Whisper

As I’m walking down the hall of the mansion with Annie and Shoyo, my best friends, I hear a strange noise. I’m the only one able to hear it. It sounded like another whisper. I keep hearing them. I got goosebumps from head to toe. “I’ve heard that one before…” It sounded familiar to me. Too familiar... I heard another whisper, and then another one right after that one. This went on for a few minutes. I started to get cold and shake. It started to hurt. It was like nothing I’d felt before. It felt sinister. My head started to pound and my heart was beating NASCAR fast. I felt as if I was ready to die. At one point, Annie must have seen my discomfort, because I felt a tap on my shoulder. Annie and Shoyo were looking at me with a scared look on their faces. “I’m fine,” I assured them, “It’s stopped now anyways.” They gave me a look that reeked of disbelief. I was telling the truth, though. It just stopped. All the whispers, and the effects it had come with. We kept walking along the mansion for around 30 minutes or so, when all of a sudden, the lights went out. It was pitch black. I had to use my hearing to get around. I felt along the walls as I moved to the right of my 2 classmates. I listened for footsteps or some sort of movement.

I didn’t hear anything. Just, silence.

It wasn’t natural. This amount of silence without even whispers was new to me. My ears began to blare with ringing due to the silence.

“BANG”

I let out a slight scream when I heard the loud crashing sound. “It came from my right.” I suddenly got a sinking feeling in my stomach. “Annie and Shoyo! I have to make sure they're OK!” I rushed to the sight of the crashing sound as fast as I could. I wasn’t able to see. I was blind in the pitch dark corridor. I rounded a corner, only to hit a wall in a dead end. “Did I make a wrong turn?” I thought to myself. “If so, when?” I think back and retrace my steps. After following my footsteps back to the corridor, I make my way back more carefully. When I arrive, it’s the same dead end. I stood there, puzzled, for a while. Before I could come up with any sort of thought as to why this was happening, I heard a deafening scream. Shortly followed by a second. My heart stops. I can’t breathe. It was Annie and Shoyo.

I bolt after the sound, not knowing where to go. I simply followed my ears to where they lead me. It took me left, then right, then back around again. After a few minutes of running around, my lungs began to hurt. They stung sharper than anything I’ve felt before. I was exhausted, but I had to keep going. After a while, I stopped. I reached where I was meant to go; or so I thought. I was back. Back at the wall. The dead end. I began to panic not knowing what to do. Then, as if summoning me, I heard a whisper. It was a new voice; a soft, almost silent voice. It was so quiet I had to cup my ears just to hear a few words. “Break… wall… save… yo-.. -ends…” I had heard just enough to figure out what I had to do. I had to break down the wall in front of me. I began feeling around for something I could break the wall down with. I found some sort of metal plating on a nearby table. “This should be sturdy enough.” I thought to myself. I made my way back to the dead end, and braced myself. I crouched into a pose suited for destruction, my hands gripped around the plating, feet in an almost animalistic pounce stature. I lunged at the wall, and sure enough, it broke. “It was just drywall?” I pondered. It wasn’t the time to think of that right now. I need to save my friends. Without another thought, I stepped through the hole I had previously made. My eyes were greeted with a bright light, so bright, in fact, it hurts to keep my eyes open. When my eyes finally adjusted, I saw it. There, in the corner of the room, was Annie and Shoyo.

They were both unconscious. I carefully made my way over to them, and checked their pulses. “They’re still alive.” I sighed in relief. We needed to get out of here. Attempting to lift them up, I began to make my way out of the mansion. We made our way past the dead end I had previously broken into, the maze which contained the dead end and secret room, and finally the halls where we had started. Finally, we had reached the door. The exit. The way out. I put my hand on the handle of the door, and pulled. The door opened with a screech. As soon as we stepped out of the mansion, the whispers had all stopped. The uneasy feeling I had was gone. We were free. Annie and Shoyo were OK, and I had only a few scratches. I closed the door and wrote a warning with some rocks on the ground for any future guests: “DANGEROUS AREA. DO NOT ENTER.”

This was all 20 years ago. Annie, Shoyo, and I were all detectives. We haven’t stopped looking for whatever was causing this since then. 20 years later, though, we haven’t found anything. We finally decided to go back to the mansion, fearful of what it might bring. We got in the car, and drove to the mansion. But when we got there, my heart stopped. I could see that Annie and Shoyo were thinking the same thing as me. The door, the door which I had closed all those years ago, had been opened, the warning destroyed. Someone was in danger… Someone was, whispering.