The Other Options
By Angelic Demon Stories
Prologue
Odessa Ambrosia. When you hear that name, what do you think of? A college? A city? Greek gods and goddesses? Yeah, Ambrosia. That’s what the gods and goddesses drank. Plus, the Ambrosia made the gods and goddesses shiny and glowy and stuff. Odessa is also the name of a college and a city. My parents are kind of greek god and mythology freaks. So when I was born, they named me Odessa. I don’t know if Odessa was a name of a greek goddess, but I’m pretty sure it is. And my mom’s maiden name is Ambrosia. And my dad’s last name was Nelson. But he changed his last name to Ambrosia when he and my mom got married. Because it turns out that he was a greek mythology fanatic, too - like my mom! At least my brother is not into greek mythology, he’s into superheros and Star Wars. But me, I was always into something different, last week I was into Taylor Swift and this week I like this one show called Liv and Maddie. I also used to have a dog. Her name was Mia. She was an awesome dog, she never pulled on the leash when I walked her and she never chased my cat. Unfortunately she died from old age. My cat's name was Lily. She is the worst cat in the world! Whenever I tried to pet her she would run away. If I tried to pick her up, she would hiss and scratch me - then run away. So me and my mom returned her to the animal shelter. Now I don’t have any pets, just have my brother, Finn. He is named after a character in Irish mythology.
Now I have to tell you a story about what happened to me one day. I must tell you. Even though it is a scary story. I survived it, living through it, then you can survive at least reading it! So get ready to believe…
Chapter One
“Help! Help me!” I yelled as I ran as fast as I could down a long corridor. The corridor was in somewhat of a maze. And I was stuck in it.
I could only imagine what the thing chasing me would do to me if it caught me. Well, I didn’t even know what “it” was. I just knew that it was behind me, and getting closer. It didn’t look very friendly, either. When I first caught sight of it, I saw that it was big and hairy, and I was like, “So, you say you’re giving out free haircuts with that chainsaw in your hand? Well, you should get one yourself!”
I was starting to slow down, gasping for air. “Please!” I choked out. “Stop!” But it was no use. The thing was gaining speed, since we were now going downhill. This was a never ending game of tag. And the monster was “it.”
It felt like I’d been stuck in this maze for a month. But I knew it was only a couple of hours. A couple of hours… a couple of hours…
I was getting dizzy. The dark room was spinning, the chandelier was shaking and the floor was quivering. It looked like it would fall on me. I rushed out from under it. The thing? No such luck.
“Ughhhhh!” I heard a sickening cry. The chandelier had fallen on the monster. But, there was something familiar about the thing’s cry. It seemed like I had heard it from long ago.
“Let’s play, daddy!” three year old me exclaimed. “Okay, honey. What would you like to play?” A much younger than now dad asked me. “Horsey! Horsey! Ride horsey!” I yelled, and threw myself on my dad’s back. “All right. Horsey it is,” Dad smiled. He bucked his back and almost threw me off - gently, of course. “Again! Again!” I laughed. “One more time, sweetie,” then, dad stood up and danced around, with me on his back! “Fun! Fun! Yay!” I screamed with delight. Then it was my friends turn, my friend that had came over for a play date. “Can I do?” she had asked. “Sure,” my dad replied. And he did the same with my friend. Then, she fell off. “Ughhhhh!” she wailed.
Sorry. That was a flashback, from when I was about three. My friend had fallen off my dad’s back, and started to scream. That yell was the same cry of agony as the thing behind me had just uttered. I whirled around to face the monster, who, at the moment, was on the ground with a chandelier on top of it.
There was no way that I was going to stick around to find out if the monster was okay or not. I flew down the corridor, swerved around a sharp corner, charged up two flights of stairs, and came to a stop. Right in front of me, was a mirror. And in the mirror’s glass, I saw the monster. It must have been right behind me! I turned around, to face a certain death, but there was no one.
“Hello?” I called to eery silence. “Hello! Is anyone there?” I asked once more, but again - no answer. “Then how...” I stopped, and slowly turned around to face the mirror. “Then how was the monster right behind me?” I finished wondering aloud. Was I thinking clearly?
When I looked at the mirror again, my reflection was gone. In place of it, was the monster. “Okay. Where are you hiding?!” I yelled to no one. The monster was out of sight. But I still had questions.
How had the monster been right behind, but no one was there? And where was my reflection? “Aha!” I had a sudden thought. I turned around so my back was facing the mirror. And I craned my neck so I could see the mirror reflection and myself. And sure enough, there was the monster’s reflection. But no me. Also, the monster was doing the exact same thing I was doing. Facing it’s back toward the mirror. And turning it’s head to the mirror.
“What is happening?!” I yelled. I had no idea why the monster was copying everything I was doing. And I had no idea why the monster was invisible every time I turned around. “Okay. I’ve had enough of this! Where are you, monster… ish… um, thing? Where are you hiding? I demand to see you! This instant!” I stomped my foot for effect.
THUMP! I heard a loud noise and whirled around - to face nothing. Of course. “What was that noise?” I asked myself. There was an echo, and laughter rang in my ears. I had enough! I ran behind the mirror - and fell into a deep dark hole.
Chapter Two
“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh!” I shrieked. “Help meeeee!” I thought that I would eventually land somewhere. But I didn’t. I just kept falling and falling. And then, my feet hit a hard surface. “Huh?” I looked down. I was standing on somewhat of a rotating disk. Sort of like a giant frisbee I looked over the disk and down the hole. I couldn’t see the bottom.
But I decided to do the impossible. Well - not really impossible, that’s just one of my favorite phrases: “I decided to do the impossible,” that phrase sounds more dramatic than if I just say, “I was going to walk off the disk.”
I tried to walk to the end of the disk, but a deafening crash stopped me from doing so. “Ahhhh!” I screamed for what seemed to be the one hundredth time that day. A cage that had been hidden in the darkness had fallen on the edge of the disk! In the process, it had landed on my foot!
Pain shot up and down my leg like a confused race car. “Ouch! Ouch! Ouch!” I grimaced. How many pounds is that thing? I wondered, pointing to the cage sitting on the rotating disk that I was standing on. It felt like my foot was broken! I tried to put my foot down and straighten up. “Ow!” I yelled. I couldn’t even put any weight on it!
“This is gonna be hard,” I muttered. “Getting down from this disk. Finding my way out. Yep, it’s gonna be tough.”
All of a sudden my foot stopped hurting, now the confused race car had started the race again; in my leg! I pinched myself, to make sure I wasn’t dreaming. When I looked down in the dim light, there was fog drifting all around me. “How odd,” I said to myself.
I was definitely awake, though. On my arm was a throbbing red pinch mark, fighting to be seen through the fog. A stinging sensation zipped through my leg and foot. I could put weight on it again!
