I hate my stepmother right now. I'm not positive she has even noted my existence, except to tell me to stay in my room like I was some ten-year-old juvenile delinquent. It wasn't enough to marry my father when we were perfectly fine on our own, but we had to move to Italy, of all places! Apparently my father had some ancestors here or some such nonsense. This would have been fantastic if I wasn't leaving everything I had ever known, including the language I had been raised on. So, out of a lack of anything productive to do, I went to explore downstairs since I had been informed that she was with my father in the great hall. I was at least hoping to get out to explore the town a bit and search for a library. My stepmother thought I only wanted to get out and drink her precious wine. I am not as stupid as Axel, one of my old... acquaintances. Once, she caught him after the idiot went out to buy wine just so he could light it on fire. He said he assumed it would have worked almost as well as gasoline but smelled better. I took this to mean he would have become drunk off of the fumes.
In any case, I crept down the stairs as quietly as I could when I heard my stepmother and a few of her so-called "friends" laughing down the hall. I ran as softly as possible in the opposite direction and somehow ended up outside. I looked around and to my left was an inconspicuous wooden door. I stepped inside and immediately paused, for this appeared to be a burial ground of some sort, most likely the old family's. It looked like no one had trodden here for centuries. Thanks to Axel, I always had a lighter on hand so I took a torch off of the wall and proceeded to explore. The place was very fascinating, if not slightly disturbing. The ceiling was coated with some kind of mold, there was dust everywhere, and the bones of my supposed ancestors were plainly visible. So far, there weren't any ghosts, like those nitwits at Disney might think. After about a half an hour into my exploration, I came upon what appeared to be the final room. There was a section of wall there that was a shade lighter than the rest. I looked at it for a moment before resolving to bring a hammer with me the next day. With this, I brought out a book I had snuck with me (which I knew the witch would not approve of, seeing as it was fantasy-based) and sat down to read.
The next day, I returned to the room that I had claimed as my own with a five pound hammer. Normally I'd get one of my friends to do the job, but those fortunate souls were back home in New York. One of the reasons for this was that my slate-gray hair always flopped down over one eye, which ruined my depth perception most of the time, and also because I had more intellectual strength than muscular. I let out a short sigh. The one time I really needed those idiots, they were thousands of miles away. Just my luck. I started hammering away at the top. I didn't really need to be buried alive by the collapsing bricks with all these corpses.
As I suspected, behind the wall it was hollow. There was a peculiar jingling sound and a dull crunch when one of the bricks fell inside. I frowned, because it oddly reminded me of the sound my bone made when I broke my wrist back in 7th grade. When I got to around the middle part, I felt my eyes widen in surprise. There was someone's skeleton in the hole. It may not have surprised me (I was in a crypt, after all) if the man hadn't been chained to the wall wearing a mask and exquisite jester's clothes. I looked down to discover that my earlier guess with breaking bone had been correct; the brick had indeed broken a few of the person's ribs. The costume was in pristine condition, probably from not having had fresh air for a while. The costume itself looked like it was from the Renaissance period, but people wear this kind of costume at the local Carnival festival as well. I decided to ask the step-nuisance or my father later if there had been any murders related to the family. With this, I sighed yet again, annoyed at having to approach her for anything, and sat down to read across the room from the bones I'd discovered.
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Has anyone read Edgar Allan Poe's Cask of Amontillado? That's what this is based on. It's what I would think would happen if Fortunato's dead body was discovered a few hundred years later. This was originally an English paper.
I might continue this if I ever get around to it... or come up with a good way to continue...