[SS] A Rude Awakening
Posted: August 15th, 2015, 1:32 pmby Zunar
Still on an inspiration kick from reading A Memory's Shadow, I've spent the past week writing this. I tried to mix in a little bit of everything: character detail, action, a bit of horror, romance, humor, etc. It's quite a bit longer than Revenge, being over 5000 words when Revenge was just under 800. Feedback is appreciated.
EDIT: I made some edits and polished the story up according to some feedback I got. Original version is still present for reference.
-NICOLE PERSPECTIVE-
I decided to write another version of the story, telling it from Nicole's perspective. I focused more on the characters rather than the action, so it's meant to be an extension off the actual version rather than its own thing. I haven't often written stories from a girl's perspective, so apologies if it feels a bit odd at times.
EDIT: I made some edits and polished the story up according to some feedback I got. Original version is still present for reference.
Original version: show
Chirping birds.
Normally, this would be a great time to reflect on the beauty of nature.
But it's 6 AM.
I slam my face into my mattress, hoping that the impact will instantly send me back to sleep. Futile.
Alright nature, you win. I'm getting up now, see?
Groggily I get to my feet and take a quick look around my dorm room. It's pretty barren, I've always been the kind of person who doesn't put a lot of decorations around. It's not like anyone would want to visit me, so why bother?
After throwing on some clothes and freshening up a bit in the bathroom, I walk down the stairs and exit the dormitory. I take a deep breath, inhaling the cool autumn air. This is the season I love most; it's cooling off from the hot summer but not cold from the winter, just right in-between.
The deep breath transitions into a yawn and I gaze over the university grounds. It's a pretty big campus, if I do say so myself. It's big enough that you have to walk around a bit to get from place to place, but not so much that it takes forever. It's good exercise at least.
It would probably be nice to be the first one outside and enjoying the morning. It would've been nice, at least, if it were true. It's not though; I can see a few other students already out here. I slip my hands into my pockets and start walking down the path.
After a bit of walking, I see a familiar face sitting on a bench.
"Morning Nicole."
She turns to face me, her face showing mild surprise. "Oh, morning Alex. I didn't know you got up this early."
I smile slightly. "Apparently Mother Nature wanted me up early."
Nicole chuckles. "Let me guess: noisy birds?"
I nod slightly.
"You're not the only one." Nicole gestures in the direction of a group of bleary-eyed guys sitting at a picnic table not too far away. I wonder why I didn't notice them before. "Actually they got me up too, but I get up early anyway so it's no biggie for me."
Reminded of my rude awakening, I subconsciously rub sleep out of my eyes and sit down next to her. She turns her attention back to the paper in her hands, and I take a moment to study her.
She's wearing a red blouse and blue shorts, which is pretty much the norm for her. She's never really been into skirts or really girly clothing. In fact I'd dare to say she's a tomboy. The glasses she wears reinforces that fact, making her seem almost nerdy. It's hard to tell which of us is nerdier sometimes.
Despite her tomboyish nature, one thing she always cared about was her hair. It's always been just a little past shoulder length, and today is no different. She never cuts it short, even during summer. It must be really hot.
"What? Do I have something on my face?"
She must've noticed me looking at her. "Nah, it's just that your hair has this redish tint to it. Probably just the early morning sun."
"So you're saying I'm a redhead?"
"No, that's not what I meant-"
Nicole laughs. She loves to tease me about little things and I fall for it every time. I sigh and lean back to watch as the sun slowly creeps up the horizon.
"So what are you reading?"
"A paper. I had to write it for Cultural Studies class."
I make a sour face. "Ugh, Culture Studies. I don't envy you one bit."
Nicole puts her paper down and looks at me. "It's kind of a drag, yeah. Jackson's a pretty good teacher though, so it's not too bad."
"I was just never good at history. I mean I understand knowing stuff about the country and all, but there's very few events that are interesting to me."
Nicole raises an eyebrow. "Oh really?"
"Yeah. Just the big important ones like the Declaration of Independence and the World Wars and stuff."
"Isn't that stuff you learn in like middle school?"
I shrug. "Don't remember. I never really paid enough attention back then either. I was always more interested in science and math."
Nicole chuckles. "Nerd."
"Looks who's talking. You're like the nerdiest girl I know."
We banter back and forth for a while. Eventually I hear my stomach growl. It's still pretty early and I don't usually get breakfast, so why the hell not?
I get to my feet. "I'm going to get some breakfast. Coming?"
"Sure, why not?" Nicole puts her paper away into her backpack and puts it around her shoulders. She walks beside me as we head toward our destination.
I push open the door of the science building and walk out into the sunlight. Another school day down. I'm glad my favorite subject is last, it gives me something to look forward to during the day and helps me stay motivated. Now, what do I want to do today...?
"Yo Alex!"
I turn to the voice and see my friend Josh jogging up to me.
"Hey Josh, what's up?"
"Wanna go hang out at the usual place? They're having a special today, so I was going to invite you and a couple friends."
"Sure, sounds great. I could go for a burger right about now, actually. Let me just go-"
"Senpai!"
I turn my head to see a girl running down the path towards my direction, her light twintails flapping behind her.
She grabs my arm when she gets to me. "Hi Senpai!"
"Hey Marie."
"Whatcha doin'?"
"I was just about to go dump my books off at my room and go hang out with Josh." I nod in his direction.
"Ooh, ooh, can I come?!"
"Uh..." I look over at Josh.
He shrugs. "Sure, come on."
"Yay! Let's go!"
"Hold on, I gotta go drop this stuff off, I don't want to carry it around all day." I turn to Josh. "Should I head there now or wait for you?"
"Nah, go on ahead. I'll meet you up there. See ya." He walks toward the school.
I guess that answers my question of what to do today. Beats being cooped up in my room studying at any rate.
"Come on Senpai!" Marie starts dragging me off toward the dorm.
"Whoa, easy! You don't have to drag me there, I have legs you know." I shake off her arm and start walking. "And what's your fascination with calling me that?"
"You don't like it?"
"It's not that, it's just... you've been watching too much anime."
Marie huffs. "You can never watch too much anime."
"I wouldn't be so sure of that. Pretty soon you'll be chattering away in Japanese and nobody will understand you."
She shoots me an annoyed look, but doesn't respond.
The boys' dorm is in sight now, so I run in, drop my stuff off, and we head off to the nearby burger joint.
As we sit down at a table, my phone rings.
"Hey Alex, are you busy right now?" It's Nicole.
"Not really. What's up?"
"Do you want to meet up at the library to study?"
"Well, I'm here at-" Something suddenly pokes me in the side. "Ow, quit it Marie! I'm on the phone!"
"Are you out somewhere?" Nicole asks.
"Yeah, I'm over here at Mack's to hang out with Josh and Marie-"
"I'll be right there!"
"But, I don't have my bo-" Click. "-oks." I sigh.
A few minutes later, Nicole comes in the door and makes a beeline for our table when she sees us.
"There you are. Where's Josh?" Nicole asks as she sits down across from me.
"He should be here any minute. Surprised he hasn't shown up yet honestly."
The next moment, the door opens.
"Speak of the devil."
Josh comes over to our table. "Nobody else wanted to come, so I guess it's just us thr-" He looks at Nicole for a second and then back to me. "You brought two with you? I didn't know you were such a ladies' man."
"I didn't bring her actually, she came by herself."
"Eh, whatever. The more the merrier. I'm gonna go make my order. You guys coming?"
"We already ordered," I reply. Marie nods in agreement.
Josh shrugs and heads over to the counter.
"So Nicole, you said you wanted to study, but I left my books in my room..."
"I guess we can't study then. Oh well." I expected her to sound more disappointed than that.
"You gonna order anything?"
Nicole shakes her head. "I already ate. Not hungry."
In a few seconds Josh returns to the table. "So guys, did you hear the rumor about old man Graham's place?"
"Graham?" I raise an eyebrow in disbelief.
"It's that run down house behind the campus, isn't it?" Nicole asks.
Josh nods. "Yep."
I have a feeling where this is going. "Basically what you're saying is, you wanna go see if the rumor is true, right?"
"Aw come on, don't ruin the surprise!" Josh pouts.
"Some surprise." Nicole mutters, rolling her eyes.
"Rumor?" Marie asks, confused.
"People say his house is haunted," I reply.
"Haunted?! That means g-ghosts, right?! I don't like ghosts!!" Marie cried.
"Then stay home," I answer. "Nobody said you had to come."
"B-B-But...Senpai..."
"So you guys up for it?" Josh asks.
I nod. "Sure. When do we want to go explore?"
"How about Friday?" Josh suggests. "That way we have the weekend to rest in case something happens."
"Sounds good to me." I look over to Nicole. "Nicole?"
She nods. "Sure, why not?"
I look over to Marie. "You coming too?"
"U-um..." Marie fidgets slightly. "I-I want to, but..."
"Well, you have two days to decide. Think about it, okay?" After a moment's pause, Marie nods.
Nicole takes a sip of her drink. "So, midterms are coming up in a couple weeks..."
"Don't remind me..." I sigh.
We make small talk for a few minutes until our food is done and then we chow down. Agreeing to meet up in front of the library in two days, we head back to the campus.
I flip open my notebook and pull out a pencil. If I'm going to be waiting on everyone, might as well do some homework now.
I'm only a couple problems in when someone sits down next to me. I don't even have to turn my head to recognize that distinctive hair on the edge of my vision.
"Hi Nicole."
"You know, it's rude to not look at someone when you're greeting them."
I can tell she's teasing me, so I decide to play along. "Is that so?" I'm still writing as I answer. "Different people have different standards of politeness. So do different cultures."
"So you DO pay attention in Cultural Studies class. You're a big fat liar."
"Well, you're not all wrong about the big and fat part, I suppose." I'll be the first to admit I'm not in shape. I can't stick to an exercise schedule, I've tried. My weight isn't really out of hand though, so I don't worry about it.
Nicole laughs. She looks down at my notebook. "You're seriously doing math homework when we're about to head off on an adventure?"
"I figured I was gonna get here early, so I brought something to do so I wouldn't be bored." I still haven't looked up from my notebook yet.
"If I didn't know you, I'd be surprised you aren't more bored trying to do that rather than relaxing. But that's so you."
I can't tell if she's complimenting me or teasing me, so I don't answer.
Nicole leans back against the bench and lets loose a yawn. "I wonder if we'll find anything interesting. Maybe we can find some abandoned electronics. Even if they don't work we can salvage the parts and something new-"
Nicole chatters on for a while as I focus on completing my homework. I'm just finishing the last problem when Nicole nudges me. "Earth to Alex, come in Alex."
"What?" I finally take my eyes off my notebook and turn my head to look at her.
"Oh good, you're not daydreaming. Only your eyes were moving, so it was kinda creeping me out. I thought maybe you had switched to some kind of autopilot mode or something."
I sigh as I close my notebook and put it away into my backpack, along with my pencil.
"You're not seriously going to carry that stuff around, are you? What, are you gonna use your backpack as a weapon with those heavy textbooks in it?"
"That's actually not a bad idea." I laugh. Quickly I jump to my feet and lift my backpack by its straps. "I ain't afraid of no ghosts! Hiii-yaaa!" I swing my backpack as if attacking something in front of me. Unfortunately I misjudged the weight of the backpack, so the momentum of it causes it to swung further than I anticipated, making me lose my balance and fall onto the grass.
Nicole bursts out laughing as I get up and dust myself off.
"I take it back, it's a terrible idea. I was gonna drop it off at my room on the way since we'll be passing the guys' dorm."
I sit back down again and we make small talk while waiting for Josh. He shows up a few minutes later and we set off.
"Hey, uh... should we really be doing this?"
Josh stops and turns to Nicole. "You're not chickening out on us, are you?"
"No, but... I mean... What if we get in trouble? Assuming we don't die?"
"We're not gonna die. It's not really haunted. Come on, what could possibly happen?"
"Famous last words," I interject.
Josh glares at me. "Shaddap."
Chuckling, I walk up to the door, grab the handle, and push open the door.
Josh cranes his neck to look over my shoulder. "Can you see anything?"
I shake my head. "It's too dark." I reach into my pocket and produce a small flashlight. "Good thing I came prepared." I flick it on and the beam of light pierces through the darkness. I quickly flash it around the room.
Dust and cobwebs everywhere. As expected. I take a few steps into the room, my two friends behind me.
After walking a little further in, we see the stairs. I tilt my head slightly backward to talk over my shoulder. "This is big, so how do we want to do this? Start at the top and work our way down? Or go down and come back up?"
"Whichever way is faster and gets us out of here sooner," Josh quickly answers. He's totally shaking in his boots.
I chuckle. "'It's not really haunted', huh?"
"S-shut up! I'm not scared!"
The musty air is almost suffocating. Every door we pass we open and take a quick look inside, but there's nothing interesting.
A little while later, we've explored all of this floor. Nothing.
I sigh. "Well, next." We walk toward the stairs.
Before we can make it there, we hear the creak of the door opening and another light appears.
"♥♥♥♥! Hide!" I whisper. We hurry into the nearest room and hide.
Footsteps. They're getting closer. The light moves slowly down the hallway, slowly sweeping over the walls and floor.
Something bumps my leg. "Ow! Nicole!" I hiss.
I hear her whispered apology as she squirms underneath the bed we're hiding under.
The footsteps stop. They sounded really close, like whoever it is stopped right outside the door. Pinballs of sweat pour down my face.
The door opens. I pull my face away from the edge of the bed to stay hidden, but I can't see who it is. The light sweeps around the room a few times. The footsteps come closer to my hiding spot. I can feel Nicole tense up beside me.
Suddenly, our hiding spot is flooded with light.
"There you are."
I slowly turn my head and see someone kneeling at the side of the bed, looking at us. It takes me a second to recognize the face and voice. "Marie?!"
She giggles. "My, Senpai. So that's what your true motive for coming here was. You sure picked a heck of a spot."
"You almost gave us a heart attack!" I slowly crawl out from underneath the bed and dust myself off.
"Yeah, what's the big idea?!" Josh comes out from inside the closet.
"Did you think I was someone else?" Marie giggles again.
"Seriously! Don't scare us like that! I think I just lost like five years off my life!" I help Nicole get to her feet.
Josh swipes the sweat off his forehead. "So you decided to show up, huh? What happened to being afraid of ghosts?"
Marie cringes a bit. "W-well, ghosts are scary, but..." She shuffles her feet a bit and looks up at me. "If Senpai is here, I know he'll protect me."
I sigh. Figures she would use that kind of excuse to spend time with me. At first it was cute, but now it's just getting kind of annoying.
I'm distracted by that thought by Nicole abruptly seizing my arm. "Let's get moving. The sooner we get out of here, the better." I hear Josh chuckling behind me as Nicole drags me out into the hallway.
A little while later we're resting on the bottom floor with neither hide nor hair of anything of importance.
"Well, that was a bust." Nicole sighs and leans up against the wall.
"It was fun though, right? Obviously the place isn't haunted or we would've run into ghosts by now." No one seems amused by my only half-serious comment.
"It is disappointing that we didn't find anything though," Josh says.
Can't argue with that, I suppose. I yawn and stretch a bit. "It's getting late, we should probably go back now." After a nod of agreement from everyone, we head for the nearest stairs.
Suddenly, one of the doors behind us slams closed. A pair of hands seizes my arm, trembling. "S-S-Senpai, w-what was that?!"
"Calm down, it was probably a gust of wind that caught a door just right." Marie doesn't seem convinced and keeps her iron grip on my arm.
"R-right. There's no such things as ghosts." Despite her efforts, Nicole still seems to be rattled.
We walk a bit further. Suddenly there's a loud crashing sound from the room right next to us. Now both my arms are weighed down with iron grips and I can feel the culprits trembling against me.
"If you two keep this up, my arms are gonna fall off." I shake my arms a bit to try to restore the blood circulation after their grips loosen slightly.
There's another noise. Softer this time, but still loud enough to be noticable.
I look over to Josh. We're both on edge, both secretly scared on the inside but putting on a brave face for each other and the girls. "This could be what we've been looking for."
He nods. I take a few careful steps toward the door.
"Senpai, no!" Marie cries, jumping forward to seize my arm and attempting to pull me back.
"Marie, please." I look over to Josh and nod toward the girls. "Take care of them while I check things out."
Another nod of understanding. After disengaging Marie's grip on my arm, I advance to the door and put my hand on the knob. I take a deep breath, turn it, and push.
The room is empty, just like all the other rooms we've entered. I shine my light around the dark corners of the room. Nothing.
I hear Josh calling to me from the other side of the door. "What's in there?!"
I open my mouth to call back "It's empty!", but then I see a blur of movement. I sweep the light across the room again, but don't see anything. Maybe it was just my imagination...
"There's nothing in here. Let's just-"
Before I can finish that sentence, pain erupts from the back of my head. The last thing I remember is the girls' screams before blackness envelops me.
Cold.
That's the first thing that comes to mind.
I slowly open my eyes and see that I'm lying sideways on a stone floor. And it's freezing.
As I shake the cobwebs out of my head, a pair of arms seizes me around the neck.
"Senpaiiiii!!!!" Marie is hugging me tightly. Too tightly.
"I can't... breathe..." I gasp.
"Hey, let go! You're choking him!" Nicole is on the opposite side of me, trying to loosen Marie's grip. Marie finally lets go, tears streaming down her cheeks.
The next instant, Nicole throws her arms around me, though she is careful not to squeeze too much. "We were so worried about you, you idiot! Thank god you're not dead!"
That's right... Something hit me in the back of the head and knocked me out. As I reach back to feel where I got hit, I become aware of a bandage wrapped around my head.
"You're lucky, dude." Josh is kneeling nearby.
"Yeah, that could've killed me..."
Josh shakes his head. "That's not what I meant. You got two chicks all over you right now. I would gladly take a blow to the head to be in your position right now."
Even during times like these, Josh is still Josh. "I suppose I should count my blessings."
Nicole lets go of me and I can finally get to my feet and dust myself off. Something suddenly hits me. "Come to think of it, where are we?"
I take a quick look around the room. A few bare bulbs hanging from the ceiling are the only source of light, there are no windows anywhere. The whole place seems to be made out of stone.
"I've been wondering that myself," Josh says as he stands up. "From what I can tell, we're in some sort of basement."
"What happened?" I ask.
"Well, we heard you coming back and then you suddenly fell out of the doorway in the middle of your sentence. Then we saw this guy behind you holding something or other..." Josh thinks for a few moments, but then shakes his head. "I forget exactly what it was, but anyways, he came out of the room and chased us, and we got cornered. I tried to fight back but he clobbered me pretty hard. I assume he did the same for the girls afterward."
"Not exactly," Nicole chimes in. "After you got brained by that freak, Marie fainted. I tried to jump past him but I tripped. I think I blacked out when I hit the ground."
"How convenient." I sigh. "How long do you think we've been here?"
Josh shrugs. "Dunno. He took our phones, I think."
I reach into my pockets. Sure enough, no cell phone. "I guess he's not dumb enough to not do something like that. Did you get a good look at him?"
Nicole shakes her head. "Not really, we were too panicked. I think I remember him having a beard, but I don't remember what color it was."
Suddenly the door swings open and a man steps into the room. He has a pretty big build with short black hair and a black beard. He has a pistol in one hand and a wrench in the other.
"So, you kids finally woke up, huh?" His voice is gruff, matching his appearance. "What were you kids doing snooping around inside my house, huh? Looking for something to steal?"
