More horrors awaits as the night drags on. Please read and leave a comment of what you think this time too.
Disclaimer: I don't own W.I.T.C.H.
They passed the kitchen on their way to the basement, Will walked first while her parents followed close behind.
"But how on earth are we going to find what we are looking for," her mother said. "We were there earlier and had a look, the basement is filled up with all sort of clutter and junk from the last two hundred years it will take an eternity looking through all of it. And what will you do when we find them?"
"Honestly, I do not know. All I know is that if they are broken we need to repair them and find a way to remove the artifacts from each other so the creature not can materialize again." Will said, never taking her eyes from the empty corridor in front of her.
"But how are you going to do that if it's impossible to leave the building, how can we get them far away enough from each other?" Her mother replied again.
"There may not be possible to teleport out of here, but there is always one place that is open for me, and I know they will know what to do!"
"Who is they?" Susan said, sounding either scared or confused.
Will instantly regretted her choice of words, "I will tell you later, I promise. We need to find the objects first."
They passed the bedrooms where they had slept earlier. Will casted a glance to her side. The doors were open as none had time to close them when they left, and the rooms inside lay bathed in dark. The bedroom door to her parents lay broken against the wall where she had thrown it, in the corner of her eye, Will saw her mother shiver, probably thinking of what had happened here not long ago.
The little light that still shone, started to flicker.
"Please, not again." Will heard her mother whisper.
"We better hurry," she said to her parents, "There is no knowing what will happened next, but if it comes again I promise I will protect you."
The lights were struggling to keep on shining, and for each time they went off again, the longer it took before they turned on. They turned the corner and spotted the door at the far end of the corridor. Once more it would lead them down to the nightmarish cellar on this awful night. She heard her mother started to breathe rapidly and was probably on the brink of panicking, luckily, she calmed a little when Dean laid an arm around her. But Will suspected he was just as afraid himself but didn't show it for his wife's sake.
It didn't take long before they reached the door. Inside, the stairway were just as dark as ever and Will let the electrical light in her hand grow to shed more light on the surroundings. Seeing there was nothing there, they carried on and soon they were standing on the bottom and looked through the door leading in to the first room in the basement.
The lights were gone, and Will couldn't get them on again, even with her magic, so she decided to do something else. She let her electrical light levitate out of her hand and made it fly upwards to the ceiling where it could light up a larger area. Once she had directed it to a suitable spot she let it stay, she then called forth more of them from her hands and each and one of them she sent in a different direction. Soon the room was bathed in an electrical blue light that allowed them to see the entire basement.
Dean walked over to the closest stack of boxes and started looking through them "I think it is best we start looking, there is so much stuff in here and who knows when the creature decide to appear."
"Ok, but you leave lockers and larger chests to me just in case somebody is lurking inside." Will said and went to open the lock of a chest that was standing close by.
Soon everybody was looking frantically after the artifacts, emptying chests and boxes, turning over piles of closes and medical equipment, but while doing so they unconsciously walked further and further away from each other.
How long she had been in the basement, Will didn't know. All sense of time had seemed to disappear after she came down here and the huge underground chamber felt endless with it's innumerable objects. Will opened yet another trunk, inside it revealed old radiographs. Out of curiosity she took up a couple of them and held them up against the light to study them. One was a picture of a lung with ribs in the background, the lung was dotted with white spots and on the black edge it was written with a white pen; Tuberculosis. Will shivered and looked at another picture, this was showing a row of teeth, nothing seemed strange about this one. The third picture showed a human skull in profile, against the black background, the bone was pearly white and in the middle she could make out the grey substance that obviously was the brain. But on this one there were several markers with attached lines pointing to writings on the edge; Anomaly, enlarged area! Request lobotomy. Will shuddered and was going to lay down the pictures, but something held her back. Something seemed to be wrong, but what? She decided to take a closer look at the pictures. She inspected them closely, but nothing seemed to be wrong with them except from what the notes told. Will then took a glance at her immediate surrounding, something was still wrong. Then it hit her, it wasn't the pictures, it was the light. The light was getting dimmer!