I tried inching off the other side of the disk, looking up every few seconds; in search of any more falling cages, coming down from the darkness. “No cages,” I reassured myself.
“Raaaaaaaurghhhh!” A roar echoed off the unseen walls. “Raaaaaaaurghhhh!” the cry of pure evil was right above me.
I was so surprised and frightened that I fell off the disk! “Aaaaaaaaah!” I screamed in terror, awaiting the death that was about to meet me. But surprisingly, I fell rather lightly on a bouncy surface. Sort of like a trampoline. It was pitch black down there, so I couldn’t tell.
“Raaaaaaaurghhh!” the cry seemed closer now. Sort of like it was inching it’s way closer to me, inching it’s way towards me, inching it’s way to kill.
I gulped, and ran blindly through the blackness. “Hello?” I whispered, of course there was no answer - I had whispered! So no one heard me, duh!
“Hello!” I yelled this time.
There was somewhat of a reply. “Solla hee. Ha keema. Lo potta,” a voice murmured somewhere.
“Hello?” I asked for the third time. It seemed like the voice that had talked to me was speaking in a foreign language.
“Solla, hee! Ha keema! Lo potta!” the words seemed distant, now. Further away.
“Solla, hee! Help me! Ha keema! Help me! Lo potta! Help me!” I could hear a faint cry for help.
“Is anyone here?” I asked, peering into the darkness.
“O-over here!” came a weak reply.
“Who’s there? I can help you!” I explained toward the direction of the cry. That’s when I tripped on a crack in the floor. “Owww…” I moaned weakly.
I woke to find myself in a large room with a dim light bulb hanging in the center of the ceiling. I got up and walked into one of the dark corners and stopped right before I walked right into a small girl.
Chapter Three
“Ahhhhhh!” I shrieked as I stumbled backwards sending myself crashing into the floor. “Who was that?” I asked myself.
“Me,” replied a faint voice.
“Who and where are you?” I asked with a hint of confusion.
“In the corner, where you just crashed from,” explained the little girl.
“Okay…” I trailed off. There was something suspicious about the girl. “Where’d you come from?” I asked her.
“Right here,” she gestured all around her. “I came from right here.”
“Where am I? Where are we? What is this place? Am I dreaming?” I asked, feeling a bit dizzy.
“What’s with all the questions?” the girl laughed. A nice laugh, not an evil one.
“Um, sorry. I’m just really confused. Can you answer my questions? Please?” I asked her, practically begging.
“Sure. Okay, so your first question; where are you? You are in a hole in the ground. Well, it’s more of a really long tunnel with disks, monsters, and a lot of things. I’ve been trapped in here for years. With food, of course. Clowns serve the food.”
“What?” I stepped back. “Clowns?!” I’ve had a fear of clowns since I was little.
“Yep. Clowns. Now, for question number two; you asked where are we. And that is basically the same question as what you asked before. So, same answer: in a long tunnel.”
“Okay…” I trailed off. “But how did I get here? How did you get here?” I asked. Now I was really confused.
“Um, question number three; what is this place. Uh, same answer, again. This place is a tunnel where clowns serve the food. Question number four. Are you dreaming? No. You are not dreaming. This is perfectly real,” the girl gestured around with her hands.
“Yeah, I get that,” I said, maybe sounding a bit too stuck up, because the girl looked a little hurt and she backed away until she was wedged in the corner, again.
“Oh, sorry. I was just answering your questions,” the girl said, looking down. “I thought you wanted to know. ‘Cause you asked them, ya know? So I was answering them.” And with that, the girl ran around me and into the darkness.
“Wait! Wait!” I called out to her. “Please, I have more questions to ask you! I didn’t mean to sound mean, I’m just so confused!” I took a deep breath. “Plus, when I get confused, I get annoyed. So I’m sorry I snapped at you!” I was desperate to get my questions answered. And all I wanted to do was to get out of this living nightmare!
I heard someone sniffle nearby. “Hello? Are you there, little girl?” I asked again.
“My name isn’t ‘little girl’! Please don’t call me that!” a voice came from the other side of the tunnel. The voice sounded like it had been crying.
“Okay, then what should I call you?” I yelled back, and my voice echoed off the unseen walls.
“My name is Annabelle! So please call me that! And I am in the corner. If you wish to find me.”
“Which corner, exactly? I mean, is there even a corner?”
“Yes, there are many, many, corners in this tunnel. Because it is not just a tunnel. It’s the basement of a very, very, large room. In a very, very, large house!”
“Huh?” Now I was the most confused I had ever been. I was in a tunnel in a basement in a house? When had I entered the house? Was this real?
Annabelle’s voice rang out again. “I’m in the corner across from you, in the dusty one!”
I groped my way along the indentations along the wall. It was dark and I couldn’t even see my hands in front of my face! “What are these hole thingies in the walls?” I asked Annabelle, who was apparently right across from me.
“Oh, those,” Annabelle said, like it was the most normal thing in the world. “They’re claw marks.”
“Claw marks?!” I shrieked and stumbled back. What were claw marks doing here? Along a wall?
“Yep. They’re from the monster. She was angry that day,” Annabelle explained.
I raised my eyebrows in disbelief. “Hey, Annabelle?” I called out to her.
“Yes?”
“How do you know the marks on the wall are claw marks?” I questioned, crossing my arms in the dim light from the lone flickering light bulb. I had walked closer to Annabelle’s corner, closer to the light.
“Um, I don’t know. I was just guessing. ‘Cause there’s a monster here, ya know?” she stammered. Now I could see her face. It was streaked with panic.
“Sure,” I could see that I had Annabelle in just the place I wanted; right where she would spill the beans on all the secrets she was hiding.
“Oh. Okay. Well, do you want me to, uh, come out of the corner?” Annabelle’s nervous voice asked me.
“Do whatever you want. But first, can you answer my two questions?” I asked smiling.
“Sure. I’ll answer your questions. But I never asked. What’s your name?” Annabelle wondered, her voice sounding more confident now.
My name? Uh, oh. She had asked my name! I decided to make up a fake name, just in case she was evil. “My name is Carly. Carly Johnson,” I lied.
“Okay. Hi, Carly. What are your questions? More questions on the tunnels? I can answer those. Well, let’s see. These tunnels are pretty old, and…” this Annabelle person was really good at changing the subject!
I interrupted her, “I don’t want to know about the tunnels. Okay? I want to know about the monster.”
Annabelle gulped. “Okay, sure. W-what do you want to know, um, about the m-m-monster?” Annabelle’s quivering voice stammered.
I breathed in slowly. “I want to know why you think that the monster made claw marks on the wall.”