"Your house?" I ask. "Then you must be old man Graham."
Graham huffs. "Smart one, aren't you?"
"For your information, we weren't looking to steal anything. We heard rumors that your house was haunted, so we came to see for ourselves."
Graham laughs. "You're either really brave or really stupid if you think I'm going to believe that story."
"I told you it was a bad idea," Nicole hisses in my ear.
"It wasn't my idea!" I retort.
"What do you want with us?!" Josh asks.
Graham chuckles. "You're going to spend some time down here to think about what you did. About a week should do nicely."
"That's it? No ransom or death threat of any kind?" I ask, suspicious.
"I'm in a good mood right now, so I'll let you off easy. Unless..." He points his gun at us. "You make any trouble, and there will be consequences. Just stay here and be quiet like good little boys and girls."
"A week? But we have classes to get to! And clubs, and other stuff!" Nicole protests.
Graham points his gun at Nicole. "Too bad."
She stares at the gun, but doesn't say anything.
"I'll be back later with some food. Be good until then." He exits.
"'Be good'?! How old does he think we are?!" Josh snaps.
"Cool it, Josh." I turn to him. "Don't let his mind games get to you. Let's just calm down and think of a plan to bust out of here."
"B-But... what about his gun?" Marie stammers.
"Do you want to have to stay down here in this cold room for a week?" I ask.
"N-No, but..." She looks down, unsure of what to say.
"Look, thinking of a plan will at least give us something to do so we won't be bored to death, right?"
"You've got a point, at least." Josh nods. "How can you be so calm about this? Does nothing faze you?"
"Panicking won't solve anything," I reply. "It's best to calm down and try to think it through. Now, here's my idea..."
A few hours later, Graham returns.
"Have you guys been good?" He asks. In his hands is a plate with some bread and a few bottles of water.
"I'm surprised, I thought you would starve us down here," I comment.
"I'll just take this back upstairs then." He turns around back toward the door.
"Wait, no! Please!" Marie cries.
Chuckling, he turns back around. "I'd watch that mouth of yours, brat." He sets the plate of food and water bottles on the floor.
In the split second he's not looking at us, I throw a quick glance to Josh, who nods in understanding. We charge Graham, Josh diving for his legs and me tackling him in the chest. I grab his gun out of its holster and throw it across the room.
"Now, girls! Run!" I yell.
"You punks!" Graham spits.
The girls head for the door, but Marie stops right before she goes though. "Senpai..."
"GO!"
Marie sighs and follows Nicole upstairs.
Graham wrestles from my grip and lands a hook to my face and I fall off him, seeing stars. I quickly shake my head to clear it and move to jump onto him again, but Josh seems to have him pinned down.
"I've got him! Get out of here!" Josh yells as he exchanges blows with Graham.
"I'm not leaving you alone with this guy!" I reply.
"Go now, before-" His statement is cut off by an uppercut by Graham and he falls backward.
"Josh!"
Graham starts stumbling to his feet. If I'm going to run, now is the best time. I quickly run up the stairs, hearing Graham's heavy bellowing and footsteps behind me. I go through a few doors and find myself in one of the hallways of Graham's house. Figures he'd lock us up under his own roof. Knowing the general layout of his house from having explored it recently, I follow my gut instinct and head through a few more doors. Finally I see the front door and run through it as fast as my legs will carry me. Nicole and Marie are waiting outside, and they run up to me. I stop to catch my breath.
"Are you alright?!" Nicole asks.
"Senpai, you're hurt!" Marie says.
"I'm fine..." I gasp.
Nicole looks back to the house. "Wait, where's Josh?"
"He told me... to run..." I'm still catching my breath. "But Graham hit him... he's behind me..."
Right as I say that, Graham appears in the doorway. "You're not getting away!"
We start running again, Graham yelling threats behind us.
Suddenly, Nicole trips and falls.
"Nicole!" I stop running and double back to help her. Graham catches up to us, so I jump in front of her and he grabs me by the collar, raising me off the ground.
"I've got you now, you pest! Didn't I tell you to be a good boy?!"
"Let him go!" Nicole jumps onto Graham, but he easily throws her off.
"Senpai! No!" Marie cries. She tries to attack Graham, but he knocks her down quickly.
With both the girls down for the count, he turns his full attention to me as I'm trying to squirm out of his grip. He grabs my neck and squeezes, cutting off my air. I continue to struggle, but in vain. "I told you there would be consequences. Why can't you listen to your elders?"
I begin to feel like light-headed. My lungs are screaming for air. I can't take much more of this. I can hear the girls screaming my name. My consciousness starts drifting away...
THWACK!
I am suddenly dropped to the ground, and I gasp for air. Graham collapses to the ground beside me.
"Looks like I made it just in time."
I look up and see Josh standing there, a wrench in his right hand. He offers his hand to help me up, and I take it.
"Thanks... a ton..." I wheeze.
"Don't mention it. That's what friends are for, right?" He tosses the wrench away and walks over to Marie to help her up.
After I catch my breath, I go to help Nicole up. We're all exhausted from the event.
"Funny that you got him the same way he got me," I point out once we're all back together.
Josh nods. "Yeah. I guess you could say he got what was coming to him."
We all share a laugh.
"We should probably hit the sack. We all look like a mess."
After a nod of agreement for everyone, we head back to the dorms. Today has been quite the interesting day.
A few days pass. We return to our classes and clubs as normal, and we don't hear anything about Graham or his house for a while. Whenever someone asked about the bruise on my check, I would laugh and reply "I pissed off Nicole a little too much and paid the price." Nicole would roll her eyes if she was around when I said this, but she played along when asked.
One morning, I wake up to the sound of my phone buzzing. I check it and there's two messages.
"Hi Alex. The school festival is coming up soon, and I wanted to know if you'd like to go with me. I would really like to spend it with you."
Ah, damn. I was so busy with exams and stuff that I forgot about that.
Before I reply, I take a look at the next message. From the first word I know who the sender is without even looking.
"senpaiiii <3 do u want 2 come w/ me 2 the festival i herd it will b tons o fun & lots of ppl will b there. i wuld rly like 2 go w/ u"
Oh good lord. I should've known this would happen. I'd hate to disappoint either of them.
This is going to be a tough decision.
Normally, this would be a great time to reflect on the beauty of nature.
But it's 6 AM.
I slam my face into my mattress, hoping that the impact will instantly send me back to sleep. Futile.
Alright nature, you win. I'm getting up now, see?
Groggily I get to my feet and take a quick look around my dorm room. It's pretty barren, I've always been the kind of person who doesn't put a lot of decorations around. It's not like anyone would want to visit me, so why bother?
After throwing on some clothes and freshening up a bit in the bathroom, I walk down the stairs and exit the dormitory. I take a deep breath, inhaling the cool autumn air. This is the season I love most; it's cooling off from the hot summer but not cold from the winter, just right in-between.
The deep breath transitions into a yawn and I gaze over the university grounds. It's a pretty big campus, if I do say so myself. It's big enough that you have to walk around a bit to get from place to place, but not so much that it takes forever. It's good exercise at least.
It would probably be nice to be the first one outside and enjoying the morning. It would've been nice, at least, if it were true. It's not though; I can see a few other students already out here. I slip my hands into my pockets and start walking down the path.
After a bit of walking, I see a familiar face sitting on a bench.
"Morning Nicole."
She turns to face me, her face showing mild surprise. "Oh, morning Alex. I didn't know you got up this early."
I smile slightly. "Apparently Mother Nature wanted me up early."
Nicole chuckles. "Let me guess: noisy birds?"
I nod slightly.
"You're not the only one." Nicole gestures in the direction of a group of bleary-eyed guys sitting at a picnic table not too far away. I wonder why I didn't notice them before. "Actually they got me up too, but I get up early anyway so it's no biggie for me."
Reminded of my rude awakening, I subconsciously rub sleep out of my eyes and sit down next to her. She turns her attention back to the paper in her hands, and I take a moment to study her.
She's wearing a red blouse and blue shorts, which is pretty much the norm for her. She's never really been into skirts or really girly clothing. In fact I'd dare to say she's a tomboy. The glasses she wears reinforces that fact, making her seem almost nerdy. It's hard to tell which of us is nerdier sometimes.
Despite her tomboyish nature, one thing she always cared about was her hair. It's always been just a little past shoulder length, and today is no different. She never cuts it short, even during summer. It must be really hot.
"What? Do I have something on my face?"
She must've noticed me looking at her. "Nah, it's just that your hair has this redish tint to it. Probably just the early morning sun."
"So you're saying I'm a redhead?"
"No, that's not what I meant-"
Nicole laughs. She loves to tease me about little things and I fall for it every time. I sigh and lean back to watch as the sun slowly creeps up the horizon.
"So what are you reading?"
"A paper. I had to write it for Cultural Studies class."
I make a sour face. "Ugh, Culture Studies. I don't envy you one bit."
Nicole puts her paper down and looks at me. "It's kind of a drag, yeah. Jackson's a pretty good teacher though, so it's not too bad."
"I was just never good at history. I mean I understand knowing stuff about the country and all, but there's very few events that are interesting to me."
Nicole raises an eyebrow. "Oh really?"
"Yeah. Just the big important ones like the Declaration of Independence and the World Wars and stuff."
"Isn't that stuff you learn in like middle school?"
I shrug. "Don't remember. I never really paid enough attention back then either. I was always more interested in science and math."
Nicole chuckles. "Nerd."
"Looks who's talking. You're like the nerdiest girl I know."
We banter back and forth for a while. Eventually I hear my stomach growl. It's still pretty early and I don't usually get breakfast, so why the hell not?
I get to my feet. "I'm going to get some breakfast. Coming?"
"Sure, why not?" Nicole puts her paper away into her backpack and puts it around her shoulders. She walks beside me as we head toward our destination.
I push open the door of the science building and walk out into the sunlight. Another school day down. I'm glad my favorite subject is last, it gives me something to look forward to during the day and helps me stay motivated. Now, what do I want to do today...?
"Yo Alex!"
I turn to the voice and see my friend Josh jogging up to me.
"Hey Josh, what's up?"
"Wanna go hang out at the usual place? They're having a special today, so I was going to invite you and a couple friends."
"Sure, sounds great. I could go for a burger right about now, actually. Let me just go-"
"Senpai!"
I turn my head to see a girl running down the path towards my direction, her light twintails flapping behind her.
She grabs my arm when she gets to me. "Hi Senpai!"
"Hey Marie."
"Whatcha doin'?"
"I was just about to go dump my books off at my room and go hang out with Josh." I nod in his direction.
"Ooh, ooh, can I come?!"
"Uh..." I look over at Josh.
He shrugs. "Sure, come on."
"Yay! Let's go!"
"Hold on, I gotta go drop this stuff off, I don't want to carry it around all day." I turn to Josh. "Should I head there now or wait for you?"
"Nah, go on ahead. I'll meet you up there. See ya." He walks toward the school.
I guess that answers my question of what to do today. Beats being cooped up in my room studying at any rate.
"Come on Senpai!" Marie starts dragging me off toward the dorm.
"Whoa, easy! You don't have to drag me there, I have legs you know." I shake off her arm and start walking. "And what's your fascination with calling me that?"
"You don't like it?"
"It's not that, it's just... you've been watching too much anime."
Marie huffs. "You can never watch too much anime."
"I wouldn't be so sure of that. Pretty soon you'll be chattering away in Japanese and nobody will understand you."
She shoots me an annoyed look, but doesn't respond.
The boys' dorm is in sight now, so I run in, drop my stuff off, and we head off to the nearby burger joint.
As we sit down at a table, my phone rings.
"Hey Alex, are you busy right now?" It's Nicole.
"Not really. What's up?"
"Do you want to meet up at the library to study?"
"Well, I'm here at-" Something suddenly pokes me in the side. "Ow, quit it Marie! I'm on the phone!"
"Are you out somewhere?" Nicole asks.
"Yeah, I'm over here at Mack's to hang out with Josh and Marie-"
"I'll be right there!"
"But, I don't have my bo-" Click. "-oks." I sigh.
A few minutes later, Nicole comes in the door and makes a beeline for our table when she sees us.
"There you are. Where's Josh?" Nicole asks as she sits down across from me.
"He should be here any minute. Surprised he hasn't shown up yet honestly."
The next moment, the door opens.
"Speak of the devil."
Josh comes over to our table. "Nobody else wanted to come, so I guess it's just us thr-" He looks at Nicole for a second and then back to me. "You brought two with you? I didn't know you were such a ladies' man."
"I didn't bring her actually, she came by herself."
"Eh, whatever. The more the merrier. I'm gonna go make my order. You guys coming?"
"We already ordered," I reply. Marie nods in agreement.
Josh shrugs and heads over to the counter.
"So Nicole, you said you wanted to study, but I left my books in my room..."
"I guess we can't study then. Oh well." I expected her to sound more disappointed than that.
"You gonna order anything?"
Nicole shakes her head. "I already ate. Not hungry."
In a few seconds Josh returns to the table. "So guys, did you hear the rumor about old man Graham's place?"
"Graham?" I raise an eyebrow in disbelief.
"It's that run down house behind the campus, isn't it?" Nicole asks.
Josh nods. "Yep."
I have a feeling where this is going. "Basically what you're saying is, you wanna go see if the rumor is true, right?"
"Aw come on, don't ruin the surprise!" Josh pouts.
"Some surprise." Nicole mutters, rolling her eyes.
"Rumor?" Marie asks, confused.
"People say his house is haunted," I reply.
"Haunted?! That means g-ghosts, right?! I don't like ghosts!!" Marie cried.
"Then stay home," I answer. "Nobody said you had to come."
"B-B-But...Senpai..."
"So you guys up for it?" Josh asks.
I nod. "Sure. When do we want to go explore?"
"How about Friday?" Josh suggests. "That way we have the weekend to rest in case something happens."
"Sounds good to me." I look over to Nicole. "Nicole?"
She nods. "Sure, why not?"
I look over to Marie. "You coming too?"
"U-um..." Marie fidgets slightly. "I-I want to, but..."
"Well, you have two days to decide. Think about it, okay?" After a moment's pause, Marie nods.
Nicole takes a sip of her drink. "So, midterms are coming up in a couple weeks..."
"Don't remind me..." I sigh.
We make small talk for a few minutes until our food is done and then we chow down. Agreeing to meet up in front of the library in two days, we head back to the campus.
I flip open my notebook and pull out a pencil. If I'm going to be waiting on everyone, might as well do some homework now.
I'm only a couple problems in when someone sits down next to me. I don't even have to turn my head to recognize that distinctive hair on the edge of my vision.
"Hi Nicole."
"You know, it's rude to not look at someone when you're greeting them."
I can tell she's teasing me, so I decide to play along. "Is that so?" I'm still writing as I answer. "Different people have different standards of politeness. So do different cultures."
"So you DO pay attention in Cultural Studies class. You're a big fat liar."
"Well, you're not all wrong about the big and fat part, I suppose." I'll be the first to admit I'm not in shape. I can't stick to an exercise schedule, I've tried. My weight isn't really out of hand though, so I don't worry about it.
Nicole laughs. She looks down at my notebook. "You're seriously doing math homework when we're about to head off on an adventure?"
"I figured I was gonna get here early, so I brought something to do so I wouldn't be bored." I still haven't looked up from my notebook yet.
"If I didn't know you, I'd be surprised you aren't more bored trying to do that rather than relaxing. But that's so you."
I can't tell if she's complimenting me or teasing me, so I don't answer.
Nicole leans back against the bench and lets loose a yawn. "I wonder if we'll find anything interesting. Maybe we can find some abandoned electronics. Even if they don't work we can salvage the parts and something new-"
Nicole chatters on for a while as I focus on completing my homework. I'm just finishing the last problem when Nicole nudges me. "Earth to Alex, come in Alex."
"What?" I finally take my eyes off my notebook and turn my head to look at her.
"Oh good, you're not daydreaming. Only your eyes were moving, so it was kinda creeping me out. I thought maybe you had switched to some kind of autopilot mode or something."
I sigh as I close my notebook and put it away into my backpack, along with my pencil.
"You're not seriously going to carry that stuff around, are you? What, are you gonna use your backpack as a weapon with those heavy textbooks in it?"
"That's actually not a bad idea." I laugh. Quickly I jump to my feet and lift my backpack by its straps. "I ain't afraid of no ghosts! Hiii-yaaa!" I swing my backpack as if attacking something in front of me. Unfortunately I misjudged the weight of the backpack, so the momentum of it causes it to swung further than I anticipated, making me lose my balance and fall onto the grass.
Nicole bursts out laughing as I get up and dust myself off.
"I take it back, it's a terrible idea. I was gonna drop it off at my room on the way since we'll be passing the guys' dorm."
I sit back down again and we make small talk while waiting for Josh. He shows up a few minutes later and we set off.
"Hey, uh... should we really be doing this?"
Josh stops and turns to Nicole. "You're not chickening out on us, are you?"
"No, but... I mean... What if we get in trouble? Assuming we don't die?"
"We're not gonna die. It's not really haunted. Come on, what could possibly happen?"
"Famous last words," I interject.
Josh glares at me. "Shaddap."
Chuckling, I walk up to the door, grab the handle, and push open the door.
Josh cranes his neck to look over my shoulder. "Can you see anything?"
I shake my head. "It's too dark." I reach into my pocket and produce a small flashlight. "Good thing I came prepared." I flick it on and the beam of light pierces through the darkness. I quickly flash it around the room.
Dust and cobwebs everywhere. As expected. I take a few steps into the room, my two friends behind me.
After walking a little further in, we see the stairs. I tilt my head slightly backward to talk over my shoulder. "This is big, so how do we want to do this? Start at the top and work our way down? Or go down and come back up?"
"Whichever way is faster and gets us out of here sooner," Josh quickly answers. He's totally shaking in his boots.
I chuckle. "'It's not really haunted', huh?"
"S-shut up! I'm not scared!"
The musty air is almost suffocating. Every door we pass we open and take a quick look inside, but there's nothing interesting.
A little while later, we've explored all of this floor. Nothing.
I sigh. "Well, next." We walk toward the stairs.
Before we can make it there, we hear the creak of the door opening and another light appears.
"♥♥♥♥! Hide!" I whisper. We hurry into the nearest room and hide.
Footsteps. They're getting closer. The light moves slowly down the hallway, slowly sweeping over the walls and floor.
Something bumps my leg. "Ow! Nicole!" I hiss.
I hear her whispered apology as she squirms underneath the bed we're hiding under.
The footsteps stop. They sounded really close, like whoever it is stopped right outside the door. Pinballs of sweat pour down my face.
The door opens. I pull my face away from the edge of the bed to stay hidden, but I can't see who it is. The light sweeps around the room a few times. The footsteps come closer to my hiding spot. I can feel Nicole tense up beside me.
Suddenly, our hiding spot is flooded with light.
"There you are."
I slowly turn my head and see someone kneeling at the side of the bed, looking at us. It takes me a second to recognize the face and voice. "Marie?!"
She giggles. "My, Senpai. So that's what your true motive for coming here was. You sure picked a heck of a spot."
"You almost gave us a heart attack!" I slowly crawl out from underneath the bed and dust myself off.
"Yeah, what's the big idea?!" Josh comes out from inside the closet.
"Did you think I was someone else?" Marie giggles again.
"Seriously! Don't scare us like that! I think I just lost like five years off my life!" I help Nicole get to her feet.
Josh swipes the sweat off his forehead. "So you decided to show up, huh? What happened to being afraid of ghosts?"
