There was silence in the woods as the six friends crept through. It was Halloween night, and everyone else was out trick-or-treating, but they were looking for a scare. Each one was scared out of their wits, but they would never admit it. There were the twins; Kaitlyn, the funny one; and Avery, the sweet one. There was also Shawn, the athletic one; and Ramei, the sarcastic one. Finally, there was me, Alex, the fierce one; and Will, the protective one.
Kaitlyn and Avery were walking along together, laughing slightly, and thinking out loud. They were notorious for speaking simultaneously, and they were always together. They were practically the same person.
Shawn and Ramei were holding hands, and glancing at each other secretly, when they thought no one was looking. They hadn't officially announced that they were a couple yet, but we all knew it by now as they were being rather obvious with the holding hands and the sappy glances at each other.
I was walking next to Will, we were mostly silent, only making the occasional comment about random, and careless things. Finally, we started an actual conversation about how scary it would be if a house was here in the woods.
"I wish there was one," he said, "But don't worry I'd protect you," he finished.
"As if," I answered.
"Guys, stop arguing, we all know you like each other," Kaitlyn and Avery said. Then, they said, "Hey, we said it together, hey, we did again!"
By then, we had all collapsed in laughter. Shawn was the first to recover, "Hey, guys look over there, what is that?" We all turned, and saw…
"A HUGE MANSION," we all shouted!
I said, "Let's go in!"
"Nooo, there's just a random house there, and we just won't go in!" Ramei said, always the sarcastic one. I rolled my eyes, and then laughed, patting her on the back.
"We have to be really careful though; we said we'd be back home by midnight," the twins said.
We walked in, Will first, then me, then Shawn and Ramei, and finally the twins; Kaitlyn dragging her twin along. The first thing we saw was a creepy entrance room, your standard huge chandelier, and walls filled with pictures of long dead people, along with a long, winding, spiral staircase just a few feet beyond us. Everyone looked around, and soon enough, we separated into three groups of two. Shawn and Ramei went right, Will and I went straight up the stairs in front of us, and the twins went left.
Will and I climbed the stairs, sticking close together, but looking every which way, drinking everything in. We reached the first floor suddenly something roared. Fire lit the left part of the first-floor hallway! Will and I screamed, and turned to run down the stairs, but they collapsed, with an ominous voice cackling. We turned again and ran in the opposite direction. Will grabbed my arm, and we careened sideways into a dimly-lit room full of… skeletons! We screamed, but suddenly, it was like the skeletons had come alive! Each one sat up, shook its whole body, and then stood up, and looked at both Will and I in turn, eye socket to eye.
"Uh, can't talk now…gotta go? Bye? The skeletons answered by looking confused and then chasing down the hallway, back to the stairs. The fire had singed the entire left part of the first floor, so we climbed to the second level. We were met at the top by Kaitlyn and Avery, they were breathing hard.
"Wolves- first floor- couldn't go back—not safe," Avery said, Kaitlyn nodding along with her.
"Guys, wait up," a masculine voice said.
We turned again, and saw Ramei and Shawn, Ramei seemed to have been the one to speak, but how was that possible?
"Why are you staring at me?" She asked, in a confused masculine voice. "Wait, my voice doesn't sound right. What happened!? Why do I have Shawn's voice?"
"Houston, we have a problem," Kaitlyn said, and then she laughed, "I've always wanted to do that!"
"Me too," Avery said, they both smiled at each other.
"Yoo-hoo, anyone remember us, the ones who switched bodies!?" Ramei screamed in Shawn's voice.
"Just—," Will tried to say.
We'll never know what Will would've said because at that moment, a gigantic dragon swooped down, and plucked him off the ground in its sharp talons. He screamed, and yelled, and struggled, but the dragon wouldn't let him go.
"Oh my God! Will!" I shouted, I ran after him, but they had disappeared around the corner, and the wall caved in. I started to panic, he was my best friend, wait, not was, is, I told myself. We'll find him. But just as that thought went through my head a passage way appeared to my right. It showed outside, wonderful outside, with normalness, and fresh air, instead of the sulfurous air in here, but, no. Think of Will, you need to rescue him; he would do the same for you I told myself.
The rest of my friends came up behind me, and did a double-take when they saw the exit, and ran to it. I looked on with dismay, but at the last second, the twins turned and Ramei and Shawn stopped as well.
"What about Will," the twins said, "we can't just abandon him, we have to keep going!"
The next few minutes were spent convincing Ramei and Shawn to stay as well. I was so grateful for the twins, they could convince you to jump off a cliff, and you would do it without hesitation; yes, they are that persuasive! They finally convinced Shawn and Ramei, and we continued, clutching at each other in terror, when we rounded each corner. We searched the entire second, third, and fourth floors with comfortable silence (if you could call it that when your best friend could be dying). By the time we reached the fifth floor, we were getting suspicious, where was everything, the monsters, the voices, etc.?
On the fifth floor, we rounded the first corner and came face-to-face with vampires; we screamed and ran the other way. They didn't give chase; instead they frolicked around with blood on their mouths, and fangs. As rounded the bend opposite them, we heard a howl.