“Um, uh, I don’t know. I guess that since there’s a monster here, that there would be monster evidence. So I’m guessing that the marks on the wall are monster claw marks.”
“Why do you think that the monster made the claw marks when it was mad? Because you said that the monster was angry that day, when it made the scratches. Why do you think that, Annabelle?” I raised my eyebrows, to show Annabelle that I was on to her.
“Well, the claw marks are all over the place, so I thought the monster might have been really mad or something, ‘cause she had claw marks on the walls, floors, and ceiling. It might have been having a tantrum,” Annabelle shrugged.
“But how would you know that the claw marks were on the ceiling, walls, and floor? There’s only one light bulb in this whole room. And you can’t see the floor that well, and you certainly can’t see the ceiling!” I proved.
Annabelle bit her lip in the dim light. “I did see ‘em. I did! The clowns have flashlights, ya know,” she said rather snottily.
“What clowns?!” I yelled.
Chapter Four
“The clowns that serve the food! The clowns that I told you about! Or were you even listening?” Annabelle curled up into an even tighter ball on the floor.
“Oh, yeah. That’s right,” I looked down at the floor. “But how do I know you’re telling the truth? How do I know that there are really clowns here?”
“Because!” Annabelle looked absolutely exasperated.
“Because why? I don’t know you at all, I just met you today! How do you expect me to trust you all of a sudden? I barely know you.”
Annabelle seemed to shrink back. “Well, you could trust me. I’ve been here way longer than you, ya know!”
This girl said the words, ‘ya know’ a lot. “Exactly how long have you been down here?” I asked, suspecting that she would tell me an unbelievable story. Maybe about how she’d been down here hundreds of years. Now that would be a total lie!
“About four or five years? I don’t really know, I might’ve been down here longer, though,” Annabelle shrugged her shoulders.
“Just as I suspected, an unbelievable thing to say,” I muttered.
“Huh? Did you say something?” Annabelle turned to me.
“Nope. But, before I forget, can I ask you my questions? That I was going to ask before you changed the subject?” I looked at her knowingly.
“Um, yeah. What do you want to know?”
“Why do you think that the monster is a girl?” I asked.
“Huh? What do you mean?” Annabelle looked confused.
“When you were talking about the monster having it’s tantrum. You said the monster was a ‘she’.”
“Oh. I just assumed that the monster was a girl. I guess maybe it might be a boy, but I thought….” Annabelle trailed off.
“You thought what?” I questioned her.
“I thought that it might be a girl monster because of the claw marks. I, uh, thought that they were more close together rather than a male’s claws would be,”
How did Annabelle know all this? “Annabelle, how do you know this much about monsters?” I asked.
She shrugged, and obviously, changed the subject.
“Um, do you need to know anything else? I can tell you kinda the history of these tunnels. Or something else?” then Annabelle started crying.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, bending down to where she was hunched in the darkness.
“It’s gone. It’s all gone!” she sobbed.
“What’s gone?” I didn’t understand.
“The dark,” Annabelle sniffled and covered her head in her hands.
“What do you mean? Are you talking about being in the dark?” I wrinkled my eyebrows in thought. Why would she be scared of the dark?
“No. I don’t care about being in the dark,” Annabelle crossed her arms.
“Then why are you crying, Annabelle?”
Annabelle sniffed again, rubbed her eyes, and scooted over to the dim light bulb. “I have to be in the light. Where they can see me,” Annabelle crossed her legs and sighed.
“Where who can see you?” I asked.
“They are evil,” Annabelle explained. “They put us here. They’re trying to kill us!” she yelled at me.
“Who are you talking about? Do you mean the monster?” I shook my hands in frustration.
“Yes! Of course I’m talking about the monster!” Annabelle said that like it was an obvious fact. “I saw the monster chasing you,” she said rather suspiciously.
“How did you see the monster chasing me?” I asked. How had she seen me getting chased by that hideous thing?
“Of course I saw you!” Annabelle smirked.
“Oh that’s right! You kinda live here. Right?” I smiled because I had finally figured it out.
“No. That’s not why I saw you. I wasn’t in this tunnel while the monster was chasing you,” Annabelle explained.
“Well then where were you? How’d you see me?” Guess what, I was confused again! Surprise, surprise.
“Because I am the monster!” Annabelle yelled. And with that, she morphed her features into the face of the monster. Then she changed herself into the monster. Her small face transformed into the scraggly face. Her light hair were curled, yellowing horns. Annabelle’s small kind eyes turned blazing red, with no pupils. Her petite frame was suddenly huge with scales and moldy orange-green fur. Annabelle had dripping fangs, and a snout with green slime oozing out of it. Her tail was like a dragon’s tail, long and scaly, but Annabelle’s tail had a blazing ball of fire at the end of her tail.
Chapter Five
“Ahhhhhh!” I screamed in horror. “Please don’t kill me!”
“Hmmm, my answer for that is yes. No. Maybe so.”
“Please!” I was up against the wall. “Please! Don’t you remember that when you weren’t a monster, you came to my house and rode on my dad’s back!” I pleaded with Annabelle, trying to make her remember the ‘good ol’ days.’
“Stop!” a non familiar voice yelled. The voice came closer and closer and then a person grabbed my arm. “We have to run!” whispered the strange person.
The girl who was now a monster, dropped dead. The fire at the end of her tail went out, leaving us in the darkness.
I was pulled away with the stranger who had made the monster stop like a deer in headlights, and die. “Why is the monster is dead?” I asked him.
“There is more!” he replied.
“What does that mean? What is more?” I asked, confused once again.
“Yes. There is more to what I am telling you. And they are coming for us!”
“Who are you?” I asked the stranger pulling me in tow.
“I don't know who I am,” the person said. I could tell the stranger was a male because of how low his voice was.
Now I was frustrated. “I’m serious! Who are you?” I said, raising my voice. We were now climbing a long flight of stairs, the hand railings had little light bulbs built into them, sort of like auditorium seats. I could see a little bit in the dim light, and on the walls next us, were very old portraits of stone faced people.
The stranger looked down at me, he looked about fifteen or sixteen. “It’s the truth. I don't know who I am!” he yelled at me.
I sighed, this was all part of a normal day for me! Being chased by a monster, seeing a girl - a former friend of mine change into a monster, being taken by a total stranger, and the stranger not knowing his name. All part of a totally normal day - NOT! “Well, I’ll call you Jackson. Because you look like the kind of person whose name would be Jackson,” I decided.
Jackson ran with me deeper into the darkness. “Okay, call me Jackson. I’ll try to remember to answer when you say the name Jackson. I’m not used to anyone talking to me, I’ve been alone all these years,” he smiled a weak, forced smile.