Marie cringes a bit. "W-well, ghosts are scary, but..." She shuffles her feet a bit and looks up at me. "If Senpai is here, I know he'll protect me."
I sigh. Figures she would use that kind of excuse to spend time with me. At first it was cute, but now it's just getting kind of annoying.
I'm distracted by that thought by Nicole abruptly seizing my arm. "Let's get moving. The sooner we get out of here, the better." I hear Josh chuckling behind me as Nicole drags me out into the hallway.
A little while later we're resting on the bottom floor with neither hide nor hair of anything of importance.
"Well, that was a bust." Nicole sighs and leans up against the wall.
"It was fun though, right? Obviously the place isn't haunted or we would've run into ghosts by now." No one seems amused by my only half-serious comment.
"It is disappointing that we didn't find anything though," Josh says.
Can't argue with that, I suppose. I yawn and stretch a bit. "It's getting late, we should probably go back now." After a nod of agreement from everyone, we head for the nearest stairs.
Suddenly, one of the doors behind us slams closed. A pair of hands seizes my arm, trembling. "S-S-Senpai, w-what was that?!"
"Calm down, it was probably a gust of wind that caught a door just right." Marie doesn't seem convinced and keeps her iron grip on my arm.
"R-right. There's no such things as ghosts." Despite her efforts, Nicole still seems to be rattled.
We walk a bit further. Suddenly there's a loud crashing sound from the room right next to us. Now both my arms are weighed down with iron grips and I can feel the culprits trembling against me.
"If you two keep this up, my arms are gonna fall off." I shake my arms a bit to try to restore the blood circulation after their grips loosen slightly.
There's another noise. Softer this time, but still loud enough to be noticable.
I look over to Josh. We're both on edge, both secretly scared on the inside but putting on a brave face for each other and the girls. "This could be what we've been looking for."
He nods. I take a few careful steps toward the door.
"Senpai, no!" Marie cries, jumping forward to seize my arm and attempting to pull me back.
"Marie, please." I look over to Josh and nod toward the girls. "Take care of them while I check things out."
Another nod of understanding. After disengaging Marie's grip on my arm, I advance to the door and put my hand on the knob. I take a deep breath, turn it, and push.
The room is empty, just like all the other rooms we've entered. I shine my light around the dark corners of the room. Nothing.
I hear Josh calling to me from the other side of the door. "What's in there?!"
I open my mouth to call back "It's empty!", but then I see a blur of movement. I sweep the light across the room again, but don't see anything. Maybe it was just my imagination...
"There's nothing in here. Let's just-"
Before I can finish that sentence, pain erupts from the back of my head. The last thing I remember is the girls' screams before blackness envelops me.
Cold.
That's the first thing that comes to mind.
I slowly open my eyes and see that I'm lying sideways on a stone floor. And it's freezing.
As I shake the cobwebs out of my head, a pair of arms seizes me around the neck.
"Senpaiiiii!!!!" Marie is hugging me tightly. Too tightly.
"I can't... breathe..." I gasp.
"Hey, let go! You're choking him!" Nicole is on the opposite side of me, trying to loosen Marie's grip. Marie finally lets go, tears streaming down her cheeks.
The next instant, Nicole throws her arms around me, though she is careful not to squeeze too much. "We were so worried about you, you idiot! Thank god you're not dead!"
That's right... Something hit me in the back of the head and knocked me out. As I reach back to feel where I got hit, I become aware of a bandage wrapped around my head.
"You're lucky, dude." Josh is kneeling nearby.
"Yeah, that could've killed me..."
Josh shakes his head. "That's not what I meant. You got two chicks all over you right now. I would gladly take a blow to the head to be in your position right now."
Even during times like these, Josh is still Josh. "I suppose I should count my blessings."
Nicole lets go of me and I can finally get to my feet and dust myself off. Something suddenly hits me. "Come to think of it, where are we?"
I take a quick look around the room. A few bare bulbs hanging from the ceiling are the only source of light, there are no windows anywhere. The whole place seems to be made out of stone.
"I've been wondering that myself," Josh says as he stands up. "From what I can tell, we're in some sort of basement."
"What happened?" I ask.
"Well, we heard you coming back and then you suddenly fell out of the doorway in the middle of your sentence. Then we saw this guy behind you holding something or other..." Josh thinks for a few moments, but then shakes his head. "I forget exactly what it was, but anyways, he came out of the room and chased us, and we got cornered. I tried to fight back but he clobbered me pretty hard. I assume he did the same for the girls afterward."
"Not exactly," Nicole chimes in. "After you got brained by that freak, Marie fainted. I tried to jump past him but I tripped. I think I blacked out when I hit the ground."
"How convenient." I sigh. "How long do you think we've been here?"
Josh shrugs. "Dunno. He took our phones, I think."
I reach into my pockets. Sure enough, no cell phone. "I guess he's not dumb enough to not do something like that. Did you get a good look at him?"
Nicole shakes her head. "Not really, we were too panicked. I think I remember him having a beard, but I don't remember what color it was."
Suddenly the door swings open and a man steps into the room. He has a pretty big build with short black hair and a black beard. He has a pistol in one hand and a wrench in the other.
"So, you kids finally woke up, huh?" His voice is gruff, matching his appearance. "What were you kids doing snooping around inside my house, huh? Looking for something to steal?"
"Your house?" I ask. "Then you must be old man Graham."
Graham huffs. "Smart one, aren't you?"
"For your information, we weren't looking to steal anything. We heard rumors that your house was haunted, so we came to see for ourselves."
Graham laughs. "You're either really brave or really stupid if you think I'm going to believe that story."
"I told you it was a bad idea," Nicole hisses in my ear.
"It wasn't my idea!" I retort.
"What do you want with us?!" Josh asks.
Graham chuckles. "You're going to spend some time down here to think about what you did. About a week should do nicely."
"That's it? No ransom or death threat of any kind?" I ask, suspicious.
"I'm in a good mood right now, so I'll let you off easy. Unless..." He points his gun at us. "You make any trouble, and there will be consequences. Just stay here and be quiet like good little boys and girls."
"A week? But we have classes to get to! And clubs, and other stuff!" Nicole protests.
Graham points his gun at Nicole. "Too bad."
She stares at the gun, but doesn't say anything.
"I'll be back later with some food. Be good until then." He exits.
"'Be good'?! How old does he think we are?!" Josh snaps.
"Cool it, Josh." I turn to him. "Don't let his mind games get to you. Let's just calm down and think of a plan to bust out of here."
"B-But... what about his gun?" Marie stammers.
"Do you want to have to stay down here in this cold room for a week?" I ask.
"N-No, but..." She looks down, unsure of what to say.
"Look, thinking of a plan will at least give us something to do so we won't be bored to death, right?"
"You've got a point, at least." Josh nods. "How can you be so calm about this? Does nothing faze you?"
"Panicking won't solve anything," I reply. "It's best to calm down and try to think it through. Now, here's my idea..."
A few hours later, Graham returns.
"Have you guys been good?" He asks. In his hands is a plate with some bread and a few bottles of water.
"I'm surprised, I thought you would starve us down here," I comment.
"I'll just take this back upstairs then." He turns around back toward the door.
"Wait, no! Please!" Marie cries.
Chuckling, he turns back around. "I'd watch that mouth of yours, brat." He sets the plate of food and water bottles on the floor.
In the split second he's not looking at us, I throw a quick glance to Josh, who nods in understanding. We charge Graham, Josh diving for his legs and me tackling him in the chest. I grab his gun out of its holster and throw it across the room.
"Now, girls! Run!" I yell.
"You punks!" Graham spits.
The girls head for the door, but Marie stops right before she goes though. "Senpai..."
"GO!"
Marie sighs and follows Nicole upstairs.
Graham wrestles from my grip and lands a hook to my face and I fall off him, seeing stars. I quickly shake my head to clear it and move to jump onto him again, but Josh seems to have him pinned down.
"I've got him! Get out of here!" Josh yells as he exchanges blows with Graham.
"I'm not leaving you alone with this guy!" I reply.
"Go now, before-" His statement is cut off by an uppercut by Graham and he falls backward.
"Josh!"
Graham starts stumbling to his feet. If I'm going to run, now is the best time. I quickly run up the stairs, hearing Graham's heavy bellowing and footsteps behind me. I go through a few doors and find myself in one of the hallways of Graham's house. Figures he'd lock us up under his own roof. Knowing the general layout of his house from having explored it recently, I follow my gut instinct and head through a few more doors. Finally I see the front door and run through it as fast as my legs will carry me. Nicole and Marie are waiting outside, and they run up to me. I stop to catch my breath.
"Are you alright?!" Nicole asks.
"Senpai, you're hurt!" Marie says.
"I'm fine..." I gasp.
Nicole looks back to the house. "Wait, where's Josh?"
"He told me... to run..." I'm still catching my breath. "But Graham hit him... he's behind me..."
Right as I say that, Graham appears in the doorway. "You're not getting away!"
We start running again, Graham yelling threats behind us.
Suddenly, Nicole trips and falls.
"Nicole!" I stop running and double back to help her. Graham catches up to us, so I jump in front of her and he grabs me by the collar, raising me off the ground.
"I've got you now, you pest! Didn't I tell you to be a good boy?!"
"Let him go!" Nicole jumps onto Graham, but he easily throws her off.
"Senpai! No!" Marie cries. She tries to attack Graham, but he knocks her down quickly.
With both the girls down for the count, he turns his full attention to me as I'm trying to squirm out of his grip. He grabs my neck and squeezes, cutting off my air. I continue to struggle, but in vain. "I told you there would be consequences. Why can't you listen to your elders?"
I begin to feel like light-headed. My lungs are screaming for air. I can't take much more of this. I can hear the girls screaming my name. My consciousness starts drifting away...
THWACK!
I am suddenly dropped to the ground, and I gasp for air. Graham collapses to the ground beside me.
"Looks like I made it just in time."
I look up and see Josh standing there, a wrench in his right hand. He offers his hand to help me up, and I take it.
"Thanks... a ton..." I wheeze.
"Don't mention it. That's what friends are for, right?" He tosses the wrench away and walks over to Marie to help her up.
After I catch my breath, I go to help Nicole up. We're all exhausted from the event.
"Funny that you got him the same way he got me," I point out once we're all back together.
Josh nods. "Yeah. I guess you could say he got what was coming to him."
We all share a laugh.
"We should probably hit the sack. We all look like a mess."
After a nod of agreement for everyone, we head back to the dorms. Today has been quite the interesting day.
A few days pass. We return to our classes and clubs as normal, and we don't hear anything about Graham or his house for a while. Whenever someone asked about the bruise on my check, I would laugh and reply "I pissed off Nicole a little too much and paid the price." Nicole would roll her eyes if she was around when I said this, but she played along when asked.
One morning, I wake up to the sound of my phone buzzing. I check it and there's two messages.
"Hi Alex. The school festival is coming up soon, and I wanted to know if you'd like to go with me. I would really like to spend it with you."
Ah, damn. I was so busy with exams and stuff that I forgot about that.
Before I reply, I take a look at the next message. From the first word I know who the sender is without even looking.
"senpaiiii <3 do u want 2 come w/ me 2 the festival i herd it will b tons o fun & lots of ppl will b there. i wuld rly like 2 go w/ u"
Oh good lord. I should've known this would happen. I'd hate to disappoint either of them.
This is going to be a tough decision.
Polished version: show
Chirping birds.
Normally, this would be a great time to reflect on the beauty of nature.
But it's 6 AM.
I slam my face into my mattress, hoping that the impact will instantly send me back to sleep. Futile.
Alright nature, you win. I'm getting up now, see?
Groggily I get to my feet and take a quick look around my dorm room. It's pretty barren, I've always been the kind of person who doesn't put a lot of decorations around. It's not like anyone would want to visit me, so why bother?
I throw on a green t-shirt and blue jeans and head to the bathroom to freshen up. Fortunately my short hair doesn't take long to comb, so after grabbing my glasses from my room I walk down the stairs and exit the dormitory. I take a deep breath, inhaling the cool autumn air. This is the season I love most; it's cooling off from the hot summer but not cold from the winter, just right in-between.
The deep breath transitions into a yawn and I gaze over the university grounds. It's a pretty big campus, if I do say so myself. It's big enough that you have to walk around a bit to get from place to place, but not so much that it takes forever. It's good exercise at least.
It would probably be nice to be the first one outside and enjoying the morning. It would've been nice, at least, if it were true. It's not though; I can see a few other students already out here. I slip my hands into my pockets and start walking down the path.
After a bit of walking, I see a familiar face sitting on a bench. "Morning Nicole."
She turns to face me, her face showing mild surprise. "Oh, morning Alex. I didn't know you got up this early."
I smile slightly. "Apparently Mother Nature wanted me up early."
Nicole chuckles. "Let me guess: noisy birds?"
I nod slightly.
"You're not the only one." Nicole gestures in the direction of a group of bleary-eyed guys sitting at a picnic table not too far away. I wonder why I didn't notice them before. "Actually they got me up too, but I get up early anyway so it's no biggie for me."
Reminded of my rude awakening, I subconsciously rub sleep out of my eyes and sit down next to her. She turns her attention back to the paper in her hands, and I take a moment to study her.
She's wearing a red blouse and blue shorts, which is pretty much the norm for her. She's never really been into skirts or really girly clothing. In fact I'd dare to say she's a tomboy; the glasses she wears reinforces that fact, making her seem almost nerdy. It's hard to tell which of us is nerdier sometimes. Despite her tomboyish nature, one thing she always cared about was her hair. It's always been just a little past shoulder length, and has this hue of brown that's just a few shades lighter than my own.
"What? Do I have something on my face?"
She must've noticed me looking at her. "Nah, it's just that your hair has this redish tint to it. Probably just the early morning sun."
"So you're saying I'm a redhead?"
"No, that's not what I meant-"
Nicole laughs. She loves to tease me about little things and I fall for it every time. I sigh and lean back to watch as the sun slowly creeps up the horizon. "So what are you reading?"
"A paper. I had to write it for Cultural Studies class."
I make a sour face. "Ugh, Culture Studies. I don't envy you one bit."
Nicole puts her paper down and looks at me. "It's kind of a drag, yeah. Jackson's a pretty good teacher though, so it's not too bad."
"I was just never good at history. I mean I understand knowing stuff about the country and all, but there's very few events that are interesting to me."
Nicole raises an eyebrow. "Oh really?"
"Yeah. Just the big important ones like the Declaration of Independence and the World Wars and stuff."
"Isn't that stuff you learn in like middle school?"
I shrug. "Don't remember. I never really paid enough attention back then either. I was always more interested in science and math."
Nicole chuckles. "Nerd."
"Looks who's talking. You're like the nerdiest girl I know."
We banter back and forth for a while. Eventually I hear my stomach growl. It's still pretty early and I don't usually get breakfast, so why the hell not?
I stand up and stretch. "I'm going to get some breakfast. Coming?"
"Sure, why not?" Nicole puts her paper away into her backpack and puts it around her shoulders. She walks beside me as we head toward our destination.
I push open the door of the science building and walk out into the sunlight. Another school day down. I'm glad my favorite subject is last, it gives me something to look forward to during the day and helps me stay motivated. Now, what do I want to do today...?
"Yo Alex!"
I turn to the voice and see a guy in a yellow t-shirt and grey shorts jog up to me, his jet black hair glistening with a bit of sweat.
"Yo Josh, what's up?"
"Wanna go hang out at the usual place? They're having a special today, so I was going to invite you and a couple friends."
"Sure, sounds great. I could go for a burger right about now, actually. Let me just go-"
"Senpai~!"
I turn my head to see a girl running down the path towards my direction. She's wearing a blue blouse and black skirt, and her blonde twintails flap behind her in the wind. She grabs my arm when she gets to me. "Hi Senpai!"
"Hey Marie," I reply, unfazed by her contact.
"Whatcha doin'?" she asks playfully.
"I was just about to go dump my books off at my room and go hang out with Josh." I nod in his direction.
Her eyes light up. "Ooh, ooh, can I come?!"
"Uh..." I look over at Josh.
He shrugs. "Sure, come on."
"Yay! Let's go!"
"Hold on, I gotta go drop this stuff off, I don't want to carry it around all day." I turn to Josh. "Should I head there now or wait for you?"
"Nah, go on ahead. I'll meet you up there. See ya." He walks toward the school.
I guess that answers my question of what to do today. Beats being cooped up in my room studying at any rate.
"Come on Senpai!" Marie starts dragging me off toward the dorm.
"Whoa, easy! You don't have to drag me there, I have legs you know." I shake off her arm and start walking. "And what's your fascination with calling me that?"
"You don't like it?"
"It's not that, it's just... you've been watching too much anime."
Marie huffs. "You can never watch too much anime."
"I wouldn't be so sure of that. Pretty soon you'll be chattering away in Japanese and nobody will understand you." She shoots me an annoyed look, but doesn't respond.
The boys' dorm is in sight now, so I run in, drop my stuff off, and we head off to the nearby burger joint.
As we sit down at a table, my phone rings.
"Hey Alex, are you busy right now?" It's Nicole.
"Not really. What's up?"
"Do you want to meet up at the library to study?"
"Well, I'm here at-" Something suddenly pokes me in the side. "Ow, quit it Marie! I'm on the phone!"
"Are you out somewhere?" Nicole asks.
"Yeah, I'm over here at Mack's to hang out with Josh and Marie-"
"I'll be right there!"
"But, I don't have my bo-" Click. "-oks." I sigh.
A few minutes later, Nicole comes in the door and makes a beeline for our table when she sees us. "There you are." She sits down across from me. "Where's Josh?"
"He should be here any minute. Surprised he hasn't shown up yet honestly."
The next moment, the door opens. "Speak of the devil."
Josh comes over to our table. "Nobody else wanted to come, so I guess it's just us thr-" He looks at Nicole for a second and then back to me. "You brought two with you? I didn't know you were such a ladies' man."
"I didn't bring her actually, she came by herself."
"Eh, whatever. The more the merrier. I'm gonna go make my order. You guys coming?"
"We already ordered," I reply. Marie nods in agreement. Josh shrugs and heads over to the counter.
"So Nicole, you said you wanted to study, but I left my books in my room..."
"I guess we can't study then. Oh well." I notice she neglected to bring her books as well. How odd.
"You gonna order anything?"
Nicole shakes her head. "I already ate. Not hungry."
In a few seconds Josh returns to the table. "So guys, did you hear the rumor about old man Graham's place?"
"Graham?" I raise an eyebrow questioningly.
"He's that old hermit that lives behind the school, right?" Nicole asks.
"'Lived' would be a more accurate term," Josh replies. "I heard he's been dead for years."
I have a feeling where this is going. "Basically what you're saying is, you wanna go see if the rumor is true, right?"
"Aw come on, don't ruin the surprise!" Josh pouts.
"Some surprise." Nicole mutters, rolling her eyes.
"Rumor?" Marie asks, confused.
"People say that his ghost haunts the house," I reply.
"G-ghosts?! I don't like ghosts!" Marie cries.
"Then stay home," I answer. "Nobody said you had to come."
"B-B-But...Senpai..."
"So you guys up for it?" Josh asks.
I nod. "Sure. When do we want to go explore?"
"How about Friday?" Josh suggests. "That way we have the weekend to rest in case something happens."
"Sounds good to me. Nicole?" I look over to her.
She nods. "Sure, why not?"
I look over to Marie. "You coming too?"
