I was sitting in my room when it happened.
I heard someone scream a high pitched, long-lasting scream.
I panicked, thinking, Oh, no, the Edison Group found us.
After a moment, I jumped off my bed and ran down the stairs, going to where I thought the scream had come from. As I neared the bottom, I saw Andrew and Simon running in the direction of the basement. I froze for a second, then began running again, deciding that whether the basement was creepy or not didn't really matter at the moment.
Andrew threw open the door and ran down the stairs, Simon right after him. They left the door open, and, a few seconds after they had gone through, I went down.
The farther I went down, the more laughing I heard. I had begun to think it was a joke, until I got to the bottom and rounded the corner. There, I saw the weirdest thing I've ever seen in my entire life: Derek, crouching on the floor in the fetal position in front of a shelf of China dolls, with Tori, Simon, and Andrew laughing so hard they couldn't breathe.
"What's going on?" I asked, feeling as though I was missing something very important here.
About a minute passed with the three of them trying to stop themselves from laughing, before they actually could catch a breath. It was Tori managed to stop first. Through bursts of giggles, she said, "Fido…. Fido is… afraid of… dolls."
My mouth dropped open. I couldn't believe what I'd heard.
"No, seriously," I said. "What really happened?"
Simon, who'd been trying to hide his laughter, said, "Really, he is!"
I didn't believe them, so I walked over to where Derek was laying on the floor, still in the fetal position. I crouched down to his level. I could see that his eyes were wide open with fear, and he kept muttering something.
"The eyes, glass hard eyes… Such pale faces…"
Shocked, I looked from Derek back up to the China dolls. Then, I looked all around myself in the basement. There weren't that many things down here; a few old chairs, some forgotten game system… And the dolls.
"Oh my God." Was all I could say.
I stood back up and walked over to the shelf of dolls. Randomly, I choose one with bright read hair and green eyes. She had on a white dress with green swirls on it. Tori, Andrew, and Simon had quieted when I lifted the doll. Now, they watched me with anticipation as I walked back to Derek and sat down next to him.
"Derek," I said. He didn't move.
"Derek," I said again. "Look what I brought."
From behind me, I pulled out doll and held it in front of his face. When he saw it, he screamed again and covered his eyes.
Now, I couldn't help myself from laughing along with the others. It was true, Derek was afraid of dolls.
"Oh, wow, Derek," I said.
When I finally calmed myself down, I took hold of Derek's arm and tried to pull him up. Of course, he was way too heavy for me, so instead, I tried snapping him out of it.
"Derek. Derek!" I shook him at little. Still didn't work. Then, I hit him.
He stopped rocking back and forth. His eyes were extremely wide for a moment, then he said, "What the hell did you do that for?!"
I smiled at him. "Come on Derek." I took hold of his arm again. He began to sit up, and as he did, I saw him begin to turn his head in the direction of the dolls. "No, no," I said, taking hold of his chin. "Don't look there."
"What – why? What's back there?"
"Nothing of importance, Derek, just come on."
Confused, Derek let me lead him out of the basement, with the others behind us, still laughing, but trying to quiet themselves.
Derek leaned down and whispered in my ear, "Why is everyone laughing?"
I was surprised that he didn't remember, but I decided not to bring up that shameful moment for him. Instead, I said, "You just did something funny, that's all."