Wait, why was I trusting a total stranger? “Uh, Jackson?” I tapped him on the shoulder as we were running. Well, more like he was running and dragging me along.
“Yeah?” Jackson turned his head to look down at me, but just for a second. Then he had to look up again to see where we were going.
I gulped. Was he going to get mad at me? “How do I know that I can trust you? I mean, you did save me from a monster, but still!” I wasn’t sure if I could trust him or not.
“I did save you from a monster and I’m taking you away,” Jackson explained.
I gasped. “Wait, what? You’re taking me away? From what?!” I shrieked.
“More,” he said solemnly.
“More what? Why won’t you tell me?” I was getting really mad at this Jackson guy.
“The monsters. There are more of them… okay? So, just trust me. Or go back to the monster-girl and trust her. It’s your decision. Who do you wanna pick? If you pick me… then I will go to a random place. If you pick the monster, she will go to a random place,” Jackson said, rather out of breath. Then he let go of my arm and took off full speed into the deep darkness.
Chapter Six
As soon as Jackson disappeared, a glowing orb appeared in his place.
“How would I trust the monster? She’s dead, don’t you remember? Plus, would the random place be a good place or a bad place?” I called over to the Jackson/orb. I knew the monster was dead, I’d seen her drop dead. But… what if she had just fainted? Not died?
“The monster didn’t die! I shot her with a sleeping dart!” yelled Jackson. “I don’t know how long the monster will be asleep. It might be a few more minutes, or a few more hours. I also don’t know which spot is the good place, or the bad place!” Jackson must have cupped his hands around his mouth, because his voice sounded louder and clearer.
“Wait! Jackson! I don't know who to choose!” I yelled to the spot where he used to be standing, but now the orb was floating there.
“You have to choose me or the monster!” he yelled back.
“But if I choose you, then what?”
“I don't know! Just make your choice!”
I was sweating because if I chose Jackson, I could send him to a possible bad place or a possible good place. I didn’t want to send Jackson to a bad place, especially since he had saved me from the Annabelle monster. “I choose Jackson!” I yelled at the strange floating orb.
“Hee hee hee ha ha!” the orb cackled. Now the orb’s color changed from an army green to the face of the monster. “Ah!” I gasped and stumbled back.
The monster’s face swirled around and around in the orb. “You made the wrong choice, deary!” the Annabelle monster’s voice sounded like an old lady. “Jackson is now stuck in the Dungeon of No Return!”
I gasped again - it seemed like I was always gasping. “What? No! He can’t be stuck! How did he get there?”
The Annabelle monster’s face morphed into Jackson’s face. “Yoooou put meeee heeeere. Yoooou put meee in the dungeeeon of nooo reeeturn! It’s yooour fault!” he moaned.
“I have to save you!” I said, my voice panicky.
“There is no way - so give up!” Jackson’s features swirled back into nothingness, and then into the face of Annabelle, in her human form. “Sorry, you’ll never get your poor Jackson Wackson back, never ever,” she said in a whiny baby voice, talking to me like I was a really young kid.
“Never!” I screamed. “I’ll never ever give up! What did Jackson ever do to you? Huh, Annabelle? What did he do to you? Why’d he deserve that?” Now I was screaming at the top of my lungs. “Did he deserve that? Or did you just feel like doing that to an innocent person?” now my voice was hoarse.
“Nope. He deserved it,” Annabelle almost sounded nice, but then she turned back into the monster. “And I think that you deserve it too!” she roared.
“I deserve it? What did I do?” I challenged.
“You didn’t help me when I fell off your father’s back. Your dad helped me, you didn’t. Do you know what you did? You went to go eat a popsicle, that’s what you did!” and with that, Annabelle leaped out of the floating orb. As she was flying through the air, towards the ground, she turned herself back into the monster.
I jumped out of the way as Annabelle clawed the air, trying to rip me apart.
“See, you do deserve it! You’re going to go to the same place you sent your friend!” the monster yelled. Annabelle grabbed me, and in the process, scratched me with her long yellowish claws.
“Ha ha ha ha ha!” was all I heard as I was dragged away to a certain death.
“Wake up, hurry! Wake up! We don’t have much time,” someone whispered in my ear.
Chapter Seven
“What?” I squinted groggily up at a boy’s face.
“Wake up!” he yelled and shook me.
“Okay, okay! I’m awake!” I yelled at the boy. Then I realized it was Jackson. “Oh,” I said more softly, feeling bad for yelling at him. “I’m awake.”
“Good, because we need to get out of here, fast,” he replied, grabbing my hand.
“Why do we need to get out of here? Where am I? Where are we?” I asked, rubbing my eyes.
“We need to get out of here ‘cause the monster is coming back to kill you. And she’s probably gonna kill me, too.”
“Why would she wanna kill you? Hey, that reminds me, how’d you get out of the Dungeon of No Return?” I asked him.
Jackson wrinkled his eyebrows and let go of my hand, “Huh?”
“the Dungeon of No Return,” I repeated. “How did you escape? Remember, I trusted you, so you were sent to the Dungeon by the monster.”
“Oh, you mean that,” Jackson slapped his forehead. “I’m always forgetting things. It’s because of these tunnels. They take you memory away, and eventually they take your souls away from you, too,” Jackson explained.
“Oh my gosh! They take your memory and souls?!” I exclaimed.
“Yep,” Jackson pursed his lips. “So, I don’t remember how I escaped the… the Dungeon of No… unicorns?” he guessed.
“No, Jackson! The Dungeon of No… No… um, I can’t remember either!” I wailed. Now I knew that I had to get myself and Jackson out of these tunnels - and fast!
“It’s okay. Really, it’s okay. Um… oh no! I forgot your name - plus I forgot my name! What’s your name? Quick, tell me!” he sounded really desperate to know my name.
“Why do you want to know so badly?” I questioned.
“I don’t know, I mean, these days I feel like I don’t know anything,” Jackson muttered.
“Well maybe you didn’t forget my name. Maybe I just forgot to tell you. Yeah - that’s it! I never told you my name!” I exclaimed, suddenly relieved. Jackson wasn’t forgetting everything, I had just forgotten to tell him!
“I guess that’s possible,” Jackson pondered. “But it would be helpful if you told me your name,” he chuckled.
“Um, yeah. My name is… uh, my name is - I forgot my name, too!” I yelled.
“Shh! The monster will hear you, follow the noise, and kill us! I mean, you do realize that we are trying to get away from the monster - not attract it, right?” Jackson asked me.
“Yep,” I said sheepishly. “But what about my memory? Will I forget everything, too?” I was frightened that I would forget about my parents, my brother, my name, and my home. Then a flashback came to my mind.
“Oh!” my mood brightened. “My name is Odessa Ambrosia, that’s my name! I remember! Jackson, I remember my name! Yay!” I squealed.