"U-um..." Marie fidgets slightly. "I-I want to, but..."
"Well, you have two days to decide. Think about it, okay?" After a moment's pause, Marie nods.
Nicole takes a sip of her drink. "So, midterms are coming up in a couple weeks..."
"Don't remind me..." I sigh.
We make small talk for a few minutes until our food is done and then we chow down. Agreeing to meet up in front of the library in two days, we head back to the campus.
I flip open my notebook and pull out a pencil. If I'm going to be waiting on everyone, might as well do some homework now. I'm only a couple problems in when someone sits down next to me. I don't even have to turn my head to recognize that distinctive hair on the edge of my vision.
"Hi Nicole."
"You know, it's rude to not look at someone when you're greeting them."
I can tell she's teasing me, so I decide to play along. "Is that so?" I'm still writing as I answer. "Different people have different standards of politeness. So do different cultures."
"So you DO pay attention in Cultural Studies class. You're a big fat liar."
"Well, you're not all wrong about the big and fat part, I suppose." I'll be the first to admit I'm not in shape. I can't stick to an exercise schedule, I've tried. My weight isn't really out of hand though, so I don't worry about it.
Nicole laughs. She looks down at my notebook. "You're seriously doing math homework when we're about to head off on an adventure?"
"I figured I was gonna get here early, so I brought something to do so I wouldn't be bored." I still haven't looked up from my notebook yet.
"If I didn't know you, I'd be surprised you aren't more bored trying to do that rather than relaxing. But that's so you."
I can't tell if she's complimenting me or teasing me, so I don't answer.
Nicole leans back against the bench and lets loose a yawn. "I wonder if we'll find anything interesting. Maybe we can find some abandoned electronics. Even if they don't work we can salvage the parts and something new-" She chatters on for a while as I focus on completing my homework.
I'm just finishing the last problem when Nicole nudges me. "Earth to Alex, come in Alex."
"What?" I finally take my eyes off my notebook and turn my head to look at her.
"Oh good, you're not daydreaming. Only your eyes were moving, so it was kinda creeping me out. I thought maybe you had switched to some kind of autopilot mode or something."
I sigh as I close my notebook and put it away into my backpack, along with my pencil.
"You're not seriously going to carry that stuff around, are you? What, are you gonna use your backpack as a weapon with those heavy textbooks in it?"
"That's actually not a bad idea." I laugh. Quickly I jump to my feet and lift my backpack by its straps. "I ain't afraid of no ghosts! Hiii-yaaa!" I swing my backpack as if attacking something in front of me. Unfortunately I misjudged the weight of the backpack, so the momentum of it causes it to swung further than I anticipated, making me lose my balance and fall onto the grass.
Nicole bursts out laughing as I get up and dust myself off.
"I take it back, it's a terrible idea. I was gonna drop it off at my room on the way since we'll be passing the guys' dorm." I sit back down again and we make small talk while waiting for Josh. He shows up a few minutes later and we set off.
"Hey, uh... should we really be doing this?"
Josh stops and turns to Nicole. "You're not chickening out on us, are you?"
"No, but... I mean... What if we get in trouble? Assuming we don't die?"
"We're not gonna die. It's not really haunted. Come on, what could possibly happen?"
"Famous last words," I interject.
Josh glares at me. "Shaddap."
Chuckling, I walk up to the door, grab the handle, and push open the door.
Josh cranes his neck to look over my shoulder. "Can you see anything?"
I shake my head. "It's too dark." I reach into my pocket and produce a small flashlight. "Good thing I came prepared." I flick it on and the beam of light pierces through the darkness. I quickly flash it around the room.
Dust and cobwebs everywhere. As expected. I take a few steps into the room, my two friends behind me. After walking a little further in, we see the stairs. I tilt my head slightly backward to talk over my shoulder. "This is big, so how do we want to do this? Start at the top and work our way down? Or go down and come back up?"
"Whichever way is faster and gets us out of here sooner," Josh quickly answers. He's totally shaking in his boots.
I chuckle. "'It's not really haunted', huh?"
"S-shut up! I'm not scared!"
The musty air is almost suffocating. Every door we pass we open and take a quick look inside, but there's nothing interesting.
A little while later, we've explored all of this floor. Nothing. I sigh. "Well, next." We walk toward the stairs.
Before we can make it there, we hear the creak of the door opening and another light appears. "♥♥♥♥! Hide!" I whisper. We hurry into the nearest room and hide.
Footsteps. They're getting closer. The light moves slowly down the hallway, slowly sweeping over the walls and floor.
Something bumps my leg. "Ow! Nicole!" I hiss. I hear her whispered apology as she squirms underneath the bed we're hiding under.
The footsteps stop. They sounded really close, like whoever it is stopped right outside the door. Pinballs of sweat pour down my face.
The door opens. I pull my face away from the edge of the bed to stay hidden, but I can't see who it is. The light sweeps around the room a few times. The footsteps come closer to my hiding spot. I can feel Nicole tense up beside me.
Suddenly, our hiding spot is flooded with light. "There you are."
I slowly turn my head and see someone kneeling at the side of the bed, looking at us. It takes me a second to recognize the face and voice. "Marie?!"
She giggles. "My, Senpai. So that's what your true motive for coming here was. You sure picked a heck of a spot."
"You almost gave us a heart attack!" I slowly crawl out from underneath the bed and dust myself off.
"Yeah, what's the big idea?!" Josh comes out from inside the closet.
"Did you think I was someone else?" Marie giggles again.
"Seriously! Don't scare us like that! I think I just lost like five years off my life!" I help Nicole get to her feet.
Josh swipes the sweat off his forehead. "So you decided to show up, huh? What happened to being afraid of ghosts?"
Marie cringes a bit. "W-well, ghosts are scary, but..." She shuffles her feet a bit and looks up at me. "If Senpai is here, I know he'll protect me."
I sigh. Figures she would use that kind of excuse to spend time with me. At first it was cute, but now it's just getting kind of annoying.
I'm distracted by that thought by Nicole abruptly seizing my arm. "Let's get moving. The sooner we get out of here, the better." I hear Josh chuckling behind me as Nicole drags me out into the hallway.
A little while later we're resting on the bottom floor with neither hide nor hair of anything of importance.
"Well, that was a bust." Nicole sighs and leans up against the wall.
"It was fun though, right? Obviously the place isn't haunted or we would've run into ghosts by now." No one seems amused by my only half-serious comment.
"It is disappointing that we didn't find anything though," Josh says.
Can't argue with that, I suppose. I yawn and stretch a bit. "It's getting late, we should probably go back now." After a nod of agreement from everyone, we head for the nearest stairs.
Suddenly, one of the doors behind us slams closed. A pair of hands seizes my arm, trembling. "S-S-Senpai, w-what was that?!"
"Calm down, it was probably a gust of wind that caught a door just right." Marie doesn't seem convinced and keeps her iron grip on my arm.
"R-right. There's no such things as ghosts." Despite her efforts, Nicole still seems to be rattled.
We walk a bit further. Suddenly there's a loud crashing sound from the room right next to us. Now both my arms are weighed down with iron grips and I can feel the culprits trembling against me.
"If you two keep this up, my arms are gonna fall off." I shake my arms a bit to try to restore the blood circulation after their grips loosen slightly.
There's another noise. Softer this time, but still loud enough to be noticable. I look over to Josh. We're both on edge, both secretly scared on the inside but putting on a brave face for each other and the girls. "This could be what we've been looking for."
He nods. I take a few careful steps toward the door.
"Senpai, no!" Marie cries, jumping forward to seize my arm and attempting to pull me back.
"Marie, please." I look over to Josh and nod toward the girls. "Take care of them while I check things out." Another nod of understanding.
After disengaging Marie's grip on my arm, I advance to the door and put my hand on the knob. I take a deep breath, turn it, and push. The room is empty, just like all the other rooms we've entered. I shine my light around the dark corners of the room. Nothing.
I hear Josh calling to me from the other side of the door. "What's in there?!" I open my mouth to call back "It's empty!", but then I see a blur of movement. I sweep the light across the room again, but don't see anything. Maybe it was just my imagination...
"There's nothing here, let's just-"
Before I can finish that sentence, pain erupts from the back of my head. The last thing I remember is the girls' screams before blackness envelops me.
Cold. That's the first thing that comes to mind.
I slowly open my eyes and see that I'm lying sideways on a stone floor. And it's freezing.
As I shake the cobwebs out of my head, a pair of arms seizes me around the neck. "Senpaiiiii!!!!" Marie is hugging me tightly. Too tightly.
"I can't... breathe..." I gasp.
"Hey, let go! You're choking him!" Nicole is on the opposite side of me, trying to loosen Marie's grip. Marie finally lets go, tears streaming down her cheeks.
The next instant, Nicole throws her arms around me, though she is careful not to squeeze too much. "We were so worried about you, you idiot! Thank god you're not dead!"
That's right... Something hit me in the back of the head and knocked me out. As I reach back to feel where I got hit, I become aware of a bandage wrapped around my head.
"You're lucky, dude." Josh is kneeling nearby.
"Yeah, that could've killed me..."
Josh shakes his head. "That's not what I meant. You got two chicks all over you right now. I would gladly take a blow to the head to be in your position right now."
Even during times like these, Josh is still Josh. "I suppose I should count my blessings."
Nicole lets go of me and I can finally get to my feet and dust myself off. Something suddenly hits me. "Come to think of it, where are we?"
I take a quick look around the room. A few bare bulbs hanging from the ceiling are the only source of light, there are no windows anywhere. The whole place seems to be made out of stone.
"I've been wondering that myself," Josh says as he stands up. "From what I can tell, we're in some sort of basement."
"What happened?" I ask.
"Well, we heard you coming back and then you suddenly fell out of the doorway in the middle of your sentence. Then we saw this guy behind you holding something or other..." Josh thinks for a few moments, but then shakes his head. "I forget exactly what it was, but anyways, he came out of the room and chased us, and we got cornered. I tried to fight back but he clobbered me pretty hard. I assume he did the same for the girls afterward."
"Not exactly," Nicole chimes in. "After you got brained by that freak, Marie fainted. I tried to jump past him but I tripped. I think I blacked out when I hit the ground."
"How convenient." I sigh. "How long do you think we've been here?"
Josh shrugs. "Dunno. He took our phones, I think."
I reach into my pockets. Sure enough, no cell phone. "I guess he's not dumb enough to not do something like that. Did you get a good look at him?"
Nicole shakes her head. "Not really, we were too panicked. I think I remember him having a beard, but I don't remember what color it was."
Suddenly the door swings open and a man steps into the room. He has a pretty big build with short black hair and a black beard. His clothes are worn and ragged, like they haven't been washed in quite some time. In his right hand he holds a shiny pistol, and in the other, an old metal wrench.
"So, you kids finally woke up, huh?" His voice is gruff, matching his appearance. "What were you kids doing snooping around my house, huh? Looking for something to steal?"
"Your house?" I ask. "Then you must be old man Graham."
Graham huffs. "Smart one, aren't you?"
"For your information, we weren't looking to steal anything. We heard rumors that your house was haunted, so we came to see for ourselves."
Graham laughs. "You're either really brave or really stupid if you think I'm going to believe that story."
"I told you it was a bad idea," Nicole hisses in my ear.
"It wasn't my idea!" I retort.
"What do you want with us?!" Josh asks.
Graham chuckles. "You're going to spend some time down here to think about what you did. About a week should do nicely."
"That's it? No ransom or death threat of any kind?" I ask, suspicious.
"I'm in a good mood right now, so I'll let you off easy. Unless..." He points his gun at us. "You make any trouble, and there will be consequences. Just stay here and be quiet like good little boys and girls."
"A week? But we have classes to get to! And clubs, and other stuff!" Nicole protests.
Graham points his gun at Nicole. "Too bad."
She stares at the gun, but doesn't say anything.
"I'll be back later with some food. Be good until then." He exits, his heavy footsteps echoing through the door.
"'Be good'?! How old does he think we are?!" Josh snaps.
"Cool it, Josh." I turn to him. "Don't let his mind games get to you. Let's just calm down and think of a plan to bust out of here."
"B-But... what about his gun?" Marie stammers.
"Do you want to have to stay down here in this cold room for a week?" I ask.
"N-No, but..." She looks down, unsure of what to say.
"Look, thinking of a plan will at least give us something to do so we won't be bored to death, right?"
"You've got a point, at least." Josh nods. "How can you be so calm about this? Does nothing faze you?"
"Panicking won't solve anything," I reply. "It's best to calm down and try to think it through. Now, here's my idea..."
A few hours later, Graham returns. "Have you guys been good?" In his hands is a plate with some bread and a few bottles of water.
"I'm surprised, I thought you would starve us down here," I comment.
"I'll just take this back upstairs then." He turns around back toward the door.
"Wait, no! Please!" Marie cries.
Chuckling, he turns back around. "I'd watch that mouth of yours, brat." He sets the plate of food and water bottles on the floor.
In the split second he's not looking at us, I throw a quick glance to Josh, who nods in understanding. We charge Graham, Josh diving for his legs and me tackling him in the chest. I grab his gun out of its holster and throw it across the room.
"Now, girls! Run!" I yell.
"You brats!" Graham spits.
The girls head for the door, but Marie stops right before she goes though. "Senpai..."
"GO!"
Marie sighs and follows Nicole upstairs.
Graham wrestles from my grip and lands a hook to my face and I fall off him, seeing stars. I quickly shake my head to clear it and move to jump onto him again, but Josh seems to have him pinned down. "I've got him! Get out of here!"
"I'm not leaving you alone with this guy!" I reply.
"Go now, before-" His statement is cut off by an uppercut by Graham and he falls backward.
"Josh!"
Graham starts stumbling to his feet. If I'm going to run, now is the best time.
I quickly run up the stairs, hearing Graham's heavy bellowing and footsteps behind me. I go through a few doors and find myself in one of the hallways of Graham's house. Figures he'd lock us up under his own roof. Knowing the general layout of his house from having explored it recently, I follow my gut instinct and head through a few more doors. Finally I see the front door and run through it as fast as my legs will carry me. Nicole and Marie are waiting outside, and they run up to me. I stop to catch my breath.
"Are you alright?!" Nicole asks.
"Senpai, you're hurt!" Marie says.
"I'm fine..." I gasp.
Nicole looks back to the house. "Wait, where's Josh?"
"He told me... to run..." I'm still catching my breath. "But Graham hit him... he's behind me..."
Right as I say that, Graham appears in the doorway. "You're not getting away!" We start running again, Graham yelling threats behind us.
Suddenly, Nicole trips and falls.
"Nicole!" I stop running and double back to help her. Graham catches up to us, so I jump in front of her and he grabs me by the collar, raising me off the ground.
"I've got you now, you pest! Didn't I tell you to be a good boy?!"
"Let him go!" Nicole dives for Graham's legs which knocks him slightly off balance and slightly loosening his grip. I take the chance to kick him in the stomach and he drops me, staggering backward.
I get to my feet as quickly as I can in light of my exhaustion, but before I catch my breath enough to try running again Graham has regained his balance.
"If you kids think outnumbering me is going to save you, you're dead wrong." He's right; even if we had double our number it would still be difficult to overpower this guy.
I glance over at Nicole. I can tell she's scared too, but she actually has the courage to fight with me, unlike a certain other girl who shall remain nameless.
Graham advances toward us. "Any last words?"
"I'll save them for later, thanks," I reply.
"You think you're funny, don't you? We'll see who gets the last laugh, boy."
Graham throws a hook but I duck it and counter with a hook of my own. It connects but he isn't fazed at all, instead throwing a jab to my chest which winds me for a second. Before he can throw another punch through, Nicole grabs his arm and holds him back, kicking him in the side. He seizes her wrist and tosses her forward, resulting in her shoe smacking into my face as she flies over my head. The next moment, rough hands grasp my neck and lift me into the air.
"I told you there would be consequences. Why can't you listen to your elders?" He squeezes my neck, cutting off my air. I struggle to escape his grip, but in vain.
I begin to feel like light-headed. My lungs are screaming for air. I can't take much more of this. My consciousness starts drifting away...
THWACK!
I am suddenly dropped to the ground, and I gasp for air, hearing sounds of a struggle near me. After a few seconds I hear a raspy grunt and Graham collapses next to me, unconscious.
"Looks like I made it just in time." I look up and see Josh standing there, a wrench in his right hand. He offers his hand to help me up, and I take it.
"Thanks... a ton..." I wheeze.
"Don't mention it. That's what friends are for, right?"
"Senpai, Nicole!" Marie cries.
"Oh god! Where is she?!" I quickly turn around and look behind me. I see her sprawled out on the grass a few yards back and all three of us run to her. She's groaning in pain, breathing heavily.
"Are you alright, Nicole?!" I ask, kneeling beside her.
"I... I'm okay..." she gasps between sharp breaths.
"I'll call the infirmary," Josh says. He reaches into his pocket, but then an expression of frustration crosses his face. "Nuts, I forgot Graham took our phones."
"Are they on him?" I ask.
Josh runs over to the unconscious Graham and searches his pockets.
He comes back empty-handed. "Nothing."
"Aren't there emergency phones scattered around campus?" Marie asks.
Josh snaps his fingers. "That's right, there are! Come on Marie, let's hurry and find one!" She nods and they hurry off.
"Alex..."
I shake my head. "Shh, don't talk. It's okay. Help will be here before you know it."
She smiles weakly and grabs my hand. "Thank you..."
"I should be thanking you. If you hadn't tried to save me..." I trail off, not wanting to finish the sentence. "You're a strong girl, Nicole. You'll be fine."
I keep talking with Nicole to distract her from the pain while we wait for paramedics to arrive.
"She'll be fine. She just needs some rest."
My relief at the nurse's report is immense. "Thank god. Can we see her?"
The nurse nods. "She's resting right now, so don't bother her too much."
I move to follow the nurse, but notice Josh and Marie don't follow.
"We'll stay out here," he says.
Marie nods. "It'll get crowded if we all go. You know her best, Senpai, so you should be the one to see her."
I open my mouth to protest, but change my mind. I nod and follow the nurse to Nicole's room.
Closing the door behind me, I walk up to the bedside. "How are you feeling?"
"Better, now that you're here." Nicole smiles weakly.
I sit down in the nearby chair. "Did they tell you how long you'll have to stay?"
"About a week or two. They said some of my ribs are bruised." Her breath is not as sharp as it was, but her voice is still somewhat quiet.
"For being thrown several yards like that you got off easy." I chuckle.
"Yeah, I thought for sure it was something much worse. It still hurts like hell though."
"I can imagine."
We make small talk for a while. Soon enough an hour has passed.
"It's getting late, I should probably get going." I stand up from the chair.
"Will you come back tomorrow?"
I smile and nod. "Of course I will." I exit the room, closing the door behind me.
Normally, this would be a great time to reflect on the beauty of nature.
But it's 6 AM.
I slam my face into my mattress, hoping that the impact will instantly send me back to sleep. Futile.
Alright nature, you win. I'm getting up now, see?
Groggily I get to my feet and take a quick look around my dorm room. It's pretty barren, I've always been the kind of person who doesn't put a lot of decorations around. It's not like anyone would want to visit me, so why bother?
I throw on a green t-shirt and blue jeans and head to the bathroom to freshen up. Fortunately my short hair doesn't take long to comb, so after grabbing my glasses from my room I walk down the stairs and exit the dormitory. I take a deep breath, inhaling the cool autumn air. This is the season I love most; it's cooling off from the hot summer but not cold from the winter, just right in-between.
