Formidable | Teen Ink

Formidable

January 20, 2017
By Zantra, Palm Desert, California
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Zantra, Palm Desert, California
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My friends had convinced me to do something stupid...again. This time they were planning to spend the night at the famous haunted house at the end of Cherry Brook lane. The reason why it was haunted, was because a couple years back some kids had spent the night there as a joke, and in the middle of the night the neighbors heard screaming, and called the cops. All of the kids were found hiding in the woods behind the house, except for one, the one who had been screaming, he went into that house and never came back. The ones who did come back refuse to talk about it to this day, because apparently whatever they had told the cops, had been so crazy, that they dismissed it as shock and said that they forced the memories out of their heads out of fear. She heard her phone ringing and answered.
“Hello?”
“CLEO! Guess what?!” It was Jessica, one of my best friends since the age of 4. I had met Jessica at my daycare, when she had walked over and kicked over my  tower of blocks, and I had started crying.
“What?” I asked wincing at Jessica’s yelling.
“I convinced Jackson to give us $100 each if we spent the whole night there!” She yelled again making me go practically deaf in my ear.
“How the hell did you manage that? Jackson may be rich, but he’s cheaper than my mom” I told her.
“I’ve got my ways don’t you worry ‘bout a thing hun” she said. I could practically hear her smirking at the other end.
“Uh uh?” I said “Sure you do, anyways I’ve gotta go now i’ll meet you later, at 11 right?”I asked glancing at the clock, 9:30 glared in red back at me.
“Yup 11 o’clock on the dot. I’ll call Caleb and remind him not to forget about it” she responded
“K, don’t forget to remind him to bring his head too” I said joking. Jessica and I had met Caleb when we were both in 3 grade, and was the perfect mix of a jock and a nerd, with the whole broad shoulders and tallness build, but was surprisingly smart, but would probably forget his head if it wasn’t attached to his body.
“Haha k bye!” she said
“Bye” I said hanging up.
This wasn’t the first time, but I wasn’t supremely excited about having to sneak out of the house again, especially after how much trouble I got in the last time. Though this time I was determined not to get caught. I waited until I was sure my parents were asleep then I gathered my backpack filled with things like water, snacks, a flashlight, matches, and anything else I thought I might need. I met Jessica at her house, which was a couple of houses down from mine.
“You’ve got everything?” I whispered
“Yup, you?” She asked
“Yup” I responded
We started walking down the street until we heard a loud noise like someone had slammed into the wall of their house. We froze.
“What was that?” Jessica asked, fear on her face.
“I don’t know” I stopped i had glanced over my shoulder at the sound of panting and saw the neighbors mastiff had gotten out. It growled at us and Jessica squealed when she turned around and saw it. I saw it start to run towards us. We had maybe 20 feet between us and the dog, but it wasn't enough.
“RUN!” I shouted. We bolted. We ran as fast as we can down the street, and we still couldn't shake the thing.
“Jump over that fence!” Jessica said I looked to where she was point and saw her pointing towards a tall metal fence that separated the backyard of someone's house from the front yard. We ran over with the dog gaining on us, and I boosted her up over the fence, and got over myself just in time to avoid being bitten.
“Omg that was terrifying” Jessica exclaimed gasping for breath, and staring at the dog growling at us through the fence.
“Ya, no kidding” I said “We could have been gotten caught by it ,and kissed that money goodbye” I said laughing.
“Pfft ya it would have been gone faster than you could say dog, anyways we should probably go meet Caleb now” Jessica said
“Ya lets go before we get caught” I said glancing at the dark windows of the house beside us. I thought I saw the curtains twitch so we hurriedly left and after walking for a bit met Caleb in front of the house on Cherry Brook Lane.
“Yo” he said as we walked up
“What’s up?” i asked “where's your stuff?” I asked noticing he wasn't wearing a backpack or anything.
“It's in the house already, the door was unlocked so I just dropped my stuff off in the living room.” His dark brown eyes glittered with excitement as he raked his hand through his dirty blond hair. His pale skin flushed at the sight of Jessica, he has had a crush on her for the longest time, but Jessica had no clue. Though if you saw her, you couldn't exactly help falling for her. She not only had an outgoing personality that attracted everybody, it didn't help that her wavy brown hair framed a perfect face that had blue eyes and full lips.