Jackson covered his mouth and let out a weird sound, I knew he was trying to hold back a laugh.
I pretended to have my feelings hurt. “Jackson, you said you wouldn’t laugh,” I whined.
“No, no. You got it all wrong, Odessa. I was laughing at your squealing! I mean, I don’t think I’ve heard squealing before, and if I did, I wouldn’t remember it, ya know?” Jackson shrugged and smiled.
“Okay, I wouldn’t laugh, but we’ve gotta get moving if we want to lose the monster. Okay?” Jackson grabbed my hand again.
“Okay,” I agreed, nodding my head to emphasize my agreement. “But I never told you my name yet,” I bit my lip.
“Yeah you did, just now. Or did you? I don’t know, and I’m feeling kinda queasy. Ugh,” Jackson moaned and grabbed his stomach.
“Are you alright?” I asked, my eyes wide.
“Yeah, I’ll be fine. It’s just these tunnels. They not only take away your memory and souls, but they also make you sick in the process of taking them. It’ll happen to you, too. If we don’t get out of here soon, but I haven’t found a secret exit out of here, even though I’ve been here a while, I don’t actually don’t know how long, though. Have you found an exit?” he turned to me, but he faced nothingness. “Odessa?”
“Yep, ugh! Down here, oooohhhh…” I groaned on the cold, stone ground.
“Are you okay, Odessa?” Jackson reached down his hand to help me up.
“Yeah, I’ll be fine. It’s just like you said - it’s these tunnels.” My stomach, like Jackson’s, was churning like a garbage disposal.
“Do you think that I will ever see my family again... or find my name?” asked Jackson.
“Of course you will! Don’t be silly, you’ll find them,” I said. “Hopefully,” I whispered the last part.
Chapter Eight
“Maybe not,” Jackson brushed his shaggy hair out of his eyes.
“Jackson, we are getting out of these tunnels and we will find your family and your name! So let’s go!” I turned to him and smiled.
Jackson put a finger to his lips to remind me that we should be quiet.
“Oh, right. I’m forgetting things again,” I sighed.
“Yeah, that’ll happen. But how do you plan on escaping?” he cocked his head. “I mean, I’ve been in these tunnels way, way longer than you. And I’ve never even found any exits, so unless you have a special gift or something, I don’t think that we will be getting out any time soon.”
“Well, I think that we’ll need to find a trapdoor, they always have those in dungeons and scary movies,” I pointed out.
“But this isn’t a dungeon or a scary movie, it’s real life. But I guess this place could be considered a dungeon, maybe,” Jackson shrugged.
“I think we should look, just in case, right?” I raised my eyebrows.
“Okay then. If you think that’ll work,” Jackson said.
“Let’s split up. We’ll cover more ground that way, okay?” I looked at Jackson to see if he agreed.
“Okay, boss,” he joked and playfully saluted.
I rolled my eyes and smiled. “Wow, Jackson.”
Jackson walked in one direction and I got on my hands and knees and crawled around in the other. I moved my hands around the mossy, moist ground to try to find ridges, hinges, or anything else that seemed peculiar.
“Ah ha! Odessa, I think I found it!” Jackson exclaimed from the other side of the dark room.
“You did? Awesome!” I was suddenly relieved, we would be out of here soon! I ran toward the sound of Jackson’s voice, and bumped right into him!
“Oh!” he gasped in surprise and toppled backwards from the impact.
“Sorry, Jackson! It’s too dark in here. Are you okay?” I asked, extending my hand to help him up.
“Yeah, I think so,” Jackson brushed the dust and dirt off of his pants and sweatshirt.
“I’m really sorry,” I apologized again. “Where’s the trapdoor?”
“Right here, you see it? I was ripping the moss off and it was bronze underneath. I think it’s some sort of door or something,” Jackson explained.
I stepped closer to the spot where Jackson was pointing. “You mean that?” I asked, nodding to the bronze tube running up and down the wall.
“Yeah. What do you think?” Jackson ran his hand through his hair.
“Um, Jackson?” I smiled weakly. “That’s a plumbing pipe.”
“Oh, sorry,” he grinned sheepishly.
“No, no. It’s fine! I probably would’ve done the same thing. Saw a pipe, got so excited and thought it was something cool. Yeah, that's pretty much me in a nutshell. Don’t worry,” I patted him on the back and turned away to go back to looking for a hidden door.
“Hey, Odessa?” Jackson called over to me.
“Yeah?”
“Next time I’ll look more closely before I yell for you to come over. Okay?”
“Okay, sounds good,” I agreed and got back down on my knees. I crawled around, digging my fingernails under the moss, feeling for a hidden trapdoor. Suddenly, I felt something like metal. Upon closer inspection, it looked like a door!
Chapter Nine
“Yes! I think I found it!” I exclaimed.
“Are you sure?” Jackson asked, throwing a handful of dirt and moss over his shoulder from where he was digging.
“Yeah, I’m pretty sure,” I replied. “Come look at this!”
Jackson ran over to me and stooped over, squinting at the rusted silver patch on the ground.
“Yeah, it has hinges. It looks like a door, let’s try it!” he agreed.
I pulled on the raised knob. The door creaked, but it didn’t budge. “Jackson, can you help me?” I turned to him.
“Yeah, let me see,” he bent over even more and grasped the handle. “Uggghh!” he groaned with the weight of the door, it was lifting up, exposing the late morning light. “Help me, Odessa! Or I’ll drop it,” Jackson closed his eyes to concentrate on lifting the trapdoor.
I joined in, pulling, yanking and heaving. We strained with the weight of the hidden compartments’ lid. With a final burst of strength, the trap door opened with a puff of dust.
I was climbing out the trapdoor when my eyes were almost blinded by the sun “Look! Jackson, it’s the sun!” I smiled broadly.
“Yeah! I don’t remember ever seeing the sun!” he was so happy, he was practically glowing.
I almost screamed in excitement as I stepped on the perfectly green grass and breathed in the fresh air. “Hey, Jackson?”
“Yeah?” he cocked his head.
“Can I hug you? I mean - I am so excited I could just… kiss you!” but seeing Jackson’s bewildered face when I said the word ‘kiss,’ I just hugged him instead.
“Tessa, do you know where we are? Because my sense of direction has withered down into nothing when I was in the tunnles. So, do you know where we are? Tessa?” Jackson had said the name twice before I realized he was talking to me and had forgotten my name.
“Um, sorry Jackson, but my name is Odessa, not Tessa…” I trailed off, but then I realized where we were. “Wait! Jackson! I know where we are! This is my yard!” I exclaimed happily and took off towards the front door of my house.
“Sorry, Odessa. I - I just, can’t help it. The tunnels are eating my soul and memory.”
