the door, sobbing.
�What is going on?� I cried, anguished. I was answered by the crashing thunder. I glanced over at the gutter through blurry eyes. The corpse was gone. It�s coming after me now, I thought.
Standing up quickly, I tried the door again. It was still locked. I walked across the front lawn as fast as I could, the ground squishing beneath my bare feet. I was desperate to get back inside. There was the bay window, wide open, the rain just pouring in. Weakly, I tried to pull myself up to climb through the opening. I felt heavy with rainwater. After what felt like a half-hour, I managed to crawl in through the window. I let myself fall onto the drenched floor inside the house. I tried to stand up, but I wasn�t able. I pressed my hands against the floor to try to push myself up. The floor felt unstable. The wood beneath the carpet had grown weak from the rain coming in through the window. Gradually, I became aware of the floor cracking beneath me and- the floor broke through and I realized I was falling, falling down until I crashed to the concrete floor of the basement. My head slammed against the floor. The last thing I remember was the searing, blinding pain.
When I came to, I couldn�t remember where I was. I was afraid to open my eyes. Slowly, the morning�s events came flooding back to me. The memory made me feel ill. I was too disoriented to sit up. I listened for sounds of the thunderstorm, but I couldn�t hear anything, not the thunder or the rain. How long was I unconscious? I wondered. Then, I noticed a scraping sound, like fingernails on a chalkboard. It kept scraping and scraping- it gave me goose bumps. I managed to sit halfway up and open my eyes. All I saw was darkness. My flashlight- where�s my flashlight? I had dropped it outside. I heard the scraping again. It seemed to be coming from the wall to my left. I looked over there, squinting in a vain attempt to see in the total darkness. I couldn�t see anything at first, but then I noticed two small green lights glowing across the room, about where the scraping was coming from. The lights looked like eyes- no, they were eyes, and they were staring at me. The scraping stopped, and there was another sound, like a low growl. The eyes moved closer, burning into mine. I crawled backward, away from them, until I hit the wall. Then, I stood up shakily. I felt the string of the ceiling lamp hit me in the face. I reached up and pulled it. Miraculously, the light came on. Whatever had been staring at me was gone, and the growling had stopped. What was there, however, was another bloody message on the wall. The dim light sparkled on its dripping red surface. It stated plainly, �The time has come�. Just like the other one, I thought, suddenly remembering the message upstairs.
I didn�t stop to wonder how the message had gotten there, or what had happened to the eyes or the growling. It wasn�t worth questioning what I could make no sense of. Instead, I walked over to the bleeding wall, avoiding the puddles on the floor.
�It�s probably just paint,� I said, feeling that there had to be a rational explanation for everything. Hesitantly, I stuck my finger in the big letter �T�. I rubbed the substance between my fingers and smelled it. It definitely wasn�t paint. I shuddered. Animal blood, I thought suddenly. From a butcher shop or something. Someone�s just playing some stupid joke, trying to scare me and make me leave. Well, it�s not going to work! I stormed up the stairs to the basement door, anger flaring up inside me. I tore the door open with a force worthy of tearing it off its hinges. I looked out into the corridor. It seemed oddly bright�
I turned to my left and was facing what should have been the broken bay window and a huge hole in the floor. That wasn�t what I saw. What I saw wasn�t right. I turned around. That�s not right, either. Then, to either side of me- those were wrong, too. Where was my house?
The walls were stone. The floor was stone. The ceiling was stone, and it was practically hitting me in the head. The basement door was no longer there, either. I was in what appeared to be a stone corridor. The bright light came from flaming torches in brackets on the walls. My eyes fought to adjust to the flickering light. I looked around. The walls felt like they were closing in, but I assured myself that I was hallucinating. I blinked several times, and then pinched myself to make sure I wasn�t dreaming. It hurt a lot, confirming that I was indeed awake. I was trapped in this strange place. I had no idea how I had gotten there, what I was doing there, or how I would ever get out. Feeling frantic, I began to hyperventilate.
