The Haunted House - By Aedlycia (My School Yearbook Project)

In my previous post, I shared my non-fiction article that I submitted to my school's English Department. In this post, I'll be sharing my fiction article. I originally wrote this when I was 8 years old, and decided to just edit it for my entry, since I'm very fond of this story. So here's "The Haunted House" by yours truly:

The Haunted House

By: Aedlycia

The only sources of light that lit the night came from the dim streetlights and the faint moon peeping behind the dark clouds. I stood in the corner of an unknown street but as I started walking, I saw a sign that read; '50th Bizzaro Street 9th Avenue'. Shadows lurked the street with not a soul in sight. I followed the path on the street and it led me to an abandoned and uninhabited house. The house looked very old, creepy and eerie. Its exterior seemed ancient and morbid. It had shattered windows and a dusty, rickety door that was covered with cobwebs in every corner. I could spot ravens croaking and hovering just above the rooftop of the house; some were perched atop the branches of an aged, spooky dead tree from a nearby graveyard that would scare the living daylight out of anybody. On the foyer of the house, there lay a rocking chair that creaked gently in the breeze. The house had a brown thatched roof that, in the eyes of the beholder, looked quite slippery and hard to climb.

I felt as if an invisible hand was hauling me into the house, like a fisherman reels in his catch. The door suddenly open with an ear-splitting gust of wind gushing through. The invisible hand then shoved me into the house and I heard the door snap shut behind me. I was trapped. There was some kind of energy, however, that made me walk straight into the house. I found myself standing in a cold and unlit living room. In this situation, ghosts and ghouls may even appear suddenly right before your eyes to give you a fright and then straight away disappear into the dark, but luckily there were none. Other than old furniture, there were some old and torn pictures on the walls, perhaps of the people whom occupied the house in the past. I felt like the eyes on each picture were fixated on me. The house had thick walls, preventing people from hearing the screams of those who entered.

Suddenly, I heard voices chanting. It was so mesmerising; the chants burrowed holes inside my brain. Hypnosis, I told myself. I glanced at a headless mannequin nearby, cocooned in spiderwebs. In one vacant room there stood an old grandfather clock, standing alone in the middle of the room with its hands pointing at 12 o’clock. Then, I saw a horrifyingly disfigured woman who had mysteriously appeared. She stared down on me. “Hello, child!", she cooed. She then started to chant. It was her who was chanting all along - a mantra that I could not understand, and that terrified me. Her voice was uncannily hypnotising, leaving me gaping at her with an unreadable expression on my face. I tried to scream, but nothing came out of my mouth - I was paralysed.

As I stood frozen, I saw a man chained to a chair in one room that appeared to be a science lab. There was a strange helmet on his head, attached to the chair by wires. Again, I could hear the woman chanting. Then, she removed the helmet and put on some oddly oversized gloves with queer little balls on it, which she fished out of the dust-caked desk drawer that had a bloody skull attached to its handle. She rubbed her gloved hands all over the man’s face, making him tell her everything he knew. I was confused; was this house haunted or was this woman just… strange? After that idea entered my head, suddenly I collapsed onto the ground and my eyes fluttered shut.

As the grandfather clock chimed, I stirred back to life. But I did not remember anything. I fell on top of a trap door made out of decaying old wood. I tried to escape. I opened the trap door, revealing a secret tunnel. I clambered through the tunnel, fighting my fears of spiders, bats and the dark. The tunnel had the rotting stench of death and decay as it led me out to the graveyard. I found a path that led back home; my only goal was to go home. Once I reached home, I felt relieved that I was free from that horror of a house. That was when I found out that the abandoned, uninhabited house was haunted and the rumours were true. There was one legend which said that those who entered the house would be possessed by the ghost of its deceased owner. Upon exit from the house, they will be haunted by the owner’s ghost. Enough about the legend; only the most daring and courageous would enter the house.

So, do you like it? I really hope the Department will publish my article - any one of them!

XOXO

Aedlycia