“That’s okay, Jackson, just try your best!” I called over my shoulder.
When I reached the door, I tried to open it. “Ugh, it won’t open! My mom and dad must not be home. Whenever they leave the house, they always lock the door. But I don’t know why they do that. Probably for safety and making sure that burgalurs can’t get in,” I explained.
“Oh,” Jackson said. “Try knocking, that usually helps,” he smiled sarcastically.
“Okay, smart boy,” I joked. “I’ll try that.” I raised my fist to the cool, white door. But, for some reason, I was afraid to knock.
“What’s wrong, Rosetta?” he put a hand on my shoulder.
I smiled. “My name’s not Rosetta, that’s the name of a fairy in Tinkerbell. At least, I think it is. I haven't watched Tinkerbell in a long time! My name is Odessa.”
Jackson blushed. “Oh, sorry. I guess the tunnels have done their thing. I just might keep forgetting forever! Unless…”
“Unless what?” I urged him on.
Jackson grimaced. “I don’t know! That’s the problem!”
“All right. I guess that’s fine. I’ll knock. Hopefully my parents will be home. Right?” I tried to sound optimistic, but most of the hope I had was gone.
“Right.”
I placed my hand against the door for the second time. My fear had drained out of me. I knocked, and the sound echoed around the house.
Jackson smiled encouragingly. “Your parents will probably answer soon. If they’re home - that is.”
I smiled back, a tight lipped smile. It was forced-a fake one. Somewhere in my gut, I knew my parents weren’t going to come. They weren't going to answer, because, they were gone.
“Jackson, there was no answer!” I explained to him.
“Oh, I’m sorry. Well, we can wait ‘til your parents get home from work,” he suggested.
I sighed. “That’s the problem!” I bit my lip. “My parents didn’t go to work today! It’s their day off!”
Jackson rubbed his forehead in thought. “Then where d’ya think your parents are?”
“I don’t know.” It was true, I had no idea where my parents could be.
“Then, we’ll just have to find out!”
Just then, the front door opened with a swoosh. Then slammed just again. It began doing that repeatedly. “Jackson?” I cried in a shrill voice. “What’s happening?”
The door opened and closed, this time, almost crushing my finger!
“Oh yeah, that always happens in the maze. So I’m used to it.”
I raised my eyebrows. “It always happens?”
“Yep.”
“Oh. Did the door ever slam on you? Like, hurt you?” I asked.
Jackson licked his lips, like he was nervous. “Um, once it did…” he trailed off. “But it’s a sore subject.”
“You can tell me. You know you can, Jackson,” I tried to sound soothing.
“Yeah, okay. It was a yellow door with a silver knocker. It started slamming and I tried to run through - real quick! But it slammed on my neck. I felt like I couldn’t breathe. I thought I was gonna die, and I was really scared. Then the door opened and I knew it was my chance. I still have the scar, wanna see?” Jackson finished explaining.
I wrinkled my nose. “Uh… sure,” I backed away a little.
Jackson pulled down the collar of his shirt, to reveal a long white scar.
“Ooh. Looks painful,” I said, pointing to his wound.
“Sometimes it is, not all the time. But now I know how to stop those crazy doors. Here, lemme do it,” Jackson pushed me aside gently. He whispered some strange words through the keyhole.
Chapter Ten
I jumped back. What would happen? Would something explode? Was Jackson some kind of wizard? Did he have magical powers?
A few moments later, my fourth question was answered. The door stopped it’s slamming abruptly.
“Whoa!” I uttered a cry and stumbled back.
Jackson smiled a toothy grin. “Don’t worry. There’s no reason to be afraid, Odette.”
I looked at him strangely. Sure, there was nothing to be afraid of: a monster that was trying to kill us, Jackson just talked to a door and it stopped slamming. Yeah, everything is perfectly normal!
“Jackson, my name is Odessa. Odessa, not Odette. Odessa, okay?” I breathed slowly through my nose. My plan wasn’t working-Jackson was forgetting more and more!
Jackson grabbed my hand, and pulled me through the door, into my house. I ran up the stairs, while Jackson stayed downstairs. I took a running start and leaped onto my bed. I immediately jumped off of my bedspread ; it was like hot coals. My bed was hard and it had red dots all over it . “What the heck happened to my bed?!” I yelled.
Then, I heard thudding footsteps on the stairs. Coming closer and closer to me. “What’s wrong?” asked Jackson, out of breath.
“Look at my bed!” I shrieked, but Jackson had never seen my bed before it was turned rock-hard and polka dotted.
“Cool bed spread. I’m likin’ the dots,” he flashed me a thumbs up, but when he saw my face, and realized I wasn’t happy, his face contorted into a look of concern. “What’s wrong?” he repeated.
I coughed and shook my head. “It used to be really soft, with a cloud themed bed spread. Not it’s as hard as a rock! And you can see, now this is the blanket.”
Jackson reached out his hand and gently placed his hand on my bed. “Oh, geez. It is hard!” he agreed. “What if the same thing happened to every bed in your house?”
“That would be bad,” I replied worriedly. “Let’s go check!” we exclaimed at the exact same time.
We ran into my and dad’s room and saw their bed in the exact same state that we left it. “I don’t understand,” I said, wrinkling my eyebrows. “How come my bed was really hard and polka dotted. And my parent’s bedroom was fine?”
“Where are your mom and dad? Didn’t you say that they were home?” Jackson was intrigued.
“I, I guess I was wrong. But if there’s no one here, then where are they? I saw both their cars in the garage, so they must be home, right?” I asked myself.
“Probably,” Jackson answered. “Hey, look,” Jackson pointed to my parent’s bed. There was no one there, I was confused. But then I saw two lumps; one on each side of the bed.
“Hello?” I said to the lumps. Of course, no one answered. I walked up to the bed and slowly lifted the covers, to reveal… “Ahhhh!” I screamed as I looked down at the two frozen monsters.
Chapter Eleven
Jackson came up behind me and put his hand on my shoulder, “It’s okay, the monsters are trying to trick you... I think. Yeah, I’m pretty sure the monsters are trying to trick us. I just realized why your parents aren't home. Do you have any siblings?” he asked me.
“Yeah. A brother, and an annoying one at that,” I replied. “Why?”
Jackson smiled a triumphant grin. “I knew it! The monsters are trying to trick you! This is a fake world, the real world, where you and your family lives, is on the other side.”
“The other side of what?” I inquired.
Jackson looked up at me. “The other side,” he repeated.
“Okay, then…” I trailed off. “Are you saying that these monsters aren’t real? And my family live in another world?”
“Well, the monsters right here, aren’t real. But the monster in the tunnel is real. The monster in the tunnel is really a girl named Annabelle. I used to be friends with her,” Jackson sighed.
