When I woke up on Friday the 13th of November, I expected it to be a normal day. I would just sit at home playing on my phone like always, but I was way off. I walked downstairs to get some breakfast and chat with my sister Lola. Here’s the weird thing… Lola wasn’t there. She was always awake way before me, so I ran up to her room, but she wasn’t there. I called her and listened to my yell echo across the house. I thought that she might have taken my dog Lily for a walk, but I could sense something was wrong. I tried not to think about it and I sat on the couch waiting for her to get back, but she never came. I waited there for hours and hours until I finally thought that I should call the police, but right when that thought occurred to me, I heard the door creak open. It was my sister, out of breath and panting.
“Conner!” She gasped. “You will not believe what just happened! I was taking Lily for a walk, and then I saw something moving in the graveyard! I walked into the graveyard, and one of the graves had something written in a different language. I looked up closer and realized it was written in Arabic. I took my phone out and took a picture so I could show you. It said أدخل إذا كنت تجرؤ which translates to ‘Enter if you dare’. I said it out loud while trying to decipher what it meant and the grave opened up, turning into a door! I wanted to go in but I got spooked because I heard something talking in there, and then I saw it walking towards me, so I ran as fast as my legs could carry me.”
I stood there for a while just staring at her in awe. Was this some kind of sick joke? Was she just trying to creep me out? I didn’t know what to think so I just said “Are you okay?” and she looked at me as if I commited a crime.
“You think that I’m lying, don’t you?” She accused. “You think that this is just a joke! You know that I hate running and wouldn't do it just to prank you! I'll prove it to you! We are going back to that graveyard, and going inside the grave to find out what's inside of it! Are we clear?”
Lola looked so angry, that I was afraid to say no, so I said “Um, if you say so,” and that was when our adventure began.
Lola ran upstairs to her room to pack while I just sat there thinking about what I had just gotten myself into. When Lola ran back down she had a backpack for her and one for me too. She had made a list and started to read off the items that we needed.“Water bottle?” She asked.
“Check,” I replied.
“Protein bars?”
“Check.”
“Flashlight?”
“Check.”
“Batteries for the flashlight?”
“Check.”
“First aid kit?”
“Check.”
“Walkie-talkies?”
“Check.
“Okay, I think that's all we need.”
We set off on our journey to the graveyard, leaving Lily at home. When we got to the graveyard, I immediately knew what Lola was talking about. The grave was mysterious and had symbols written on it. Almost immediately Lola said “Enter if you dare.”
I stared in amazement as the grave slowly turned into a door, and watched as Lola crawled into it. She looked back at me to see if I was coming, so I crawled in after her. Eventually, the tunnel turned into a huge chamber. There was a sign that said غرفة الموتى . Lola studied it for a while, and then said “It says, ‘The Chamber of the Dead’.”
I looked at her, and then said “How do you know Arabic?”
“I studied it in school,” she said.
She walked over to a white desk that had an Arabic map on it. She stared at it in horror. “What?” I asked.
“Don’t you see? This place is called The Chamber of the Dead and this desk is made from human bones!” Lola explained. “There’s another sign over there that says لا الإنسان جعلت من أي وقت مضى على قيد الحياة which translates to ‘No human has ever made it out alive’! Conner we have to get out of-”
“Crash!” It took us a moment to figure out what just happened, for it to sink in, but once we found out what happened we panicked. Lola had started to cry, and I was pacing around the room. We were trapped! The gate that let us through the tunnel had collapsed, and the tunnel was no longer escapable.
“Lola, settle down. We have to find a way out, and crying won't get us out,” I told her. “So come over her and help me look.”
Lola walked over to me, and we looked around the room for some way of getting out. We tapped around the walls until I heard Lola let out a shriek of excitement. I whipped around to see what had happened, and I saw that she found a secret door. We walked into it, knowing it was just leading us further in, but it was our only choice.
When we walked into that door, we didn't know what to expect, but it was horrible. Skeletons were roaming around the place, some with humans slung over their bony shoulders, others guarding more doors with a dead look on their face. Lola and I looked at each other with fear in our eyes as we decided what to do. There were three entrances, a narrow one, an entrance filled with spikes, and a tunnel that looked perfectly safe. We snuck past the skeletons that were guarding the doors, and went through the last tunnel. Once we were in the tunnel, we started to second guess our decision. Every few steps we took, we heard a cry for help. I was about to turn around, and go the other way, but I saw an opening in the tunnel that meant I was through it. We climbed out of the tunnel to find two more tunnels that were identical to each other.
“Okay,” Lola said breathlessly. “I’ll go right, you go left. Okay?”
“Sounds good,” I agreed. “If anything goes wrong though, use the walkie-talkie. Okay?”
“Got it.”
We went our separate ways, and hoped for a sign of getting out. As I walked through this tunnel, I noticed something felt different about it, it felt… safer, and it felt like I was going the right way. I kept walking on the path, until I was positive it was the right one. I was in high spirits, and had completely forgotten about Lola by this time. This happy moment ended for me very quickly though. I heard a blood piercing scream coming from where Lola was. I yanked out my walkie-talkie, and said, “Lola! Are you okay?”
I paused for a moment, waiting for a response, but soon the eerie silence that filled the chamber turned into static, coming from my walkie-talkie. I ran back through the tunnel that I came through, and before I knew it, I was back to the place where we split up. I ran down the tunnel that she went through, looking for my sister. I stopped, and looked at the scene. Tears filled my eyes as I looked down on my sister’s lifeless body lying on the ground. I didn’t want to believe what I saw, but it was the truth, the hard and painful truth. Everything around me seemed to be evaporating right before my eyes. Everything was spinning around so fast. I tried to gasp for air, but nothing happened. My feet were stuck to the ground, and I couldn’t breath, and then, everything went black.
I woke up gasping for air, and panicking.
“Connor! Connor! Come on! Wake up! We’re going to be late for school!” Someone told me as they shook me awake.
I opened my eyes, and looked up to see my sister, standing in my room, with her backpack slung over her shoulder.
“Lola?” I asked.
“Get up so you can get to school,” She told me.
I got up and started to get ready for school so I wouldn’t be late. Once I was ready, I looked at my calendar, and found that today is Friday the 13th of November. I walked outside, and found Lola out there, waiting for me.
“Hey, while you were inside, I couldn’t help but notice that spooky graveyard over there.” She said pointing to a graveyard with a peculiar grave in it. “After school, let's go in it, and see if anything spooky happens in there, since it’s Friday the 13th.”
I looked at her, with fear in my face.
“What?” She asked.
“I'll explain on the way to school.” I told her, as we walked off to school, wondering what would happen after school.