I ran through the house at full speed, leaping up the stairs two steps at a time. Once I reached the top I let out a sigh of relief, but that was short lived. Someone was behind me, chasing me up the stairs. I looked down the stairs in horror as the person propelled herself up the stairs towards me. I quickly began to climb the next set of old, wooden stairs, my exhaustion slowing me down. Once I reached the top, I realized, with a new sense of dread, that this was the top of the house. No more exits, no more stairs to climb, no more places to hide. There was only one way down and that was the staircase that I had just climbed up, the stairs that my attacker was climbing up at that very moment. I was trapped. I let out a shriek of horror and turned around to look for a decent hiding place. There were three rooms; I ran into the third room randomly. I searched the room, desperately looking for a suitable hiding place, trying my hardest not to make a sound. My eyes caught on something shiny, a rusted doorknob, attached to a door. My hand instinctively grabbed the doorknob. I turned the handle quickly and flung the door open. I dashed inside, my heart threatening to lunge out of my chest. I ran into the room only to realize that there were no exits. I turned to leave the room immediately, vain hope skimming my mind. Maybe I could get out of here, find some other place to hide, get away. Then I began to hear shoes on the old, creaky wooden floor. The sound growing stronger, closer, with every step taken. My last thought of escape melted away. I couldn’t get out of this room, I began to breathe heavily, fear clouding my mind. I looked around for a place to hide, anything. But no, there was nothing, only a random assortment of children's toys strewn about the floor. The door swung open, revealing my attacker. A knife glimmering in the palm of her hand. I let out a loud scream as she barrelled towards me. She grabbed me and jabbed the knife in the direction of my body. I screamed shrilly and allowed my body to drop to the ground. I lay on the ground, trying to make my body as limp as possible. I tried to make my breaths inaudible so they would go unnoticed. I slowly closed my eyes and tried to make it look like the life had left my body. I tried to make it seem like I was dead...

CUT! I opened my eyes only to see a video camera looming above my face, trying to capture my every emotion. I sat up and grinned, looking up at the faces of my little brother, my friend, and her younger brother. “Did we do it?” I asked them, “Did we finish the movie?” Everyone clapped and nodded their heads. We were done. I pulled the fake knife from the crook of my arm and set it on the floor beside me. It was the coolest of our props that we used to film our homemade “movies.” This particular movie that we were making was called Death House, which my character was actually killed in, but we had many more plays and movies. The themes that our nine year old minds conjured up for these stories often had to do with some sort of horror or mystery. The four of us, my brother, my friend, and her brother, often got together and just brainstormed all of the different ideas we had come up with for possible story lines. Sometimes we even reenacted musicals, though we did not actually have the talent to create our own songs, we did love performing Hairspray. The four of us always performed Hairspray for our babysitters. And though none of us could actually sing, or dance for that matter, they always loved watching it.
So there you have it, our captivating stories. But with these homemade movies also came our big hopes and dreams. The four of us always imagined becoming famous together. My friend always said that someday we were going to send all of the plays and movies we had created to her uncle who produced movies in Hollywood. Her uncle was then going to produce them and they would play in movie theatres world wide. We would be famous, together.

When I was young I always thought that everything in the world was in my grasp, that I could do anything if I really tried. That's what makes a child so naive; they do not know the complications with the world around them. As you get older, you bare witness to the harsh things of life and you realize that everything is simply harder than it looks. With my brother, my friend, and her brother, we created many, many plays and movies together. Some somewhat successful and others that ended up forgotten in the blur that is called childhood. We ran to each others houses every day and planned what our next performance was going to be.
I can recall many more memories of the simple hopes and dreams of my childhood, but making movies with my friends stand out the most. It have left an imprint on my life that can never be replaced. Creating homemade movies has actually shaped my life into what it is today. I am interested in acting and writing; they are a passion of mine. Whenever I do these things, I always have a strange feeling at the back of my mind that tells me, this is what it felt like when I was younger, when I had that hope and love for everything, when I thought that anything was possible if I try hard enough. I never want to lose that feeling, it makes me feel young again. It fills me with the simple happiness and joy of being a child.