“Let's go inside then” she said pushing past me and walking up to the house. We followed her up to the door and slowly started walking in. The place was dark with cobwebs everywhere, dust covered every inch of furniture in sight, it was exactly like how you would expect a haunted house to be.
“This place is creepy as hell” I whispered glancing around
“Ya no kidding” Caleb responded “I feel like something is gonna jump out at me any moment”
“Way to soothe the nerves” Jessica said sarcastically glancing around in fear
“Ya I don't think anything can calm the nerves now” I said half-jokingly. We heard a thump come from upstairs followed by a quiet groan.
“Someones up there!” Jessica whisper shouted terrified now, eyes wide
Caleb had a hard set to his jaw as he walked to the base of the stairs. “I’ll go check it out”
“We’re coming with you” I said stubbornly “We’re not going to let you go up there alone”
Caleb glanced back and knew he couldn’t convince me otherwise so instead he said “fine but follow behind me”
Jessica clutched my arm and we slowly walked up the stairs, dust billowing up from the ground with every step, and the stairs creaking, creating a haunting sound. We got the top of the stairs and stared down the dark hallway. The tapestries were thick with dust, and there was one door that was at the end of the hallway with a strange blue light that was being emitted from underneath the crack in the door. Caleb slowly shuffled towards the door breathing hard with us following close behind. As soon as we got close to the door we heard a splash come from inside the room.
“What the hell was that? Is there water in there?” Jessica asked
“I don’t know” I said.
“Well we need to find out” Jessica said “Caleb knock down the door”
He looked at her incredulous “Really? You want me to knock down the door?!”
“Just do it” I whisper shouted. He gave me a look that clearly said You’re crazy but backed up to do it anyways. He ran at the door head on and then turned to slam his shoulder into it at the last second, the door broke and he went flying into the room. Jessica started laughing as we walked into the room. Caleb was flat on his back spread eagle on the ground.
“Idiot you went flying” Jessica said laughing
“I’d like to see you try and knock a door down” Caleb said
Jessica kept laughing until she stopped so suddenly that I looked to see what she was looking at. There was some sort of pool in the middle of the room, that looked like it was literally built into the floor but not a drop of water was dripping out of it anywhere.
“Woah” I exclaimed “What in the world is that?”
“Looks like some sort of pond or pool” Jessica exclaimed curious
“I wonder what's at the bottom of it?” Caleb said with a mischievous grin at Jessica as he walked to the edge of the pool and looked down. “I can’t see the bottom”
“Don’t you guys even dare” I said to both of them with the sternest voice I could muster
They completely ignored me grinned at each other, looked back at me, and jumped. My thought process went a haywire, my thought process went a little like this

Those idiots
I can’t believe they would do that
Idiots
They’re gonna get hypothermia
Idiots
Wait! They’re gone
Did they swim down?
What if they’re drowning!
Omg they’re gonna die!
What do I do?!

So me being the third idiot in the group, jumped in after them to try and save them. I don't know what i expected, maybe some magical gateway where I appeared on the other side, but no. It was freezing. Freezing and wet. I floated for about 10 seconds before I started to run out of air, so i tried to swim up. But instead of going up, I started sinking. I panicked and started struggling even harder to go up, but it just made me sink faster, and I was running out of air. Fast. My heart pounded, using what little air I had left in my body to keep me awake, because blackness started creeping in around my eyes. I was going to drown and there was nothing I could do about it. My thoughts raced to all the things I still hadn't done in my life yet, and my friends who were probably already dead. I pumped my legs as hard as I could with one last surge of energy but only succeeded in sinking farther, the bubble of light from the top of the water slowly growing dimmer. I reached my hands up above my head, getting nothing but water. I could hold my breathe no longer, and the last thing i saw was a stream of bubbles slowly floating away from my head as i passed out deep down in the cold dark water



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