“Yeah, me too. I used to be besties with her. She came over to my house a lot,” I was remembering the good ol’ times.
“We’re getting off track here, Amelia.”
‘Amelia?’ Where did he get the name, ‘Amelia?’ It didn’t even sound like ‘Odessa.’
I smiled weakly, “It’s Odessa, not Amelia.
“Oops, sorry Odessa. I’m forgetting things again… but we can’t get off track. We have to find the real Annabelle Monster! Okay?”
“Okay. But are these monsters real?” I asked him.
“No! I’ve answered that already!” Jackson exclaimed.
I could feel my face turning red. “Yup. I’m forgetting things too, Jackson. But can I touch the monsters?”
“No! I wouldn’t do that if I were-”
I poked the monster that was on my mom’s side of the bed. “Aaarghhh!” the monster screamed at me. I jumped back at least a foot.
“Really, Odessa?” Jackson half-yelled at me, “You had to touch the monster?!”
“Well, I didn't know!” I said in my defense. “You’re the one who told me they were fake!”
Jackson and I dashed out the doorway-away from the monsters. We ran down the stairs and skidded into the kitchen. “Jackson?” I gasped, out of breath.
“Yeah?” he panted. “What is it? Anything more important getting away from the Tyrannosaurus Twins?” he jabbed a thumb in the monster’s direction. They were darting toward us!
“I’m pretty sure they’re monsters. Some kind of hybrids, probably. Not dinosaurs!” I called over my shoulder to Jackson, who was still in the kitchen.
“Okay!” I yelled back in the loudest voice I could manage. I tried to run down the steps on the deck, down to the lawn, but I tripped and fell. The last sounds I remember are the breaking of a window and a cry for help…
“Ha, ha, ha!” I heard a wicked laugh from above me.
Without thinking I jumped and grabbed the rope that was hanging from the unseen ceiling. As soon as the rope came in contact with my hand, a thick metal strap latched around my hand and the rope started going up towards the ceiling; while my hand was still stuck!
Now I was far off the ground and couldn't get my hand out! When I thought about it it’s kinda good my hand was stuck because falling would not be good, especially at this height. Then, a platform came into view. It looked like a catwalk!
My feet touched the platform and my hand was released. “Hello, Odessa,” said Annabelle as she walked out of the darkness. Annabelle was in her human form, and creepily staring at me.
“How did you know my name?” I asked.
“Ha, ha! Don't you get it Odessa?” she laughed at me.
“Get what?” I asked. Was this really Annabelle, or was this another fake - like Jackson had said?
“You don’t get it. You are never getting out and you will never ever see the light of day for the rest of your life.” Annabelle crossed her arms triumphantly. “But that shouldn’t matter, now should it? Because you’re not going to live much longer.”
“Why are you doing this to me?” I asked her, a better question to ask would be “What are you going to do to me?”
“Don't you remember that day, Odessa?” Annabelle questioned, arching her eyebrows.
“What day?” I was seriously confused.
“Hmmm, let’s see…” Annabelle pretended to think hard about that time. “It was a day about nine years ago. Remember when I came to your house and you almost killed me?! I fell off your dad’s back and you. Did. Nothing! I almost died!” she yelled, eyes filled with raging fire.
“What? No! You were fine when you fell!” I said, despretly trying to display my innocence. I did not want to be guilty of almost killing someone!
Now Annabelle was seething. “I was NOT fine! Like I said, I almost DIED!” Annabelle screamed at me, her voice echoing.
“But I saw you were fine when you fell off my dad’s back!” I argued.
“No! I was NOT fine! I wasn’t, I wasn’t. I wasn’t! Don’t you remember anything?” Annabelle shrieked at me, her voice shrill and high. “I was sent home! I had to go to bed! I was hurt pretty badly! And You did nothing! When I woke up -” Annabelle stopped.
“What, Annabelle? What happened when you woke up?!” I was desperate for answers. Answers to my never ending questions. “Answer me!”
“I was partially dead.” Annabelle whispered solemnly.
Chapter Twelve
I couldn’t beleive that Annabelle was lying to me like this, she couldn’t possibly be partially dead when she woke up. I mean, you’re either dead or alive - not partially dead!
“Look down at the audience. You’re audience. They’re all here to watch your death.” Annabelle said without emotion.
I gasped, my mom and dad were hear to watch my death? Did they even know why they were here - and what they were about to witness? Did they even care?
“Yes, Odessa. It is your parents. Soon, very soon, you will be down there with them.”
What did that even mean? I’m going to join my parents down there? I would finally be able to reunite with them! Or did Annabelle mean that my parents were already dead and i was going to die with them?
“Seriously, Annabelle. You really think that I’m going to jump from this high up?” I scoffed.
“No, Odessa. No I do not think you would jump.”
“Then how would I get down there?” But I knew what was coming next. Annabelle was the villain, so she was going to kill me… one way or another.
“Well, I was planning on pushing you!” an evil grin was growing on Annabelle’s face.
My mouth dropped open like a door with very loose hinges. Even though I thought Ib knew what was coming, it surprised me yet again. “What did me or my family do to you? Why are you doing this? Come on, can’t we settle this with talking?” I asked, pretending to be desperate, but I had a plan.
Annabelle put her hands on her hips. “Um, no. We cannot settle this by talking. Why would we do that?” Annabelle raised her hands to push me, but I was ready.
I swung around and tried to push Annabelle off the catwalk, intsead of the other way around. But apparently Annabelle saw that coming, and shook her finger in my face. “Nuh uh uh, hon! You don’t try to push me down! I push you down!” And with that, Annabelle pushed me off the catwalk.
I fell, waiting for the impact of the ground, or the auditorium seats, or the stage, but nothing happened. I found myself hagning onto the rusty chains, connecting the catwalk to the ceiling. I looked up to see Annabelle’s sneering face staring at me.
“Gosh, Odessa! You just fell! Are you okay?” she asked, with fake concern.
I glared at her. I was surprisingly calm for almost being killed. “Yeah, sure. I’m okay. Just stop!” Now I was not so calm anymore. “Just stop! Stop going after me! Stop going after Jackson! Stop going after both of us! You’re evil and crazy! Just stop!”
“You don't have to be so rude about it” Annabelle whimpered and started crying.
I struggled back onto the catwalk and stepped in front of her. “Sorry, Anna-” I was stopped.
“Tricked you!” Annabelle yelled triumphantly and pushed me off the catwalk. The world seemed to stop, then everything happened in slow motion. I could feel myself falling and falling and falling. I closed my eyes and took my last breath. Then everything went black.