The deep breath transitions into a yawn and I gaze over the university grounds. It's a pretty big campus, if I do say so myself. It's big enough that you have to walk around a bit to get from place to place, but not so much that it takes forever. It's good exercise at least.
It would probably be nice to be the first one outside and enjoying the morning. It would've been nice, at least, if it were true. It's not though; I can see a few other students already out here. I slip my hands into my pockets and start walking down the path.
After a bit of walking, I see a familiar face sitting on a bench. "Morning Nicole."
She turns to face me, her face showing mild surprise. "Oh, morning Alex. I didn't know you got up this early."
I smile slightly. "Apparently Mother Nature wanted me up early."
Nicole chuckles. "Let me guess: noisy birds?"
I nod slightly.
"You're not the only one." Nicole gestures in the direction of a group of bleary-eyed guys sitting at a picnic table not too far away. I wonder why I didn't notice them before. "Actually they got me up too, but I get up early anyway so it's no biggie for me."
Reminded of my rude awakening, I subconsciously rub sleep out of my eyes and sit down next to her. She turns her attention back to the paper in her hands, and I take a moment to study her.
She's wearing a red blouse and blue shorts, which is pretty much the norm for her. She's never really been into skirts or really girly clothing. In fact I'd dare to say she's a tomboy; the glasses she wears reinforces that fact, making her seem almost nerdy. It's hard to tell which of us is nerdier sometimes. Despite her tomboyish nature, one thing she always cared about was her hair. It's always been just a little past shoulder length, and has this hue of brown that's just a few shades lighter than my own.
"What? Do I have something on my face?"
She must've noticed me looking at her. "Nah, it's just that your hair has this redish tint to it. Probably just the early morning sun."
"So you're saying I'm a redhead?"
"No, that's not what I meant-"
Nicole laughs. She loves to tease me about little things and I fall for it every time. I sigh and lean back to watch as the sun slowly creeps up the horizon. "So what are you reading?"
"A paper. I had to write it for Cultural Studies class."
I make a sour face. "Ugh, Culture Studies. I don't envy you one bit."
Nicole puts her paper down and looks at me. "It's kind of a drag, yeah. Jackson's a pretty good teacher though, so it's not too bad."
"I was just never good at history. I mean I understand knowing stuff about the country and all, but there's very few events that are interesting to me."
Nicole raises an eyebrow. "Oh really?"
"Yeah. Just the big important ones like the Declaration of Independence and the World Wars and stuff."
"Isn't that stuff you learn in like middle school?"
I shrug. "Don't remember. I never really paid enough attention back then either. I was always more interested in science and math."
Nicole chuckles. "Nerd."
"Looks who's talking. You're like the nerdiest girl I know."
We banter back and forth for a while. Eventually I hear my stomach growl. It's still pretty early and I don't usually get breakfast, so why the hell not?
I stand up and stretch. "I'm going to get some breakfast. Coming?"
"Sure, why not?" Nicole puts her paper away into her backpack and puts it around her shoulders. She walks beside me as we head toward our destination.
I push open the door of the science building and walk out into the sunlight. Another school day down. I'm glad my favorite subject is last, it gives me something to look forward to during the day and helps me stay motivated. Now, what do I want to do today...?
"Yo Alex!"
I turn to the voice and see a guy in a yellow t-shirt and grey shorts jog up to me, his jet black hair glistening with a bit of sweat.
"Yo Josh, what's up?"
"Wanna go hang out at the usual place? They're having a special today, so I was going to invite you and a couple friends."
"Sure, sounds great. I could go for a burger right about now, actually. Let me just go-"
"Senpai~!"
I turn my head to see a girl running down the path towards my direction. She's wearing a blue blouse and black skirt, and her blonde twintails flap behind her in the wind. She grabs my arm when she gets to me. "Hi Senpai!"
"Hey Marie," I reply, unfazed by her contact.
"Whatcha doin'?" she asks playfully.
"I was just about to go dump my books off at my room and go hang out with Josh." I nod in his direction.
Her eyes light up. "Ooh, ooh, can I come?!"
"Uh..." I look over at Josh.
He shrugs. "Sure, come on."
"Yay! Let's go!"
"Hold on, I gotta go drop this stuff off, I don't want to carry it around all day." I turn to Josh. "Should I head there now or wait for you?"
"Nah, go on ahead. I'll meet you up there. See ya." He walks toward the school.
I guess that answers my question of what to do today. Beats being cooped up in my room studying at any rate.
"Come on Senpai!" Marie starts dragging me off toward the dorm.
"Whoa, easy! You don't have to drag me there, I have legs you know." I shake off her arm and start walking. "And what's your fascination with calling me that?"
"You don't like it?"
"It's not that, it's just... you've been watching too much anime."
Marie huffs. "You can never watch too much anime."
"I wouldn't be so sure of that. Pretty soon you'll be chattering away in Japanese and nobody will understand you." She shoots me an annoyed look, but doesn't respond.
The boys' dorm is in sight now, so I run in, drop my stuff off, and we head off to the nearby burger joint.
As we sit down at a table, my phone rings.
"Hey Alex, are you busy right now?" It's Nicole.
"Not really. What's up?"
"Do you want to meet up at the library to study?"
"Well, I'm here at-" Something suddenly pokes me in the side. "Ow, quit it Marie! I'm on the phone!"
"Are you out somewhere?" Nicole asks.
"Yeah, I'm over here at Mack's to hang out with Josh and Marie-"
"I'll be right there!"
"But, I don't have my bo-" Click. "-oks." I sigh.
A few minutes later, Nicole comes in the door and makes a beeline for our table when she sees us. "There you are." She sits down across from me. "Where's Josh?"
"He should be here any minute. Surprised he hasn't shown up yet honestly."
The next moment, the door opens. "Speak of the devil."
Josh comes over to our table. "Nobody else wanted to come, so I guess it's just us thr-" He looks at Nicole for a second and then back to me. "You brought two with you? I didn't know you were such a ladies' man."
"I didn't bring her actually, she came by herself."
"Eh, whatever. The more the merrier. I'm gonna go make my order. You guys coming?"
"We already ordered," I reply. Marie nods in agreement. Josh shrugs and heads over to the counter.
"So Nicole, you said you wanted to study, but I left my books in my room..."
"I guess we can't study then. Oh well." I notice she neglected to bring her books as well. How odd.
"You gonna order anything?"
Nicole shakes her head. "I already ate. Not hungry."
In a few seconds Josh returns to the table. "So guys, did you hear the rumor about old man Graham's place?"
"Graham?" I raise an eyebrow questioningly.
"He's that old hermit that lives behind the school, right?" Nicole asks.
"'Lived' would be a more accurate term," Josh replies. "I heard he's been dead for years."
I have a feeling where this is going. "Basically what you're saying is, you wanna go see if the rumor is true, right?"
"Aw come on, don't ruin the surprise!" Josh pouts.
"Some surprise." Nicole mutters, rolling her eyes.
"Rumor?" Marie asks, confused.
"People say that his ghost haunts the house," I reply.
"G-ghosts?! I don't like ghosts!" Marie cries.
"Then stay home," I answer. "Nobody said you had to come."
"B-B-But...Senpai..."
"So you guys up for it?" Josh asks.
I nod. "Sure. When do we want to go explore?"
"How about Friday?" Josh suggests. "That way we have the weekend to rest in case something happens."
"Sounds good to me. Nicole?" I look over to her.
She nods. "Sure, why not?"
I look over to Marie. "You coming too?"
"U-um..." Marie fidgets slightly. "I-I want to, but..."
"Well, you have two days to decide. Think about it, okay?" After a moment's pause, Marie nods.
Nicole takes a sip of her drink. "So, midterms are coming up in a couple weeks..."
"Don't remind me..." I sigh.
We make small talk for a few minutes until our food is done and then we chow down. Agreeing to meet up in front of the library in two days, we head back to the campus.
I flip open my notebook and pull out a pencil. If I'm going to be waiting on everyone, might as well do some homework now. I'm only a couple problems in when someone sits down next to me. I don't even have to turn my head to recognize that distinctive hair on the edge of my vision.
"Hi Nicole."
"You know, it's rude to not look at someone when you're greeting them."
I can tell she's teasing me, so I decide to play along. "Is that so?" I'm still writing as I answer. "Different people have different standards of politeness. So do different cultures."
"So you DO pay attention in Cultural Studies class. You're a big fat liar."
"Well, you're not all wrong about the big and fat part, I suppose." I'll be the first to admit I'm not in shape. I can't stick to an exercise schedule, I've tried. My weight isn't really out of hand though, so I don't worry about it.
Nicole laughs. She looks down at my notebook. "You're seriously doing math homework when we're about to head off on an adventure?"
"I figured I was gonna get here early, so I brought something to do so I wouldn't be bored." I still haven't looked up from my notebook yet.
"If I didn't know you, I'd be surprised you aren't more bored trying to do that rather than relaxing. But that's so you."
I can't tell if she's complimenting me or teasing me, so I don't answer.
Nicole leans back against the bench and lets loose a yawn. "I wonder if we'll find anything interesting. Maybe we can find some abandoned electronics. Even if they don't work we can salvage the parts and something new-" She chatters on for a while as I focus on completing my homework.
I'm just finishing the last problem when Nicole nudges me. "Earth to Alex, come in Alex."
"What?" I finally take my eyes off my notebook and turn my head to look at her.
"Oh good, you're not daydreaming. Only your eyes were moving, so it was kinda creeping me out. I thought maybe you had switched to some kind of autopilot mode or something."
I sigh as I close my notebook and put it away into my backpack, along with my pencil.
"You're not seriously going to carry that stuff around, are you? What, are you gonna use your backpack as a weapon with those heavy textbooks in it?"
"That's actually not a bad idea." I laugh. Quickly I jump to my feet and lift my backpack by its straps. "I ain't afraid of no ghosts! Hiii-yaaa!" I swing my backpack as if attacking something in front of me. Unfortunately I misjudged the weight of the backpack, so the momentum of it causes it to swung further than I anticipated, making me lose my balance and fall onto the grass.
Nicole bursts out laughing as I get up and dust myself off.
"I take it back, it's a terrible idea. I was gonna drop it off at my room on the way since we'll be passing the guys' dorm." I sit back down again and we make small talk while waiting for Josh. He shows up a few minutes later and we set off.
"Hey, uh... should we really be doing this?"
Josh stops and turns to Nicole. "You're not chickening out on us, are you?"
"No, but... I mean... What if we get in trouble? Assuming we don't die?"
"We're not gonna die. It's not really haunted. Come on, what could possibly happen?"
"Famous last words," I interject.
Josh glares at me. "Shaddap."
Chuckling, I walk up to the door, grab the handle, and push open the door.
Josh cranes his neck to look over my shoulder. "Can you see anything?"
I shake my head. "It's too dark." I reach into my pocket and produce a small flashlight. "Good thing I came prepared." I flick it on and the beam of light pierces through the darkness. I quickly flash it around the room.
Dust and cobwebs everywhere. As expected. I take a few steps into the room, my two friends behind me. After walking a little further in, we see the stairs. I tilt my head slightly backward to talk over my shoulder. "This is big, so how do we want to do this? Start at the top and work our way down? Or go down and come back up?"
"Whichever way is faster and gets us out of here sooner," Josh quickly answers. He's totally shaking in his boots.
I chuckle. "'It's not really haunted', huh?"
"S-shut up! I'm not scared!"
The musty air is almost suffocating. Every door we pass we open and take a quick look inside, but there's nothing interesting.
A little while later, we've explored all of this floor. Nothing. I sigh. "Well, next." We walk toward the stairs.
Before we can make it there, we hear the creak of the door opening and another light appears. "♥♥♥♥! Hide!" I whisper. We hurry into the nearest room and hide.
Footsteps. They're getting closer. The light moves slowly down the hallway, slowly sweeping over the walls and floor.
Something bumps my leg. "Ow! Nicole!" I hiss. I hear her whispered apology as she squirms underneath the bed we're hiding under.
The footsteps stop. They sounded really close, like whoever it is stopped right outside the door. Pinballs of sweat pour down my face.
The door opens. I pull my face away from the edge of the bed to stay hidden, but I can't see who it is. The light sweeps around the room a few times. The footsteps come closer to my hiding spot. I can feel Nicole tense up beside me.
Suddenly, our hiding spot is flooded with light. "There you are."
I slowly turn my head and see someone kneeling at the side of the bed, looking at us. It takes me a second to recognize the face and voice. "Marie?!"
She giggles. "My, Senpai. So that's what your true motive for coming here was. You sure picked a heck of a spot."
"You almost gave us a heart attack!" I slowly crawl out from underneath the bed and dust myself off.
"Yeah, what's the big idea?!" Josh comes out from inside the closet.
"Did you think I was someone else?" Marie giggles again.
"Seriously! Don't scare us like that! I think I just lost like five years off my life!" I help Nicole get to her feet.
Josh swipes the sweat off his forehead. "So you decided to show up, huh? What happened to being afraid of ghosts?"
Marie cringes a bit. "W-well, ghosts are scary, but..." She shuffles her feet a bit and looks up at me. "If Senpai is here, I know he'll protect me."
I sigh. Figures she would use that kind of excuse to spend time with me. At first it was cute, but now it's just getting kind of annoying.
I'm distracted by that thought by Nicole abruptly seizing my arm. "Let's get moving. The sooner we get out of here, the better." I hear Josh chuckling behind me as Nicole drags me out into the hallway.
A little while later we're resting on the bottom floor with neither hide nor hair of anything of importance.
"Well, that was a bust." Nicole sighs and leans up against the wall.
"It was fun though, right? Obviously the place isn't haunted or we would've run into ghosts by now." No one seems amused by my only half-serious comment.
"It is disappointing that we didn't find anything though," Josh says.
Can't argue with that, I suppose. I yawn and stretch a bit. "It's getting late, we should probably go back now." After a nod of agreement from everyone, we head for the nearest stairs.
Suddenly, one of the doors behind us slams closed. A pair of hands seizes my arm, trembling. "S-S-Senpai, w-what was that?!"
"Calm down, it was probably a gust of wind that caught a door just right." Marie doesn't seem convinced and keeps her iron grip on my arm.
"R-right. There's no such things as ghosts." Despite her efforts, Nicole still seems to be rattled.
We walk a bit further. Suddenly there's a loud crashing sound from the room right next to us. Now both my arms are weighed down with iron grips and I can feel the culprits trembling against me.
"If you two keep this up, my arms are gonna fall off." I shake my arms a bit to try to restore the blood circulation after their grips loosen slightly.
There's another noise. Softer this time, but still loud enough to be noticable. I look over to Josh. We're both on edge, both secretly scared on the inside but putting on a brave face for each other and the girls. "This could be what we've been looking for."
He nods. I take a few careful steps toward the door.
"Senpai, no!" Marie cries, jumping forward to seize my arm and attempting to pull me back.
"Marie, please." I look over to Josh and nod toward the girls. "Take care of them while I check things out." Another nod of understanding.
After disengaging Marie's grip on my arm, I advance to the door and put my hand on the knob. I take a deep breath, turn it, and push. The room is empty, just like all the other rooms we've entered. I shine my light around the dark corners of the room. Nothing.
I hear Josh calling to me from the other side of the door. "What's in there?!" I open my mouth to call back "It's empty!", but then I see a blur of movement. I sweep the light across the room again, but don't see anything. Maybe it was just my imagination...
"There's nothing here, let's just-"
Before I can finish that sentence, pain erupts from the back of my head. The last thing I remember is the girls' screams before blackness envelops me.
Cold. That's the first thing that comes to mind.
I slowly open my eyes and see that I'm lying sideways on a stone floor. And it's freezing.
As I shake the cobwebs out of my head, a pair of arms seizes me around the neck. "Senpaiiiii!!!!" Marie is hugging me tightly. Too tightly.
"I can't... breathe..." I gasp.
"Hey, let go! You're choking him!" Nicole is on the opposite side of me, trying to loosen Marie's grip. Marie finally lets go, tears streaming down her cheeks.
The next instant, Nicole throws her arms around me, though she is careful not to squeeze too much. "We were so worried about you, you idiot! Thank god you're not dead!"
That's right... Something hit me in the back of the head and knocked me out. As I reach back to feel where I got hit, I become aware of a bandage wrapped around my head.
"You're lucky, dude." Josh is kneeling nearby.
"Yeah, that could've killed me..."
Josh shakes his head. "That's not what I meant. You got two chicks all over you right now. I would gladly take a blow to the head to be in your position right now."
Even during times like these, Josh is still Josh. "I suppose I should count my blessings."
Nicole lets go of me and I can finally get to my feet and dust myself off. Something suddenly hits me. "Come to think of it, where are we?"
I take a quick look around the room. A few bare bulbs hanging from the ceiling are the only source of light, there are no windows anywhere. The whole place seems to be made out of stone.
"I've been wondering that myself," Josh says as he stands up. "From what I can tell, we're in some sort of basement."
"What happened?" I ask.
"Well, we heard you coming back and then you suddenly fell out of the doorway in the middle of your sentence. Then we saw this guy behind you holding something or other..." Josh thinks for a few moments, but then shakes his head. "I forget exactly what it was, but anyways, he came out of the room and chased us, and we got cornered. I tried to fight back but he clobbered me pretty hard. I assume he did the same for the girls afterward."
"Not exactly," Nicole chimes in. "After you got brained by that freak, Marie fainted. I tried to jump past him but I tripped. I think I blacked out when I hit the ground."
"How convenient." I sigh. "How long do you think we've been here?"
Josh shrugs. "Dunno. He took our phones, I think."
I reach into my pockets. Sure enough, no cell phone. "I guess he's not dumb enough to not do something like that. Did you get a good look at him?"
Nicole shakes her head. "Not really, we were too panicked. I think I remember him having a beard, but I don't remember what color it was."
Suddenly the door swings open and a man steps into the room. He has a pretty big build with short black hair and a black beard. His clothes are worn and ragged, like they haven't been washed in quite some time. In his right hand he holds a shiny pistol, and in the other, an old metal wrench.
"So, you kids finally woke up, huh?" His voice is gruff, matching his appearance. "What were you kids doing snooping around my house, huh? Looking for something to steal?"
"Your house?" I ask. "Then you must be old man Graham."
Graham huffs. "Smart one, aren't you?"
"For your information, we weren't looking to steal anything. We heard rumors that your house was haunted, so we came to see for ourselves."
Graham laughs. "You're either really brave or really stupid if you think I'm going to believe that story."
"I told you it was a bad idea," Nicole hisses in my ear.
"It wasn't my idea!" I retort.
"What do you want with us?!" Josh asks.
Graham chuckles. "You're going to spend some time down here to think about what you did. About a week should do nicely."
"That's it? No ransom or death threat of any kind?" I ask, suspicious.
"I'm in a good mood right now, so I'll let you off easy. Unless..." He points his gun at us. "You make any trouble, and there will be consequences. Just stay here and be quiet like good little boys and girls."
"A week? But we have classes to get to! And clubs, and other stuff!" Nicole protests.
Graham points his gun at Nicole. "Too bad."
She stares at the gun, but doesn't say anything.
"I'll be back later with some food. Be good until then." He exits, his heavy footsteps echoing through the door.
"'Be good'?! How old does he think we are?!" Josh snaps.
"Cool it, Josh." I turn to him. "Don't let his mind games get to you. Let's just calm down and think of a plan to bust out of here."