"Oh, great, just what we need, another mystery monster," Shawn said in Ramei's voice.
We rounded the corner and I almost fell over a full-grown alpha wolf. It was pack of silver-furred, vicious wolves with slavering mouths. And to top it off, several werewolves as well!
"You've got to be kidding me," the twins said together. The wolves turned the sound of their voices.
"Slowly back away," I whispered.
Everyone nodded, and started, it worked… for a while, then it turned into chaos. Avery tripped over a bent nail, fortunately she wasn't hurt, but unfortunately, the alpha wolf took that as a sign of weakness and pounced.
The twins dove to the side, Kaitlyn shouted, "Bad dog!" The room went silent; the wolf cocked his head like he was saying, 'what did she mean by that?' We didn't stay to find out what happened next, we ran like our lives depended on it; which they did. We climbed up the rickety staircase again; we full out sprinted to the next one, after we heard the wolves' paws pounding on the staircase. Suddenly we heard shouting, "I'll never join you, I'll die before I would," a voice that sounded familiar said.
"Will," we all said excitedly. We raced down the hallway, but then, the noise came from upstairs! We turned and faced the wolves, and for some reason I started humming 'Roar' by Katy Perry. Everyone looked at me like I was going insane, which I was. A werewolf came to stand with the alpha wolf, maybe it could explain this. I walked forward, and all eyes turn to me.
"If you don't tell me—us, where Will is, then I will kill you," I said, evenly and calmly, but inside I felt like a fireball waiting to burst out of me. "Where is he!?" I shouted, my voice echoing off the walls like bowling ball. I was an inferno, just waiting to be unleashed. The werewolf clearly didn't understand me, so I shoved through the throng of wolves, they stood stock-still, confused. One lunged at me, but I punched its forehead with my fist, and it collapsed; all the wolves left me alone after that, they didn't even look at me. My friends followed me through, occasionally glaring at any wolves that dared look at them. They knew that fire in my eye, I was mad. I won't even deny it; I was getting hysterical. We climbed the seventh and eighth staircases. I told them my plan, and I waited with bated breath for someone to say something, anything, but no one said anything. We were climbing the tenth staircase when I noticed something.
"It's completely silent," I said. There was a chorus of agreements throughout my companions.
"Even when we weren't being attacked, there were still noises," Kaitlyn said.
"Yeah, the staircase, the bats, the voices," Avery said.
"Well, if you want noise, then, I'm your girl," a voice said.
Our heads whipped around, there, standing at the top of the staircase was a girl. She had medium-length brown hair, which was pulled back, and a pretty face, with hazel eyes, and a slim nose; she also had Will, who was trying to tell me something with his eyes. The girl was holding him at knifepoint, the knife poised to strike a throbbing vein on his throat. But she also had a tail, a long scaly tail, bright red, and shiny.
"You, you, were the dragon!" I said.
"Yes, I was, and now this pretty boy will be mine!" She cackled, "But first let's introduce ourselves. Yes?"
"There is no time for that, give us Will, now!" I said in a deadly voice.
"How rude, wasn't that rude of her," the girl asked of my companions.
My friends made incoherent noises in reply.
We spent what seemed like hours arguing, and all the while I had a plan to get Will back.
After a while I pretended that I was frustrated and Avery, Shawn, Ramei, and I "stormed" down the stairs. Kaitlyn talked to the girl, who insisted that her name was Karys, trying to convince her that she agreed with her. Ramei and Shawn would use the back staircase to trap Karys. Avery and I would go with them, but we would keep going on to the twelfth floor. Avery would call out to Karys, and I would climb up to the thirteenth floor and make the staircase collapse on Karys, incasing her, Will should be able to get out of her grip quick enough. I didn't tell anyone my part in the plan, just that I had it covered. We carried out the plan; my friends had cornered Karys at the edge of the railing of the twelfth floor. I was preparing to break the staircase, I took out my Swiss army knife, and began to saw; hoping against hope that my friends could keep Karys preoccupied long enough for this to work. A few agonizing minutes later, the staircase was hanging on a thread, I looked down at the floor and saw an escaped Will, running with the twins down the front staircase and Shawn and Ramei running down the back staircase, they were heading down to the second floor, which was our rendezvous point. I sent a short prayer to God, that they would make it out in time, and cut the rest of the staircase off.
I fell with it; I rolled into fetal position, which would have been truly fatal if I hadn't remembered something. In a book I read that if you went limp, then you could survive the fall. Desperate to survive, I went limp. Upon impact, I hit my head and fell unconscious.
I dreamed of a world where none of this had happened, where my friends and I were all safe and sound, well as safe as you can be on Halloween night.
I woke to the sound of beeping, my eyes found the hazy image of Will and the rest of my friends, but something was wrong, I couldn't feel the rest of my body. I saw a monitor out of the corner of my eye, and saw something that would haunt me forever, my heart had flat lined.
I was dead. At least my friends were safe. I let out a breath I didn't realize I was holding, and went limp, letting the winds of the Lord take me away.