She had been so occupied by looking for the artifacts that she hadn't noticed the room was getting darker, but now that she was aware of it she could see her magical light orbs were smaller than when she had created them. But that shouldn't be happening, they should have stayed at the same size until she removed them. "Please, not now!" she thought fearfully as she knew what the dark would bring.
Will tried to concentrate her thoughts on the lights to make them bigger again, but no matter how hard she tried, it didn't work. She looked around and found herself alone "Mom, Dean," she said loud, calling worryingly for her parents attention. "Have you found anything yet? Something is happening. The light is going out, come over to me."
A muffled response came from two different directions, they had all walked apart at some point she realized, and now they couldn't see each other because of all of the stuff separating them.
"I am here" Dean's voice said. "Where?" She heard her mother reply from an another direction.
Will started to go to where her mother's voice had come from, "Stay where you are, I will find you" she called out. She suddenly became nervous and walked faster, but the seemingly random placement of every spare bed, medical apparatus, lockers and piles of junk made the place like a maze. She jumped over suitcases, crawled under fallen coat stands and crept between containers while the light was getting weaker and the shadows bigger and darker.
To her relief she finally found Susan. She had stopped looking and was holding William up in her arms. "Will, there you are" she said, "What is happening, why is it getting darker?"
"I don't know," Will said, "But I think we should stay closer together."
Susan looked down at the floor, "Perhaps it is best we go upstairs again."
"No, it won't be any better upstairs, we cannot get out and I guess it is still night, so it will be just as dark there. We should find Dean and look together."
As on cue, Dean called, "I will turn on my flashlight, it is getting too dark. Speak loud so I can hear where you are."
"Okay" Will shouted, "I am here with mom and William."
From another spot in the basement, Dean turned on his flashlight. The warm yellow glow was a sharp contrast to the magical blue lights Will had created, they were now so small that only weak blue flares enlightened the room and could not prevent the ever growing shadows expanding their grip. Dean walked nervously towards the point where he heard Will and Susan speak to him. He let his flashlight sweep across every object in front of him, dark frightening unidentifiable objects became chairs, cupboards, bicycles and other things he knew. But suddenly, in the corner of his eye Dean thought he saw movements in the dark, he flew around and pointed his flashlight towards it and let out a piercing scream.
"Aaargh!" Dean stumbled backwards and fell.
"Dean, what is it?" he heard both Susan and Will shout.
"It is… I see…" Dean stuttered as he laid on the floor and pointed his flashlight towards what he had seen and got a better look.
"Mannequins!" he said astounded.
"What?" he heard the others shout.
"Sorry, I thought I saw something that moved, but I guess it was only my imagination. There are some mannequins here," he said. "Exhibition dolls that look like humans, they startled me."
Dean got himself back on his feet and brushed his clothes before he took a closer look at the life-sized dolls. The dolls were standing in a group some meters away behind some other stuff that obscured some of his view. Behind them again was the dying light from one of Will's blue orbs that flickered. That was probably the source of the movement he had seen.
He gathered himself, turned around and was just about to walk further when a thought of uncertainty made him stop. He looked slowly over his shoulder to cast a last glance at the dolls. Then to his eternal fright, one of them turned around and looked back at him.
Dean's mind went blank as he let out a scream that must have been the most terrified scream in history, but in reality, not a sound escaped his lips. Gasping for air, he took a step backwards but didn't see the rusty old tube on the floor that had been waiting for him for more than fifty years.
Old and rusty as it was, it was still round and before he knew it, Dean slipped on it and came tumbling backwards and crashed in a mountain of boxes, books and clothes that came falling down, burying him and his flashlight.
"DEAN!" He heard Susan and Will shout again, but he didn't respond as he desperately tried to free himself from everything that had fallen upon him. Dean now in a state of pure panic, pushed some heavy boxes off his stomach and tried to stand up, only to discover he had become trapped under a pole he for some reason was unable to move. While he was pushing away some objects, he felt something in the pile behind him started to move. He looked up to see a huge old wardrobe with dark painting and double doors began tilting towards him, it was without doubt heavy.
Dean looked down at the pole that lay over his stomach and realized he had to get under it and pull himself past to get away. The wardrobe tilted more and more until it went over to a sliding motion downwards while the teacher started to pull himself out. Finally, the gravity and the sharp angle made the doors open towards him, revealing the horrible sight of the grinning, eyeless face of creature that had waited for him inside.