"B-But... what about his gun?" Marie stammers.
"Do you want to have to stay down here in this cold room for a week?" I ask.
"N-No, but..." She looks down, unsure of what to say.
"Look, thinking of a plan will at least give us something to do so we won't be bored to death, right?"
"You've got a point, at least." Josh nods. "How can you be so calm about this? Does nothing faze you?"
"Panicking won't solve anything," I reply. "It's best to calm down and try to think it through. Now, here's my idea..."
A few hours later, Graham returns. "Have you guys been good?" In his hands is a plate with some bread and a few bottles of water.
"I'm surprised, I thought you would starve us down here," I comment.
"I'll just take this back upstairs then." He turns around back toward the door.
"Wait, no! Please!" Marie cries.
Chuckling, he turns back around. "I'd watch that mouth of yours, brat." He sets the plate of food and water bottles on the floor.
In the split second he's not looking at us, I throw a quick glance to Josh, who nods in understanding. We charge Graham, Josh diving for his legs and me tackling him in the chest. I grab his gun out of its holster and throw it across the room.
"Now, girls! Run!" I yell.
"You brats!" Graham spits.
The girls head for the door, but Marie stops right before she goes though. "Senpai..."
"GO!"
Marie sighs and follows Nicole upstairs.
Graham wrestles from my grip and lands a hook to my face and I fall off him, seeing stars. I quickly shake my head to clear it and move to jump onto him again, but Josh seems to have him pinned down. "I've got him! Get out of here!"
"I'm not leaving you alone with this guy!" I reply.
"Go now, before-" His statement is cut off by an uppercut by Graham and he falls backward.
"Josh!"
Graham starts stumbling to his feet. If I'm going to run, now is the best time.
I quickly run up the stairs, hearing Graham's heavy bellowing and footsteps behind me. I go through a few doors and find myself in one of the hallways of Graham's house. Figures he'd lock us up under his own roof. Knowing the general layout of his house from having explored it recently, I follow my gut instinct and head through a few more doors. Finally I see the front door and run through it as fast as my legs will carry me. Nicole and Marie are waiting outside, and they run up to me. I stop to catch my breath.
"Are you alright?!" Nicole asks.
"Senpai, you're hurt!" Marie says.
"I'm fine..." I gasp.
Nicole looks back to the house. "Wait, where's Josh?"
"He told me... to run..." I'm still catching my breath. "But Graham hit him... he's behind me..."
Right as I say that, Graham appears in the doorway. "You're not getting away!" We start running again, Graham yelling threats behind us.
Suddenly, Nicole trips and falls.
"Nicole!" I stop running and double back to help her. Graham catches up to us, so I jump in front of her and he grabs me by the collar, raising me off the ground.
"I've got you now, you pest! Didn't I tell you to be a good boy?!"
"Let him go!" Nicole dives for Graham's legs which knocks him slightly off balance and slightly loosening his grip. I take the chance to kick him in the stomach and he drops me, staggering backward.
I get to my feet as quickly as I can in light of my exhaustion, but before I catch my breath enough to try running again Graham has regained his balance.
"If you kids think outnumbering me is going to save you, you're dead wrong." He's right; even if we had double our number it would still be difficult to overpower this guy.
I glance over at Nicole. I can tell she's scared too, but she actually has the courage to fight with me, unlike a certain other girl who shall remain nameless.
Graham advances toward us. "Any last words?"
"I'll save them for later, thanks," I reply.
"You think you're funny, don't you? We'll see who gets the last laugh, boy."
Graham throws a hook but I duck it and counter with a hook of my own. It connects but he isn't fazed at all, instead throwing a jab to my chest which winds me for a second. Before he can throw another punch through, Nicole grabs his arm and holds him back, kicking him in the side. He seizes her wrist and tosses her forward, resulting in her shoe smacking into my face as she flies over my head. The next moment, rough hands grasp my neck and lift me into the air.
"I told you there would be consequences. Why can't you listen to your elders?" He squeezes my neck, cutting off my air. I struggle to escape his grip, but in vain.
I begin to feel like light-headed. My lungs are screaming for air. I can't take much more of this. My consciousness starts drifting away...
THWACK!
I am suddenly dropped to the ground, and I gasp for air, hearing sounds of a struggle near me. After a few seconds I hear a raspy grunt and Graham collapses next to me, unconscious.
"Looks like I made it just in time." I look up and see Josh standing there, a wrench in his right hand. He offers his hand to help me up, and I take it.
"Thanks... a ton..." I wheeze.
"Don't mention it. That's what friends are for, right?"
"Senpai, Nicole!" Marie cries.
"Oh god! Where is she?!" I quickly turn around and look behind me. I see her sprawled out on the grass a few yards back and all three of us run to her. She's groaning in pain, breathing heavily.
"Are you alright, Nicole?!" I ask, kneeling beside her.
"I... I'm okay..." she gasps between sharp breaths.
"I'll call the infirmary," Josh says. He reaches into his pocket, but then an expression of frustration crosses his face. "Nuts, I forgot Graham took our phones."
"Are they on him?" I ask.
Josh runs over to the unconscious Graham and searches his pockets.
He comes back empty-handed. "Nothing."
"Aren't there emergency phones scattered around campus?" Marie asks.
Josh snaps his fingers. "That's right, there are! Come on Marie, let's hurry and find one!" She nods and they hurry off.
"Alex..."
I shake my head. "Shh, don't talk. It's okay. Help will be here before you know it."
She smiles weakly and grabs my hand. "Thank you..."
"I should be thanking you. If you hadn't tried to save me..." I trail off, not wanting to finish the sentence. "You're a strong girl, Nicole. You'll be fine."
I keep talking with Nicole to distract her from the pain while we wait for paramedics to arrive.
"She'll be fine. She just needs some rest."
My relief at the nurse's report is immense. "Thank god. Can we see her?"
The nurse nods. "She's resting right now, so don't bother her too much."
I move to follow the nurse, but notice Josh and Marie don't follow.
"We'll stay out here," he says.
Marie nods. "It'll get crowded if we all go. You know her best, Senpai, so you should be the one to see her."
I open my mouth to protest, but change my mind. I nod and follow the nurse to Nicole's room.
Closing the door behind me, I walk up to the bedside. "How are you feeling?"
"Better, now that you're here." Nicole smiles weakly.
I sit down in the nearby chair. "Did they tell you how long you'll have to stay?"
"About a week or two. They said some of my ribs are bruised." Her breath is not as sharp as it was, but her voice is still somewhat quiet.
"For being thrown several yards like that you got off easy." I chuckle.
"Yeah, I thought for sure it was something much worse. It still hurts like hell though."
"I can imagine."
We make small talk for a while. Soon enough an hour has passed.
"It's getting late, I should probably get going." I stand up from the chair.
"Will you come back tomorrow?"
I smile and nod. "Of course I will." I exit the room, closing the door behind me.
-NICOLE PERSPECTIVE-
I decided to write another version of the story, telling it from Nicole's perspective. I focused more on the characters rather than the action, so it's meant to be an extension off the actual version rather than its own thing. I haven't often written stories from a girl's perspective, so apologies if it feels a bit odd at times.
Nicole perspective: show
Chirp, chirp... chirp, chirp... Nature's melody wakes me from my dreams. I look over at my clock: 5:05 AM. That's odd, my alarm shouldn't have gone off for another ten minutes. What the heck, might as well get up.
Yawning, I throw the covers off and get to my feet slowly. As I rub sleep out of my eyes, I look around my room. It's not too girl-ish, I've never been that way. I've always been more of a tomboy. Actually, nerd would probably be a more fitting word; there's more posters of movies and video game stuff than anything else. I just never really got into celebrities or makeup or stuff like that. In fact, there has always been something that's bugged me about girls that are really girly. You know, the ones that are all ditzy and fit the female stereotype almost to a T. Ugh.
I grab my hairbrush and head for the bathroom. As usual, my hair is a mess. Sigh. I manage to get it looking decent after a couple minutes of brushing. I could probably work it more, but at least it doesn't look like I just rolled out of bed. As I walk back to my room, not a sound can be heard from anywhere else in the dorm. Understandable, as I'm the only person I know that gets up this early. I guess I'm just a morning person. After putting on a red blouse and blue shorts I grab my bag, close the door behind me, and leave the dorm.
The sun is just peeking over the horizon, causing the dew on the grass to slightly steam. After pausing for a moment to breathe in the cool autumn air, I decide to take a walk. I've always liked taking walks, they help clear my head and they double as decent exercise. Two birds with one stone, as they say.
Eventually I settle on a bench near the quadrangle and lean back, closing my eyes to focus instead on the sounds. I hear more chirping not unlike what woke me, as well as the group of tired-looking students at a nearby table. I imagine they had the same awakening as me. I'm unable to enjoy the tranquility for long however, as suddenly I remember the paper I have to turn in today. I open my bag and rummage through it, producing said paper. I've been working on this thing for the past week, and I finally finished it. It isn't due for another few days, but I always like to get my work done ahead of time.
As I'm re-reading over my paper, I hear a voice behind me. "Morning Nicole."
I turn toward the voice and am surprised to see that it's my friend Alex. His short brown hair neatly combed, he's dressed in his usual attire: a t-shirt and jeans. The morning glow glints off his glasses a bit. "Oh, morning Alex. I didn't know you got up this early."
He smiles tiredly. "Apparently Mother Nature wanted me up early."
I chuckle. "Let me guess, noisy birds?" He nods, all but confirming my thoughts. "You're not the only one." I gesture toward the nearby table of tired students. "Actually they got me up too, but I get up early anyway so it's no biggie for me."
Alex rubs his eyes tiredly and takes a seat next to me. I turn my attention back to the paper in my hands. I feel good about it since I spent so much time on it, but I'm still nervous. Luckily the teacher isn't very strict, so I'm not terribly stressed about it. I suppose anxious would be a better word. The teacher's told me many times how good I am in the class, but all that does is give me the feeling that handing in anything less than perfect would be offensive to him. Maybe I'm just over-thinking this.
I'm distracted from my thoughts by Alex, who has been looking at me. "What? Do I have something on my face?"
He shakes his head. "Nah, it's just that your hair has this redish tint to it. Probably just the early morning sun."
An opening for some teasing presents itself. "So you're saying I'm a redhead?"
He blushes slightly. "No, that's not what I meant-"
I laugh. He's too easy to tease.
He sighs and leans back against the bench. "So what are you reading?"
"A paper. I had to write it for Cultural Studies class."
He makes a sour face. "Ugh, Culture Studies. I don't envy you one bit."
I put the paper down and look at him. "It's kind of a drag, yeah. Jackson's a pretty good teacher though, so it's not too bad."
"I was just never good at history. I mean I understand knowing stuff about the country and all, but there's very few events that are interesting to me."
I raise an eyebrow, my interest piqued. "Oh really?"
"Yeah. Just the big important ones like the Declaration of Independence and the World Wars and stuff."
"Isn't that stuff you learn in like middle school?"
He shrugs. "Don't remember. I never really paid enough attention back then either. I was always more interested in science and math."
I giggle. "Nerd."
"Looks who's talking. You're like the nerdiest girl I know."
We banter back and forth for a while. Eventually I hear his stomach growl, and he stands up to stretch. "I'm going to get some breakfast. Coming?"
"Sure, why not?" I put my paper away into my bag and put it around my shoulders. I walk beside him as we head toward our destination.
I yawn and stretch in my seat, breaking the otherwise total silence. There's a test coming up I really need to study for, but no matter how hard I try, I can't stay focused on studying. I need a distraction. I already ate lunch, so I'm not hungry. I'm not in the mood to read a book right now. My roommate is out doing something or other, she didn't tell me exactly what or where. My other friends, I have no idea, except for... hey, maybe that's an option. Maybe he could help me stay focused.
I pull out my phone, thumb through my contacts, and hit the call button. A few rings later, a familiar voice picks up. "Hello?"
"Hey Alex, are you busy right now?"
"Not really. What's up?"
"Do you want to meet up at the library to study?"
"Well, I'm here at- Ow, quit it Marie! I'm on the phone!"
Marie? Who's that? "Are you out somewhere?"
"Yeah, I'm over here at Mack's to hang out with Josh and Marie-"
"I'll be right there!" I snap my phone closed and grab my bag, headed for the nearby burger joint. I make it in record time and quickly look around. There he is, in the back. Next to him, a blonde-haired girl seems to be happily chatting with him, giving him cutesy looks. I have to resist the urge to barf as I walk to the table, plopping down across from Alex.
"Where's Josh?" I ask.
Alex shrugs. "He should be here any minute. Surprised he hasn't shown up yet honestly." The next moment, the door opens. "Speak of the devil."
Josh comes over to our table. "Nobody else wanted to come, so I guess it's just us thr-" He looks at me for a second and then back to Alex. "You brought two with you? I didn't know you were such a ladies' man."
Alex shakes his head slightly. "I didn't bring her actually, she came by herself."
Josh shrugs. "Eh, whatever. The more the merrier. I'm gonna go make my order. You guys coming?"
"We already ordered," Alex replies. The girl beside him nods in agreement and Josh heads over to the counter. "So Nicole, you said you wanted to study, but I left my books in my room..."
"I guess we can't study then. Oh well." I really should study, but I needed a distraction and this is perfect. I can study later.
"You gonna order anything?"
I shake my head. "I already ate. Not hungry."
Josh returns to the table. "So guys, did you hear the rumor about old man Graham's place?"
"Graham?" Alex raises an eyebrow questioningly.
"He's that old hermit that lives behind the school, right?" I ask.
"'Lived' would be a more accurate term," Josh replies. "I heard he's been dead for years."
A look of comprehension dawns on Alex's face. "Basically what you're saying is, you wanna go see if the rumor is true, right?"
"Aw come on, don't ruin the surprise!" Josh pouts.
"Some surprise." I roll my eyes.
"Rumor?" The girl next to Alex asks, confused.
"People say that his ghost haunts the house," Alex explains.
"G-ghosts?! I don't like ghosts!" she cries.
First cutesty looks, now an overraction to the mention of ghosts. Man, how stereotypical can you get?
"Then stay home," he answers. "Nobody said you had to come."
"B-B-But...Senpai..."
Senpai? What's with this girl?
"So you guys up for it?" Josh asks.
Alex nods. "Sure. When do we want to go explore?"
"How about Friday?" Josh suggests. "That way we have the weekend to rest in case something happens."
"Sounds good to me. Nicole?" Alex looks at me.
That should give me plenty of time to study. I nod. "Sure, why not?"
Alex looks over to the blonde girl. "You coming too?"
"U-um..." she fidgets slightly. "I-I want to, but..."
"Well, you have two days to decide. Think about it, okay?" After a moment's pause, she nods.
I take a sip of my drink, deciding on a change of topic. "So, midterms are coming up in a couple weeks..."
"Don't remind me..." he sighs.
We make small talk for a few minutes until our food is done and then we chow down, agreeing to meet up in front of the library in two days.
That Friday after classes I head for the library. Part of me wants to be surprised when I see Alex is already waiting, but then again this is Alex we're talking about. You'd be hard pressed to find anyone as nerdy as him in the school. Without a word I sit down next to him.
"Hi Nicole." He doesn't take his eyes off the notebook he's writing in.
"You know, it's rude to not look at someone when you're greeting them."
"Is that so? Different people have different standards of politeness. So do different cultures."
I can't resist the urge to tease him a bit. "So you DO pay attention in Cultural Studies class. You're a big fat liar."
"Well, you're not all wrong about the big and fat part, I suppose."
I laugh and look down at his notebook. "You're seriously doing math homework when we're about to head off on an adventure?"
"I figured I was gonna get here early, so I brought something to do so I wouldn't be bored." He still hasn't looked up.
"If I didn't know you, I'd be surprised you aren't more bored trying to do that rather than relaxing. But that's so you."
He doesn't reply, so I lean back against the bench, letting loose a yawn. "I wonder if we'll find anything interesting. Maybe we can find some abandoned electronics. Even if they don't work we can salvage the parts and make something new maybe. Build some kind of neato gadget or find some old relic of the past..."
I ramble on for a bit, admittedly getting a little carried away. "It'll at least be an adventure though, right?" I nudge him, unsure if he's even been listening. "Earth to Alex, come in Alex."
"What?" He finally takes his eyes off his notebook and looks at me.
"Oh good, you're not daydreaming. Only your eyes were moving, so it was kinda creeping me out. I thought maybe you had switched to some kind of autopilot mode or something."
He sighs as he closes his notebook and puts it away into his backpack, along with his pencil.
"You're not seriously going to carry that stuff around, are you? What, are you gonna use your backpack as a weapon with those heavy textbooks in it?"
"That's actually not a bad idea." He jumps to his feet, lifting his backpack by its straps. "I ain't afraid of no ghosts! Hiii-yaaa!" He swings his backpack as if attacking something in front of him. I think he swung too hard though, because a moment later he loses his balance and falls to the ground. I can't help bursting out laughing as he gets up and dusts himself off. "I take it back, it's a terrible idea. I was gonna drop it off at my room on the way since we'll be passing the guys' dorm."
He sits back down again and we make small talk while waiting for Josh. He shows up a few minutes later and we set off.
"Hey, uh... should we really be doing this?"
Josh stops and turns to me. "You're not chickening out on us, are you?"
"No, but... I mean... What if we get in trouble? Assuming we don't die?"
"We're not gonna die. It's not really haunted. Come on, what could possibly happen?"
"Famous last words," Alex interjects.
Josh glares at him. "Shaddap."
I can't help giggling. Alex took the words right out of my mouth. A moment later, he walks up to the door and pushes it open.
Josh goes up behind him and cranes his neck to see over Alex's shoulder. "See anything?"
Alex shakes his head. "It's too dark." He digs in his pockets for a moment, producing a small flashlight. "Good thing I came prepared." He flashes it around the room a bit, then walks in. Josh and I file in behind him.
It's really dusty and there's cobwebs everywhere. Not entirely unexpected, but still icky. We walk a bit in silence until we come upon a set of stairs.
"This is big, so how do we want to do this?" Alex asks over his shoulder. "Start at the top and work our way down? Or go down and come back up?"
"Whichever way is faster and gets us out of here sooner," Josh quickly answers. He's totally shaking in his boots.
Alex chuckles. "'It's not really haunted', huh?"
"S-shut up! I'm not scared!"
Uh-huh. Fearless leader you are not. We decide to explore this floor first before taking the stairs. We take a look inside the doors we pass, but there's nothing interesting in them. A little while later we've explored all this floor, with nothing to show for it. A bit disappointed, we start back toward the stairs, but then we hear the front door creaking open and another light appears.
"♥♥♥♥! Hide!" Alex whispers. We hurry into the nearest room and hide. Josh books it for the closet while Alex and I dive underneath the bed. Not the smartest idea in hindsight; there's not much room, so we end up bumping each other a lot while squirming to get as comfortable as possible. I think I accidentally kicked him once.
All this time, the footsteps have been getting closer and closer, until finally they stop, seemingly right outside the door. I can almost feel the sweat pouring down Alex's face. Gross, but I'm just as nervous as he is, so I can't really say much.
Suddenly a light blinds me. "There you are."
The voice sounds vaguely familiar, but I can't place it. Fortunately, Alex seems to recognize it. "Marie?!"
Marie... where have I heard that name before...
She giggles. "My, Senpai. So that's what your true motive for coming here was. You sure picked a heck of a spot."
Oh, great. Her. And did she really just imply that? I'm half expecting her to whine and make him feel guilty or something.
