Chapter 1
The Calling of the Dead
It was a normal day for me, I had aced my Algebra test, and I was heading home from school when something stopped me dead in my tracks. I looked down Patriot Lane and noticed that a manhole cover was lying in the middle of the sidewalk. I dragged the cover over to the hole, and placed it back in its place. I turned around to head back on King St when the cover went flying into the air, smashing into the ground with such force that it snapped clean in half. I decided my eyes were deceiving me and walked home.
I arrived to find myself in the midst of commotion. I was the oldest of 8 kids, and usually they'd bug me about their science or math homework. I went into my room and grabbed my Nintendo Switch and started playing some Splatoon 2. Being a fan of puns, I had wanted the game to be called Splatwoon or Splatoon 2: The Seaquel. I equipped my trolling set of The Tenta-Brella and speed based clothing. My youngest sister Megan crawled into the room shortly into the turf war. Being only a year old, she was interested in the bright colors and the gun noises during the game. My team was winning when all of the sudden my inkling glitches underneath the map. I reset my character and still spawn down under the map. Then, the game and the entire TV shut off. I check my phone and find that the power is still on and so is the Wi-Fi.
After dinner, I quickly snatched my phone, a pair of pliers, and some duct tape to figure out what went wrong with the TV. It turned out the main power cord had been simply unplugged, causing no flow of electricity. The game still wasn't responding to me turning on the system. I had decided to sleep on it to figure on what was going wrong. I realized that the flying manhole cover from earlier today had to have been caused by force. It couldn't have been water, nor was it someone in the sewers. The town's sewers had not been checked on in many years due to an accident down there which had killed 7 workers. I sat my phone on the base of the bed when I heard a large thump.
There was a wooden door hidden underneath my mattress which is where the sound came from. I questioned to myself why I had never noticed this in all of my years living in this house. The door looked like it was designed as an older basement or storm hatch trapdoor. The wood was very clean and didn't look mushed from the time I've spent in bed. It had some steel plating on the sides and a heart shaped plating in the center. The door was shut tight and was obviously locked. I snuck into one of my sister's room and grabbed a hairpin. I had seen people lock-pick with hairpins in the past, and it worked perfectly. I opened the hatch when all of the sudden, a bunch of bright light shot out of the hatch and I couldn't see. I must have fallen into the hatch and had fallen for a good 5 minutes before I passed out.