Trapped

After literature was over, it was lunch time. Both Gia and Bryan were quiet the whole way to the cafeteria, I was too. When we sat at our table, they both looked at me seriously.

"Girl, we know something's up. What happened? Is your mom okay?" asked Gia following by Bryan's energetic nod.

"Um, my mama's fine, guys. You don't have to worry bout her." I said nervously.

"Then what is it that's bothering you?" Bryan asked.

I fished for words but again, couldn't find any.

"Is it something worse?" she asked.

I could never hide anything for a long time from my friends so I slowly let the truth out.

"Ok, so I'm not sure if you'll believe me but I used the elevator to get to the 5th floor cause I was too tired to walk all the way up the stairs but the elevator wasn't working right. It went to 2nd floor instead and before the school bell rang, I saw a um...a figure that wasn't a human."

They both stared at me, then they glanced at each other with a new look that I couldn't understand, they looked at me and at the exact same time and said "Oh."

The rest of the day went by slowly as both Gia and Bryan didn't talk to me, I wondered why. Did they know something about it? I wanted to ask but I was too scared to know myself.

It was the end of school, I slowly walked out, being pushed the rest of the way by the excited students ready to go home. When I finally got out of the rush, I tried looking for Gia and Bryan but I couldn't find them. Suddenly, I felt someone pulling my arm, I back to see Bryan smiling his toothy smile along with Gia standing next to him.

"What happened? You guys seemed a little down after I told you about...you know, do you actually believe that it's real? It's just what it looked like but-" I stopped halfway when Gia interrupted.

"Look, that figure you saw...it might be...well, a ghost.."

"What? No, it can't be, ghosts aern't real, right?" I asked, utterly confused.

Both of them were quiet.

"You guys are just pulling my leg...right?"

"Let's go to the treehouse and we'll tell you more about it." Gia said.

Treehouse

Bryan had a treehouse installed in his backyard when he was 5 as a birthday gift from his parents. So ever since we became friends with him, it became our special hideout.

Once we got settled with some snacks, Gia started explaining.

"So...around 10 years ago, Mohr International School...well our school had many students as well as teachers. Among the teachers was-"

Bryan interrupted, "-Mr. Johnson who was a science teacher, many of the students who were there at the time really liked him. He had a child himself, a boy who was...I think 5 years old."

"Yeah, he once wanted to be a scientist but unfortunately only made it as a teacher. He seemed nice charming but things started taking a down hill when his wife got pregnant with a second child, he didn't earn enough for them to be a family of four." said Gia.

Bryan continued, "So...he started working on some weird theories about communicating with the dead, he believed it was possible. He thought that he should first present his idea to the school before trying to make it a start to a new career."

"But even though he gathered as much evidence as he could to make his theory seem possible, nobody believed him and said it wasn't related to science. I guess the more people denied him, the more determined he became. In the end, they ended up having the baby 2 months before the actual due date and...well...."

There was a pause.

"Well, what?" I asked, curious.

Gia continued, "Um, the baby passed away the same day, they say it was because it wasn't pulled out the right way and got choked. When it was taken out, it was barely breathing but didn't get the right amount of oxygen in time. The gender of baby was a female I think but it's not confirmed. Unfortunately, that wasn't the end, the mother fell ill after that, and died a few days later."

"It broke him, he started blaming himself and their deaths made him even more determined to prove his theory."

Bryan continued, "But...later on, he started bringing those who had faith in his theories as test subjects, but one night, things went terribly wrong when he sneaked into school with his test subjects at night to use the equipment from the lab without the school's permission and he started a fire, nobody knows how, though. All the test subjects including Mr. Johnson died, it's actually sort of a mystery, since it seemed like they could've escaped it in time but the police covered up everything and told everybody that they just died because of the fire."

"Wait, then what happened to the child who was left, did he die too?" I asked.

Gia and Bryan both looked down.

"Don't tell me he died too...", I muttered, and for some reason, I felt tears filling my eyes.

"No, actually he's still alive." Gia said.

"Wait, really?"

"Yeah, the night his father died, their neighbors were babysitting him. Their names were Mr. and Mrs. Allen, they didn't have kids at the time so I guess they were happy to adopt him.

Allen...that's familar.

"Where's he now?"

"The Allens had a kid, a son, 10 years later, after a few years, their adopted son moved to a nearby town for college."

"Oh, I hope he's doing okay then, but also I forgot to ask what were him and his brother's name?"

"Um...his name is Richard Allen and his brother...the younger brother's name is...Jackie Allen."