"You almost gave us a heart attack!" Alex slowly crawls out from underneath the bed and dusts himself off.
"Yeah, what's the big idea?!" Josh comes out from inside the closet.
"Did you think I was someone else?" Marie giggles again.
"Seriously! Don't scare us like that! I think I just lost like five years off my life!"
I've wiggled out from underneath the bed at this point and I notice Alex has his hand held out to help me up. I take it.
Josh wipes the sweat off his forehead. "So you decided to show up, huh? What happened to being afraid of ghosts?"
Marie cringes a bit. "W-well, ghosts are scary, but..." She shuffles her feet a bit and looks up at Alex with a cutesy look. "If Senpai is here, I know he'll protect me."
Ugh, where's a barf bag when you need one. "Let's get moving. The sooner we get out of here, the better." I seize Alex's arm and drag him into the hallway. I hear Josh chuckling behind us and am halfway tempted to turn around and punch him, but think better of it.
A little while later we're resting on the bottom floor with neither hide nor hair of anything of importance.
"Well, that was a bust." I sigh and lean up against the wall.
"It was fun though, right? Obviously the place isn't haunted or we would've run into ghosts by now."
I'm not quite sure if Alex's comment was a joke or not, but I'm too tired to care right now.
"It is disappointing that we didn't find anything though," Josh says.
Yeah, that is a bummer. Oh well, at least we know now.
Alex yawns and stretches a bit. "It's getting late, we should probably go back now." After a nod of agreement from everyone, we head for the nearest stairs.
Suddenly, one of the doors behind us slams closed. I jump a bit, but manage to stay somewhat calm. That's more than can be said for the other girl in this group though; she's latched onto Alex's arm with an iron grip.
"S-S-Senpai, w-what was that?!"
"Calm down, it was probably a gust of wind that caught a door just right." Marie doesn't seem convinced, not letting go of his arm.
"R-right. There's no such things as ghosts." Try as I might, I can't seem to stop my voice from cracking slightly. At least I'm doing better than Miss Senpai over there.
We walk a bit further. Suddenly there's a loud crashing sound from the room right next to me.
"If you two keep this up, my arms are gonna fall off." I must've seized Alex's other arm without realizing it. I let go, noticing Marie is reluctant to do so.
There's another noise. Softer this time, but still loud enough to be noticable. I can tell Alex and Josh are on edge, but still putting on a brave face.
"This could be what we've been looking for." Josh nods and Alex takes a few steps toward the door.
"Senpai, no!" Marie cries, jumping forward to seize his arm and attempting to pull him back.
"Marie, please." He looks over to Josh and nods toward Marie and I. "Take care of them while I check things out." Josh nods in understanding and Alex turns back to the door, slowly entering. We hold our breaths for a bit, unsure of what to do.
Eventually Josh calls out to Alex. "What's in there?!"
A few moments pass before the reply comes. "There's nothing here, let's just-"
The sentence is abruptly cut off by a loud smacking sound, followed by a thud of something hitting the ground. The door opens and inside is a large man with a beard standing over Alex, who is motionless.
I choke back a scream, but Marie's cry echoes off the walls. The man glares at us for a few moments before lifting his wrench menacingly. We immediately bolt down the hallway, but realize too late we went right into a dead end. We back up toward the end of the hallway as the man approaches.
"Can't we talk this over?" Josh asks.
I appreciate the thought Josh, but that's a really naive thing to say considering the situation.
The man snorts, his gruff voice booming throughout the hall. "You kids barge into my house uninvited and go through my things, and you want to talk? That's rich." He raises his wrench again.
Before he can swing, Josh tackles him. Unfortunately the hallway isn't wide enough for us to slip by them, so all we can do is watch as they wrestle. A few blows are exchanged before Graham gets the upper hand and brains Josh with the wrench, knocking him out.
Upon seeing Josh downed, Marie faints. Typical. If you want something done, you have to do it yourself. While Graham is momentarily distracted, I leap past him. Just when I think I'm home free, something hits my leg and I trip. I bash my head against something on the way down and black out.
Someone's shaking me. "Nicole, wake up!"
My head is throbbing like mad. I rub it a bit as I slowly open my eyes. After a moment I recognize that it was Josh who was shaking me. The next moment, I realize something else. "Where am I?"
Josh shrugs. "Beats me. I've been trying to figure it out for a while."
I look around. There's no windows; the only lights are a couple bare bulbs hanging on the ceiling. The walls and floor look made of stone.
"Is this... some kind of dungeon?" I wonder aloud.
"I was thinking more along the lines of basement, but that works too," Josh replies.
Then I notice a motionless figure off to the side. A very familiar one...
"Alex?!" Please don't let him be dead, I pray as I hurry over to him. After feeling for a pulse, I breathe a sigh of relief. He's just unconscious.
"I was wondering when you'd notice him." Josh chuckles. "Kinda surprised it took you that long."
Our friend is out cold and you don't tell me, instead waiting until I see him unconscious on the ground? I really want to punch you for that, but given the situation it might not be the best idea.
As I get back to my feet, a different voice calls out to me. "Is Senpai alright?!"
I turn toward the voice and see Marie sitting against the wall nearby, trembling. I'm somewhat surprised that she hadn't seen for herself, but she's probably still rattled from earlier so I guess I can't really blame her.
"He's fine, he's just napping." I try to make my voice soothing out of pity, but I don't think I succeeded.
A moment later, he stirs slightly. In the blink of an eye Marie made it from the wall over to us and has thrown her arms around his neck, hugging him tightly. I don't even know how she did it that fast. "Senpaiiiii!!!!"
"I can't... breathe..." he gasps.
She's gonna choke him to death at this rate. "Hey, let go! You're choking him!" It takes me a few moments before she finally disengages from him. Once she's off, I can't resist hugging him myself, though I'm careful not to squeeze hard. "We were so worried about you, you idiot! Thank god you're not dead!"
"You're lucky, dude." Josh is kneeling nearby.
"Yeah, that could've killed me..."
Josh shakes his head. "That's not what I meant. You got two chicks all over you right now. I would gladly take a blow to the head to be in your position right now."
Alex smilesa bit. "I suppose I should count my blessings."
I let go of Alex, glaring knives at Josh. Alex gets to his feet and dusts himself off. "Come to think of it, where are we?"
"I've been wondering that myself," Josh says as he stands up. "From what I can tell, we're in some sort of basement."
"What happened?"
"Well, we heard you coming back and then you suddenly fell out of the doorway in the middle of your sentence. Then we saw this guy behind you holding something or other..." Josh thinks for a few moments, but then shakes his head. "I forget exactly what it was, but anyways, he came out of the room and chased us, and we got cornered. I tried to fight back but he clobbered me pretty hard. I assume he did the same for the girls afterward."
"Not exactly," I explain. "After you got brained by that freak, Marie fainted. I tried to jump past him but I tripped. I think I blacked out when I hit the ground."
"How convenient." Alex sighs. "How long do you think we've been here?"
Josh shrugs. "Dunno. He took our phones, I think."
I didn't even think about that. I reach into my pocket as Alex does the same, all but confirming Josh's statement. "I guess he's not dumb enough to not do something like that. Did you get a good look at him?"
I shake my head. "Not really, we were too panicked. I think I remember him having a beard, but I don't remember what color it was."
Suddenly the door swings open and the man steps into the room. It's only now I notice the color of his hair and beard: oil black. His clothes are worn and ragged, like they haven't been washed in quite some time. In his right hand he holds a shiny pistol, and in the other, his old metal wrench.
"So, you kids finally woke up, huh? What were you kids doing snooping around my house, huh? Looking for something to steal?"
"Your house?" Alex asks. "Then you must be old man Graham."
Graham huffs. "Smart one, aren't you?"
"For your information, we weren't looking to steal anything. We heard rumors that your house was haunted, so we came to see for ourselves."
Graham laughs. "You're either really brave or really stupid if you think I'm going to believe that story."
"I told you it was a bad idea," I whisper to Alex matter-of-factly.
"It wasn't my idea!" he hisses back.
"What do you want with us?!" Josh asks.
"You're going to spend some time down here to think about what you did. About a week should do nicely."
"That's it? No ransom or death threat of any kind?" Alex asks, clearly suspicious.
"I'm in a good mood right now, so I'll let you off easy. Unless..." He points his gun at us. "You make any trouble, and there will be consequences. Just stay here and be quiet like good little boys and girls."
"A week? But we have classes to get to! And clubs, and other stuff!" I protest.
Graham points his gun at me. "Too bad."
I almost protest more, but think better of it. Better not anger the big man with the gun.
"I'll be back later with some food. Be good until then." He exits, his heavy footsteps echoing through the door.
"'Be good'?! How old does he think we are?!" Josh snaps.
"Cool it, Josh." Alex turns to him. "Don't let his mind games get to you. Let's just calm down and think of a plan to bust out of here."
"B-But... what about his gun?" Marie stammers.
"Do you want to have to stay down here in this cold room for a week?"
"N-No, but..." She looks down, unsure of what to say.
"Look, thinking of a plan will at least give us something to do so we won't be bored to death, right?"
"You've got a point, at least." Josh nods. "How can you be so calm about this? Does nothing faze you?"
"Panicking won't solve anything. It's best to calm down and try to think it through. Now, here's my idea..."
A few hours later, Graham returns. "Have you guys been good?" In his hands is a plate with some bread and a few bottles of water.
"I'm surprised, I thought you would starve us down here," Alex comments.
"I'll just take this back upstairs then." He turns around back toward the door.
"Wait, no! Please!" Marie cries.
Chuckling, he turns back around. "I'd watch that mouth of yours, brat."
As he sets the plate and water bottles on the floor, Josh and Alex charge him. Josh dives for his legs and Alex tackles him in the chest, grabbing his gun out of its holster and throwing it across the room.
"Now, girls! Run!" Alex yells.
"You brats!" Graham spits.
I head for the door, Marie right on my heels. She stops briefly as we pass Alex, but he yells at her to "GO!" and she falls back in behind me. We go up the stairs and through a few doors, ending up in a familiar hallway.
"This way!" I have a gut feeling the way out is this way, and I feel inclined to trust it. It turns out to be correct; we find the front door and bolt through it, stopping to catch our breath outside.
"You think they're okay...?" Marie asks after taking in a few gulps of air.
"I hope so. Maybe we need to get some help..."
Before I can finish the sentence, Alex comes bounding through the front door. He hurry up to him as he slows to a stop, wheezing.
"Senpai, you're hurt!" Marie says.
"I'm fine..." he gasps.
I then notice the absence of his friend and look back to the house. "Wait, where's Josh?"
"He told me... to run... But Graham hit him... he's behind me..."
Right as he says that, Graham appears in the doorway. "You're not getting away!" We start running again, Graham yelling threats behind us.
We're going so fast I don't notice a thick tree root sticking up out of the ground and I trip over it. I heard Alex exclaim and double back to help me. After helping me up, he jumps behind me, putting himself between us and our pursuer.
Graham grabs him by the collar, raising him off the ground. "I've got you now, you pest! Didn't I tell you to be a good boy?!"
"Let him go!" I dive for his legs, putting him slightly off-balance. Alex manages to kick him in the stomach and wriggle out of his grip. Graham quickly recovers though, preventing us from escaping.
"If you kids think outnumbering me is going to save you, you're dead wrong."
That's what you think. Of course, it would be easier if a certain other girl didn't run off like a scaredy-cat.
Graham advances toward us. "Any last words?"
"I'll save them for later, thanks," Alex replies.
I stifle a giggle. It amazes me how he can crack jokes at a time like this.
"You think you're funny, don't you? We'll see who gets the last laugh, boy." Graham throws a hook at Alex, but he ducks and counters with a hook of his own. It doesn't seem to face Graham though, as he immediately follows up with a jab to Alex's chest.
I can see he's planning another punch, so I quickly jump at him and grab his arm to stop him, taking the chance to kick him in the side. Unfortunately I didn't think this through too well, as he seizes my wrist and flings me over Alex's head. I fly through the air for a few moments before landing hard, pain erupting in my chest.
After that, the rest of my memory is hazy. I remember Alex finding me and comforting me until the paramedics showed up, so I guess he beat Graham somehow. Heck if I know how.
"You're lucky, young lady. You've just got some bruised ribs."
My relief at that statement is insurmountable. I was afraid they were broken.
"You'll have to stay here for at least a week to recover. I'll see to it your professors are informed."
"Thank you."
"Just doing my job." The doctor smiles, then heads out the door.
I'm tired, but don't feel like sleeping. I really don't want to be lying here in this bed either, but I know full well I have to. Doctor's orders, after all. For a while I just let my mind wander, trying to forget about the throbbing in my chest. Maybe I can ask a friend to turn in that paper for Mitcham's class...
I'm distracted from my thoughts by the door opening. Alex walks in, breathing a sigh of relief when he sees me. He comes up to the bedside. "How are you feeling?"
"Better, now that you're here." I smile as best I can.
He sits in the nearby chair. "Did they tell you how long you'll have to stay?"
"About a week or two. They said some of my ribs are bruised."
"For being thrown several yards like that you got off easy." He chuckles.
"Yeah, I thought for sure it was something much worse. It still hurts like hell though."
"I can imagine."
We make small talk for a while. Soon enough an hour has passed.
"It's getting late, I should probably get going." He stands up from the chair.
"Will you come back tomorrow?"
He smiles and nods. "Of course I will."
Yawning, I throw the covers off and get to my feet slowly. As I rub sleep out of my eyes, I look around my room. It's not too girl-ish, I've never been that way. I've always been more of a tomboy. Actually, nerd would probably be a more fitting word; there's more posters of movies and video game stuff than anything else. I just never really got into celebrities or makeup or stuff like that. In fact, there has always been something that's bugged me about girls that are really girly. You know, the ones that are all ditzy and fit the female stereotype almost to a T. Ugh.
I grab my hairbrush and head for the bathroom. As usual, my hair is a mess. Sigh. I manage to get it looking decent after a couple minutes of brushing. I could probably work it more, but at least it doesn't look like I just rolled out of bed. As I walk back to my room, not a sound can be heard from anywhere else in the dorm. Understandable, as I'm the only person I know that gets up this early. I guess I'm just a morning person. After putting on a red blouse and blue shorts I grab my bag, close the door behind me, and leave the dorm.
The sun is just peeking over the horizon, causing the dew on the grass to slightly steam. After pausing for a moment to breathe in the cool autumn air, I decide to take a walk. I've always liked taking walks, they help clear my head and they double as decent exercise. Two birds with one stone, as they say.
Eventually I settle on a bench near the quadrangle and lean back, closing my eyes to focus instead on the sounds. I hear more chirping not unlike what woke me, as well as the group of tired-looking students at a nearby table. I imagine they had the same awakening as me. I'm unable to enjoy the tranquility for long however, as suddenly I remember the paper I have to turn in today. I open my bag and rummage through it, producing said paper. I've been working on this thing for the past week, and I finally finished it. It isn't due for another few days, but I always like to get my work done ahead of time.
As I'm re-reading over my paper, I hear a voice behind me. "Morning Nicole."
I turn toward the voice and am surprised to see that it's my friend Alex. His short brown hair neatly combed, he's dressed in his usual attire: a t-shirt and jeans. The morning glow glints off his glasses a bit. "Oh, morning Alex. I didn't know you got up this early."
He smiles tiredly. "Apparently Mother Nature wanted me up early."
I chuckle. "Let me guess, noisy birds?" He nods, all but confirming my thoughts. "You're not the only one." I gesture toward the nearby table of tired students. "Actually they got me up too, but I get up early anyway so it's no biggie for me."
Alex rubs his eyes tiredly and takes a seat next to me. I turn my attention back to the paper in my hands. I feel good about it since I spent so much time on it, but I'm still nervous. Luckily the teacher isn't very strict, so I'm not terribly stressed about it. I suppose anxious would be a better word. The teacher's told me many times how good I am in the class, but all that does is give me the feeling that handing in anything less than perfect would be offensive to him. Maybe I'm just over-thinking this.
I'm distracted from my thoughts by Alex, who has been looking at me. "What? Do I have something on my face?"
He shakes his head. "Nah, it's just that your hair has this redish tint to it. Probably just the early morning sun."
An opening for some teasing presents itself. "So you're saying I'm a redhead?"
He blushes slightly. "No, that's not what I meant-"
I laugh. He's too easy to tease.
He sighs and leans back against the bench. "So what are you reading?"
"A paper. I had to write it for Cultural Studies class."
He makes a sour face. "Ugh, Culture Studies. I don't envy you one bit."
I put the paper down and look at him. "It's kind of a drag, yeah. Jackson's a pretty good teacher though, so it's not too bad."
"I was just never good at history. I mean I understand knowing stuff about the country and all, but there's very few events that are interesting to me."
I raise an eyebrow, my interest piqued. "Oh really?"
"Yeah. Just the big important ones like the Declaration of Independence and the World Wars and stuff."
"Isn't that stuff you learn in like middle school?"
He shrugs. "Don't remember. I never really paid enough attention back then either. I was always more interested in science and math."
I giggle. "Nerd."
"Looks who's talking. You're like the nerdiest girl I know."
We banter back and forth for a while. Eventually I hear his stomach growl, and he stands up to stretch. "I'm going to get some breakfast. Coming?"
"Sure, why not?" I put my paper away into my bag and put it around my shoulders. I walk beside him as we head toward our destination.
I yawn and stretch in my seat, breaking the otherwise total silence. There's a test coming up I really need to study for, but no matter how hard I try, I can't stay focused on studying. I need a distraction. I already ate lunch, so I'm not hungry. I'm not in the mood to read a book right now. My roommate is out doing something or other, she didn't tell me exactly what or where. My other friends, I have no idea, except for... hey, maybe that's an option. Maybe he could help me stay focused.
I pull out my phone, thumb through my contacts, and hit the call button. A few rings later, a familiar voice picks up. "Hello?"
"Hey Alex, are you busy right now?"
"Not really. What's up?"
"Do you want to meet up at the library to study?"
"Well, I'm here at- Ow, quit it Marie! I'm on the phone!"
Marie? Who's that? "Are you out somewhere?"
"Yeah, I'm over here at Mack's to hang out with Josh and Marie-"
"I'll be right there!" I snap my phone closed and grab my bag, headed for the nearby burger joint. I make it in record time and quickly look around. There he is, in the back. Next to him, a blonde-haired girl seems to be happily chatting with him, giving him cutesy looks. I have to resist the urge to barf as I walk to the table, plopping down across from Alex.
"Where's Josh?" I ask.
Alex shrugs. "He should be here any minute. Surprised he hasn't shown up yet honestly." The next moment, the door opens. "Speak of the devil."
Josh comes over to our table. "Nobody else wanted to come, so I guess it's just us thr-" He looks at me for a second and then back to Alex. "You brought two with you? I didn't know you were such a ladies' man."
Alex shakes his head slightly. "I didn't bring her actually, she came by herself."
Josh shrugs. "Eh, whatever. The more the merrier. I'm gonna go make my order. You guys coming?"
"We already ordered," Alex replies. The girl beside him nods in agreement and Josh heads over to the counter. "So Nicole, you said you wanted to study, but I left my books in my room..."
"I guess we can't study then. Oh well." I really should study, but I needed a distraction and this is perfect. I can study later.
"You gonna order anything?"
I shake my head. "I already ate. Not hungry."
Josh returns to the table. "So guys, did you hear the rumor about old man Graham's place?"