"WILL. HEEELP!" Dean screamed with all the force his lungs could muster.
Will responded immediately. She shot a lightning bolt straight into the piles in the direction of Dean's scream of terror. Bits and pieces of every object flew in all direction as she brutally made a path through it, and then she grabbed her mother's hand and ran.
"Dean" Will shouted, "Are you there?"
She had sprinted only thirty meters when she saw him trying to crawl out from a pile right to the left of her. As he practically was crawling on his back to get loose, he had escaped from being hit by flying debris and just as the last of her magical light gave a final flicker, she saw the demonic creature getting ready to leap on him from inside of the wardrobe.
"Hey you bastard. What do you think you are doing!" Will shouted and shoot a lightning bolt straight at the creature.
The wardrobe exploded and everything went dark again.
"Dean, are you alright?" she heard her mother cry worriedly behind her.
"Yes," Dean answered from the dark, "I have gotten loose, just hang on a second." The sound of metal buckets hitting the floor was soon followed by a "Yes!" and suddenly Dean had found his flashlight again, pointing it towards his wife and bewinged daughter.
Will didn't know how it still could be shining since no other lights would, but she didn't question it, grateful enough what little light it provided. Her mother reminder her that she had more to worry about.
"What happened to the creature?" she said, "did you kill it?"
"I hardly doubt so, I zapped it before and it didn't seem to take much harm from that…" Will stopped abruptly as she sensed something sinister approach.
"Watch out!" she yelled, and prepared for the assault. But it wasn't directed at her. Before she had time to react, a black mass of thin limbs and torn clothes attacked Dean from behind and nailed him to the floor while the flashlight flew out of his hand.
Will didn't hesitate, she sprang forward to save her dad from its deadly grip. She found the creature and tried to pull it away from him, and although she couldn't see well, she felt how the creature hold Dean in a firm grip, refusing to let go of its prey.
Will took hold on the creatures' bony arms and tried to pull them loose from their grip on Dean. As she did so, Dean let out a bloody scream.
"Let go of him you blasted beast!" Will shouted and pulled harder, "Don't you dare hurt him."
"The claws are digging into my arms," screamed Dean, and just as he did so, her mother had somehow managed to find the flashlight and pointed it in their direction, making Will able to see how the creature stuck onto her dad. In their struggle, she could see red spots began forming where the pointy fingers pierced the jacket on the upper arms and understood she had to react quickly. Being able to see where to take hold on it, she managed to get a firmer grip on the creature and pulled it off her dad. As soon as she wrestled it loose from him, she sent a high-voltage bolt through the wretched devil that sent it flying meters away, followed by a sickening crack as it received a brutal meeting with the stone floor. Her mother stepped over to her and let the flashlight shine on her injured husband, but Will couldn't afford to let the creature get away again.
"Mom," she said quickly, "Point the light to the creature so it can't sneak away."
"But Dean," she began and stared at her husband who were clutching his upper arms that were bleeding.
"You have too, if we lose sight on it, the creature will sneak up on us again and attack."
"Susan, please do as she says," said Dean between his teeth," I will manage, the wounds aren't that bad, it is only flesh wounds and it doesn't feel like anything's broken."
"Ok, if you say so," Susan said and pointed the flashlight with a shaky hand towards the vile thing that lay on the floor not far away.
Will saw an iron tube that stuck out from a pile and pulled it out, determined to knock it so hard in the creatures' skull that it wouldn't rise anymore. She jerked it out and ran towards it with the tube lifted above her head, ready to strike when suddenly something got tangled up between her legs and made her fall. The tube went flying out of her hands as she set out her arms to break the fall. Her weapon landed with a smack on the floor midway between her and the creature. Will looked back to see what she had stumbled on.
It was a foot!
She quickly let her gaze followed the foot and leg upwards and saw the figure of a human body in the dark, standing there right beside her. The teenager looked fast between the creature that by now seemed to be moving on the floor and the newcomer above her.
"Sorry little fairy, I can't allow you kill the creature," he said.
You might have noticed I tend to end my chapters in this way, I hope it makes you want to see what happend next. Does it work?