"Graham?" Alex raises an eyebrow questioningly.
"He's that old hermit that lives behind the school, right?" I ask.
"'Lived' would be a more accurate term," Josh replies. "I heard he's been dead for years."
A look of comprehension dawns on Alex's face. "Basically what you're saying is, you wanna go see if the rumor is true, right?"
"Aw come on, don't ruin the surprise!" Josh pouts.
"Some surprise." I roll my eyes.
"Rumor?" The girl next to Alex asks, confused.
"People say that his ghost haunts the house," Alex explains.
"G-ghosts?! I don't like ghosts!" she cries.
First cutesty looks, now an overraction to the mention of ghosts. Man, how stereotypical can you get?
"Then stay home," he answers. "Nobody said you had to come."
"B-B-But...Senpai..."
Senpai? What's with this girl?
"So you guys up for it?" Josh asks.
Alex nods. "Sure. When do we want to go explore?"
"How about Friday?" Josh suggests. "That way we have the weekend to rest in case something happens."
"Sounds good to me. Nicole?" Alex looks at me.
That should give me plenty of time to study. I nod. "Sure, why not?"
Alex looks over to the blonde girl. "You coming too?"
"U-um..." she fidgets slightly. "I-I want to, but..."
"Well, you have two days to decide. Think about it, okay?" After a moment's pause, she nods.
I take a sip of my drink, deciding on a change of topic. "So, midterms are coming up in a couple weeks..."
"Don't remind me..." he sighs.
We make small talk for a few minutes until our food is done and then we chow down, agreeing to meet up in front of the library in two days.
That Friday after classes I head for the library. Part of me wants to be surprised when I see Alex is already waiting, but then again this is Alex we're talking about. You'd be hard pressed to find anyone as nerdy as him in the school. Without a word I sit down next to him.
"Hi Nicole." He doesn't take his eyes off the notebook he's writing in.
"You know, it's rude to not look at someone when you're greeting them."
"Is that so? Different people have different standards of politeness. So do different cultures."
I can't resist the urge to tease him a bit. "So you DO pay attention in Cultural Studies class. You're a big fat liar."
"Well, you're not all wrong about the big and fat part, I suppose."
I laugh and look down at his notebook. "You're seriously doing math homework when we're about to head off on an adventure?"
"I figured I was gonna get here early, so I brought something to do so I wouldn't be bored." He still hasn't looked up.
"If I didn't know you, I'd be surprised you aren't more bored trying to do that rather than relaxing. But that's so you."
He doesn't reply, so I lean back against the bench, letting loose a yawn. "I wonder if we'll find anything interesting. Maybe we can find some abandoned electronics. Even if they don't work we can salvage the parts and make something new maybe. Build some kind of neato gadget or find some old relic of the past..."
I ramble on for a bit, admittedly getting a little carried away. "It'll at least be an adventure though, right?" I nudge him, unsure if he's even been listening. "Earth to Alex, come in Alex."
"What?" He finally takes his eyes off his notebook and looks at me.
"Oh good, you're not daydreaming. Only your eyes were moving, so it was kinda creeping me out. I thought maybe you had switched to some kind of autopilot mode or something."
He sighs as he closes his notebook and puts it away into his backpack, along with his pencil.
"You're not seriously going to carry that stuff around, are you? What, are you gonna use your backpack as a weapon with those heavy textbooks in it?"
"That's actually not a bad idea." He jumps to his feet, lifting his backpack by its straps. "I ain't afraid of no ghosts! Hiii-yaaa!" He swings his backpack as if attacking something in front of him. I think he swung too hard though, because a moment later he loses his balance and falls to the ground. I can't help bursting out laughing as he gets up and dusts himself off. "I take it back, it's a terrible idea. I was gonna drop it off at my room on the way since we'll be passing the guys' dorm."
He sits back down again and we make small talk while waiting for Josh. He shows up a few minutes later and we set off.
"Hey, uh... should we really be doing this?"
Josh stops and turns to me. "You're not chickening out on us, are you?"
"No, but... I mean... What if we get in trouble? Assuming we don't die?"
"We're not gonna die. It's not really haunted. Come on, what could possibly happen?"
"Famous last words," Alex interjects.
Josh glares at him. "Shaddap."
I can't help giggling. Alex took the words right out of my mouth. A moment later, he walks up to the door and pushes it open.
Josh goes up behind him and cranes his neck to see over Alex's shoulder. "See anything?"
Alex shakes his head. "It's too dark." He digs in his pockets for a moment, producing a small flashlight. "Good thing I came prepared." He flashes it around the room a bit, then walks in. Josh and I file in behind him.
It's really dusty and there's cobwebs everywhere. Not entirely unexpected, but still icky. We walk a bit in silence until we come upon a set of stairs.
"This is big, so how do we want to do this?" Alex asks over his shoulder. "Start at the top and work our way down? Or go down and come back up?"
"Whichever way is faster and gets us out of here sooner," Josh quickly answers. He's totally shaking in his boots.
Alex chuckles. "'It's not really haunted', huh?"
"S-shut up! I'm not scared!"
Uh-huh. Fearless leader you are not. We decide to explore this floor first before taking the stairs. We take a look inside the doors we pass, but there's nothing interesting in them. A little while later we've explored all this floor, with nothing to show for it. A bit disappointed, we start back toward the stairs, but then we hear the front door creaking open and another light appears.
"♥♥♥♥! Hide!" Alex whispers. We hurry into the nearest room and hide. Josh books it for the closet while Alex and I dive underneath the bed. Not the smartest idea in hindsight; there's not much room, so we end up bumping each other a lot while squirming to get as comfortable as possible. I think I accidentally kicked him once.
All this time, the footsteps have been getting closer and closer, until finally they stop, seemingly right outside the door. I can almost feel the sweat pouring down Alex's face. Gross, but I'm just as nervous as he is, so I can't really say much.
Suddenly a light blinds me. "There you are."
The voice sounds vaguely familiar, but I can't place it. Fortunately, Alex seems to recognize it. "Marie?!"
Marie... where have I heard that name before...
She giggles. "My, Senpai. So that's what your true motive for coming here was. You sure picked a heck of a spot."
Oh, great. Her. And did she really just imply that? I'm half expecting her to whine and make him feel guilty or something.
"You almost gave us a heart attack!" Alex slowly crawls out from underneath the bed and dusts himself off.
"Yeah, what's the big idea?!" Josh comes out from inside the closet.
"Did you think I was someone else?" Marie giggles again.
"Seriously! Don't scare us like that! I think I just lost like five years off my life!"
I've wiggled out from underneath the bed at this point and I notice Alex has his hand held out to help me up. I take it.
Josh wipes the sweat off his forehead. "So you decided to show up, huh? What happened to being afraid of ghosts?"
Marie cringes a bit. "W-well, ghosts are scary, but..." She shuffles her feet a bit and looks up at Alex with a cutesy look. "If Senpai is here, I know he'll protect me."
Ugh, where's a barf bag when you need one. "Let's get moving. The sooner we get out of here, the better." I seize Alex's arm and drag him into the hallway. I hear Josh chuckling behind us and am halfway tempted to turn around and punch him, but think better of it.
A little while later we're resting on the bottom floor with neither hide nor hair of anything of importance.
"Well, that was a bust." I sigh and lean up against the wall.
"It was fun though, right? Obviously the place isn't haunted or we would've run into ghosts by now."
I'm not quite sure if Alex's comment was a joke or not, but I'm too tired to care right now.
"It is disappointing that we didn't find anything though," Josh says.
Yeah, that is a bummer. Oh well, at least we know now.
Alex yawns and stretches a bit. "It's getting late, we should probably go back now." After a nod of agreement from everyone, we head for the nearest stairs.
Suddenly, one of the doors behind us slams closed. I jump a bit, but manage to stay somewhat calm. That's more than can be said for the other girl in this group though; she's latched onto Alex's arm with an iron grip.
"S-S-Senpai, w-what was that?!"
"Calm down, it was probably a gust of wind that caught a door just right." Marie doesn't seem convinced, not letting go of his arm.
"R-right. There's no such things as ghosts." Try as I might, I can't seem to stop my voice from cracking slightly. At least I'm doing better than Miss Senpai over there.
We walk a bit further. Suddenly there's a loud crashing sound from the room right next to me.
"If you two keep this up, my arms are gonna fall off." I must've seized Alex's other arm without realizing it. I let go, noticing Marie is reluctant to do so.
There's another noise. Softer this time, but still loud enough to be noticable. I can tell Alex and Josh are on edge, but still putting on a brave face.
"This could be what we've been looking for." Josh nods and Alex takes a few steps toward the door.
"Senpai, no!" Marie cries, jumping forward to seize his arm and attempting to pull him back.
"Marie, please." He looks over to Josh and nods toward Marie and I. "Take care of them while I check things out." Josh nods in understanding and Alex turns back to the door, slowly entering. We hold our breaths for a bit, unsure of what to do.
Eventually Josh calls out to Alex. "What's in there?!"
A few moments pass before the reply comes. "There's nothing here, let's just-"
The sentence is abruptly cut off by a loud smacking sound, followed by a thud of something hitting the ground. The door opens and inside is a large man with a beard standing over Alex, who is motionless.
I choke back a scream, but Marie's cry echoes off the walls. The man glares at us for a few moments before lifting his wrench menacingly. We immediately bolt down the hallway, but realize too late we went right into a dead end. We back up toward the end of the hallway as the man approaches.
"Can't we talk this over?" Josh asks.
I appreciate the thought Josh, but that's a really naive thing to say considering the situation.
The man snorts, his gruff voice booming throughout the hall. "You kids barge into my house uninvited and go through my things, and you want to talk? That's rich." He raises his wrench again.
Before he can swing, Josh tackles him. Unfortunately the hallway isn't wide enough for us to slip by them, so all we can do is watch as they wrestle. A few blows are exchanged before Graham gets the upper hand and brains Josh with the wrench, knocking him out.
Upon seeing Josh downed, Marie faints. Typical. If you want something done, you have to do it yourself. While Graham is momentarily distracted, I leap past him. Just when I think I'm home free, something hits my leg and I trip. I bash my head against something on the way down and black out.
Someone's shaking me. "Nicole, wake up!"
My head is throbbing like mad. I rub it a bit as I slowly open my eyes. After a moment I recognize that it was Josh who was shaking me. The next moment, I realize something else. "Where am I?"
Josh shrugs. "Beats me. I've been trying to figure it out for a while."
I look around. There's no windows; the only lights are a couple bare bulbs hanging on the ceiling. The walls and floor look made of stone.
"Is this... some kind of dungeon?" I wonder aloud.
"I was thinking more along the lines of basement, but that works too," Josh replies.
Then I notice a motionless figure off to the side. A very familiar one...
"Alex?!" Please don't let him be dead, I pray as I hurry over to him. After feeling for a pulse, I breathe a sigh of relief. He's just unconscious.
"I was wondering when you'd notice him." Josh chuckles. "Kinda surprised it took you that long."
Our friend is out cold and you don't tell me, instead waiting until I see him unconscious on the ground? I really want to punch you for that, but given the situation it might not be the best idea.
As I get back to my feet, a different voice calls out to me. "Is Senpai alright?!"
I turn toward the voice and see Marie sitting against the wall nearby, trembling. I'm somewhat surprised that she hadn't seen for herself, but she's probably still rattled from earlier so I guess I can't really blame her.
"He's fine, he's just napping." I try to make my voice soothing out of pity, but I don't think I succeeded.
A moment later, he stirs slightly. In the blink of an eye Marie made it from the wall over to us and has thrown her arms around his neck, hugging him tightly. I don't even know how she did it that fast. "Senpaiiiii!!!!"
"I can't... breathe..." he gasps.
She's gonna choke him to death at this rate. "Hey, let go! You're choking him!" It takes me a few moments before she finally disengages from him. Once she's off, I can't resist hugging him myself, though I'm careful not to squeeze hard. "We were so worried about you, you idiot! Thank god you're not dead!"
"You're lucky, dude." Josh is kneeling nearby.
"Yeah, that could've killed me..."
Josh shakes his head. "That's not what I meant. You got two chicks all over you right now. I would gladly take a blow to the head to be in your position right now."
Alex smilesa bit. "I suppose I should count my blessings."
I let go of Alex, glaring knives at Josh. Alex gets to his feet and dusts himself off. "Come to think of it, where are we?"
"I've been wondering that myself," Josh says as he stands up. "From what I can tell, we're in some sort of basement."
"What happened?"
"Well, we heard you coming back and then you suddenly fell out of the doorway in the middle of your sentence. Then we saw this guy behind you holding something or other..." Josh thinks for a few moments, but then shakes his head. "I forget exactly what it was, but anyways, he came out of the room and chased us, and we got cornered. I tried to fight back but he clobbered me pretty hard. I assume he did the same for the girls afterward."
"Not exactly," I explain. "After you got brained by that freak, Marie fainted. I tried to jump past him but I tripped. I think I blacked out when I hit the ground."
"How convenient." Alex sighs. "How long do you think we've been here?"
Josh shrugs. "Dunno. He took our phones, I think."
I didn't even think about that. I reach into my pocket as Alex does the same, all but confirming Josh's statement. "I guess he's not dumb enough to not do something like that. Did you get a good look at him?"
I shake my head. "Not really, we were too panicked. I think I remember him having a beard, but I don't remember what color it was."
Suddenly the door swings open and the man steps into the room. It's only now I notice the color of his hair and beard: oil black. His clothes are worn and ragged, like they haven't been washed in quite some time. In his right hand he holds a shiny pistol, and in the other, his old metal wrench.
"So, you kids finally woke up, huh? What were you kids doing snooping around my house, huh? Looking for something to steal?"
"Your house?" Alex asks. "Then you must be old man Graham."
Graham huffs. "Smart one, aren't you?"
"For your information, we weren't looking to steal anything. We heard rumors that your house was haunted, so we came to see for ourselves."
Graham laughs. "You're either really brave or really stupid if you think I'm going to believe that story."
"I told you it was a bad idea," I whisper to Alex matter-of-factly.
"It wasn't my idea!" he hisses back.
"What do you want with us?!" Josh asks.
"You're going to spend some time down here to think about what you did. About a week should do nicely."
"That's it? No ransom or death threat of any kind?" Alex asks, clearly suspicious.
"I'm in a good mood right now, so I'll let you off easy. Unless..." He points his gun at us. "You make any trouble, and there will be consequences. Just stay here and be quiet like good little boys and girls."
"A week? But we have classes to get to! And clubs, and other stuff!" I protest.
Graham points his gun at me. "Too bad."
I almost protest more, but think better of it. Better not anger the big man with the gun.
"I'll be back later with some food. Be good until then." He exits, his heavy footsteps echoing through the door.
"'Be good'?! How old does he think we are?!" Josh snaps.
"Cool it, Josh." Alex turns to him. "Don't let his mind games get to you. Let's just calm down and think of a plan to bust out of here."
"B-But... what about his gun?" Marie stammers.
"Do you want to have to stay down here in this cold room for a week?"
"N-No, but..." She looks down, unsure of what to say.
"Look, thinking of a plan will at least give us something to do so we won't be bored to death, right?"
"You've got a point, at least." Josh nods. "How can you be so calm about this? Does nothing faze you?"
"Panicking won't solve anything. It's best to calm down and try to think it through. Now, here's my idea..."
A few hours later, Graham returns. "Have you guys been good?" In his hands is a plate with some bread and a few bottles of water.
"I'm surprised, I thought you would starve us down here," Alex comments.
"I'll just take this back upstairs then." He turns around back toward the door.
"Wait, no! Please!" Marie cries.
Chuckling, he turns back around. "I'd watch that mouth of yours, brat."
As he sets the plate and water bottles on the floor, Josh and Alex charge him. Josh dives for his legs and Alex tackles him in the chest, grabbing his gun out of its holster and throwing it across the room.
"Now, girls! Run!" Alex yells.
"You brats!" Graham spits.
I head for the door, Marie right on my heels. She stops briefly as we pass Alex, but he yells at her to "GO!" and she falls back in behind me. We go up the stairs and through a few doors, ending up in a familiar hallway.
"This way!" I have a gut feeling the way out is this way, and I feel inclined to trust it. It turns out to be correct; we find the front door and bolt through it, stopping to catch our breath outside.
"You think they're okay...?" Marie asks after taking in a few gulps of air.
"I hope so. Maybe we need to get some help..."
Before I can finish the sentence, Alex comes bounding through the front door. He hurry up to him as he slows to a stop, wheezing.
"Senpai, you're hurt!" Marie says.
"I'm fine..." he gasps.
I then notice the absence of his friend and look back to the house. "Wait, where's Josh?"
"He told me... to run... But Graham hit him... he's behind me..."
Right as he says that, Graham appears in the doorway. "You're not getting away!" We start running again, Graham yelling threats behind us.
We're going so fast I don't notice a thick tree root sticking up out of the ground and I trip over it. I heard Alex exclaim and double back to help me. After helping me up, he jumps behind me, putting himself between us and our pursuer.
Graham grabs him by the collar, raising him off the ground. "I've got you now, you pest! Didn't I tell you to be a good boy?!"
"Let him go!" I dive for his legs, putting him slightly off-balance. Alex manages to kick him in the stomach and wriggle out of his grip. Graham quickly recovers though, preventing us from escaping.
"If you kids think outnumbering me is going to save you, you're dead wrong."
That's what you think. Of course, it would be easier if a certain other girl didn't run off like a scaredy-cat.
Graham advances toward us. "Any last words?"
"I'll save them for later, thanks," Alex replies.
I stifle a giggle. It amazes me how he can crack jokes at a time like this.
"You think you're funny, don't you? We'll see who gets the last laugh, boy." Graham throws a hook at Alex, but he ducks and counters with a hook of his own. It doesn't seem to face Graham though, as he immediately follows up with a jab to Alex's chest.
I can see he's planning another punch, so I quickly jump at him and grab his arm to stop him, taking the chance to kick him in the side. Unfortunately I didn't think this through too well, as he seizes my wrist and flings me over Alex's head. I fly through the air for a few moments before landing hard, pain erupting in my chest.
After that, the rest of my memory is hazy. I remember Alex finding me and comforting me until the paramedics showed up, so I guess he beat Graham somehow. Heck if I know how.
"You're lucky, young lady. You've just got some bruised ribs."
My relief at that statement is insurmountable. I was afraid they were broken.
"You'll have to stay here for at least a week to recover. I'll see to it your professors are informed."
"Thank you."
"Just doing my job." The doctor smiles, then heads out the door.
I'm tired, but don't feel like sleeping. I really don't want to be lying here in this bed either, but I know full well I have to. Doctor's orders, after all. For a while I just let my mind wander, trying to forget about the throbbing in my chest. Maybe I can ask a friend to turn in that paper for Mitcham's class...
I'm distracted from my thoughts by the door opening. Alex walks in, breathing a sigh of relief when he sees me. He comes up to the bedside. "How are you feeling?"
"Better, now that you're here." I smile as best I can.
He sits in the nearby chair. "Did they tell you how long you'll have to stay?"
"About a week or two. They said some of my ribs are bruised."
"For being thrown several yards like that you got off easy." He chuckles.
"Yeah, I thought for sure it was something much worse. It still hurts like hell though."
"I can imagine."
We make small talk for a while. Soon enough an hour has passed.
"It's getting late, I should probably get going." He stands up from the chair.
"Will you come back tomorrow?"
He smiles and nods. "Of course I will."