Mom’s View After Odessa’s Death
I stumbled out of the car and looked at the sky, it was gray and it looked like it would rain. I sadly looked at the theatre where my daughter had died the week before. One of the policemen came up to me.
“I’m sorry, ma’am. The only evidence we found was a note on the catwalk, here take a look,” the policeman handed me a note inside of an evidence bag.
“Can I take the note out of the bag?” I asked, I would probably be able to read it better outside the bag.
“No, ma’am, I’m sorry. We cannot take any evidence out of the evidence bags. Because if your fingerprints get on the evidence, that would just mess up the investigation.”
I forced a smile. “I understand, sir.”
Dear person who finds this note and any other people who read this, I killed Odessa and you will never find me. But here is a hint: if you want to find me, I Lurk deep in the shadows of the underground tunnels. They were abandoned many years ago. I sit in a room with a single lightbulb hanging from the middle of the ceiling. There I wait in the dark corner, forever in the shadows. I hope you miss Odessa very much, I hope you are in pain forever. One thing is for sure, I will come back again... someday...
Hugs, kisses, and murder wishes, Annabelle.
“What?” I sputtered. “Where did you find this?” I was in shock. Someone named Annabelle had purposely killed my daughter, Odessa. And who signs a note ‘hugs, kisses, and murder wishes? That is just sick!
The policeman sighed grimly. “Like I said, we found it on the catwalk. I read it and it’s very clear that whoever this ‘Annabelle’ person is, she knew your daughter. She knew that someone would find this note, and she wants you to be in pain,” the policeman’s words were like a dagger stabbing my heart.
“You must find this Annabelle! She killed my daughter and I need you to find her-make her pay!” I thinking that this Annabelle girl must be mentally disturbed, to kill my little girl… take me up to the catwalk, now!” I told the police officer.
The policeman tugged at his uniform collar. “Um, I’m sorry ma’am, but this is a crime scene and this area is off limits.”
I grit my teeth in frustration. “This is the place where my daughter died.” I could barely choke out the word ‘died.’ I was breathing hard and my breath was coming out in short gasps. “I want to see the place where my daughter died! Take me there!” I ordered the officer.
“Alright,” he sighed. “I guess we could make an exception, just this once. But this is not a regular thing, okay, lady?”
I was so used to the officer calling me “ma’am,” that I was caught off guard when I was addressed as ‘lady.’
The police officer started off towards the theatre blanketed in Crime Scene do Not Cross tape. I followed him inside the auditorium and up the stairs to the catwalk. Once we got to the top of the catwalk, I spotted a thick metal cage. “Why is this here?” I asked the officer, whose name was Jack Hendermann.
“I don’t know, probably for construction workers or tech people to fix the lights or sound stage? But I’m not exactly sure,” Officer Hendermann said.
I decided to check it out and stepped cautiously onto the metal bars of the cage - against the officer’s warning.
Officer Hendermann came up to the cage beside me and closed the heavy cage door. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a key, inserting it into the keyhole of the cage. The officer had just locked me inside a cage that was hanging from a very high ceiling!
“What are you doing, officer? I thought that I wasn’t supposed to mess with the evidence. Let me out!”
The officer’s smile gleamed under the stage lights. “You’re not messing with any evidence. I’m just locking you up,” he said in a monotone voice.
“What are you doing?!” I repeated, my voice shrill.
Officer Henderson’s smile grew until I couldn’t tell if it was a smile or a frown. “Annabelle asked me to!” he yelled and left the catwalk.
“Officer! Officer! You don’t know what you’re doing! Officer!” I screamed, desperate to get someone’s attention so they could free me. “Please!”
I must have been in that cage for hours, when suddenly a small girl walked out of the shadows. “Hello, Mrs. Ambrosia,” she said without emotion.
I thought it was a little strange that she called me by my name, when I had never seen her before, but maybe I was hallucinating. “Hello, there. Could you get me out of here, please?” I begged her.
“No. Why would I do that?” the girl cocked her head mischievously.
“Sweetheart, could you please free me? If you’re lost I could help you find your parents. And you never told me, what is your name?” I was talking rather quickly.
“And why would that matter to you?” the girl sneered.
I gasped in surprise, only one little girl I knew would talk to an adult like that. “I know who you are!” I yelled through the metal bars.
“Then who am I?” she smirked.
“You're Annabelle!” I accused her.
“Give the lady a gold star...” Annabelle muttered under her breath. “And I suppose you know why I’m here, Mrs. Ambrosia?”
Suddenly my throat felt dry, I swallowed hard. “Tell me why you did it!” I demanded.
Annabelle’s face contorted into a look of mock confusion. “Did what?” she asked, pretending she had no idea what I was talking about.
“Tell me why you killed my daughter Odessa!” I yelled. I was like a raging bull and Annabelle was wearing all red, but she was surprisingly calm.
“Stop yelling or I will kill you!” Annabelle covered her ears with pale fingers.
I certainly didn’t want to meet the same fate that Odessa had, so I shut my mouth. “You killed my daughter! I should have a right to be mad! You should go to jail and be locked up for the rest of your life! Just wait until the police find you,” I whispered.
Annabelle smiled. “Oh, the police won’t find me. They’ll find you.” Annabelle turned on her heel, whispered some odd words to the darkness, and left.
Just as Annabelle walked out of the room, four shaded figures stepped out of the darkness, seeming to glide across the ground towards me. The hunched men stooped down and began to drag the cage that I was suspended into a different location.
“Where are you taking me?!” I shrieked. The figures didn’t answer me. “Where are you taking me?!” I repeated even louder.
“I told you to stop being so loud!” someone who must have been Annabelle yelled at me. “It hurts my ears!”
I hadn’t even noticed that the four figures had disappeared, and I was in a dark room with a single light bulb suspended from the ceiling. I thought that this must be the room that Annabelle talked about this must be the room that Annabelle was talking about in the note. Annabelle had mentioned a room with one lightbulb hanging from the ceiling.
My phone started vibrating in my purse - I had forgotten I had it with me! I answered it and my husband’s voice filled my ears. “Honey, guess what! I have some very good news for you!”
My ears were aching to hear something good after all that had happened in the last week. “Did the doctors find something in the autopsy?” my voice cracked, thinking about Odessa’s death.
“No, Jessica. But it does have something to do with Odessa! It turns out that she was just in a severe coma! She came out of it this afternoon! The doctors had to make sure before I called you… but she’s alive! It’s a miracle! A true miracle from God; Odessa’s alive!” my husband’s voice danced around in the speakers, singing to a joyful tune.
“Oh, Mark!” I practically collapsed from joy. “Odessa’s alive! Oh my God, oh my God! Odessa’s alive!”
I had forgotten Annabelle’s rule about no yelling, yet again. The line was cut.
To Be Continued In The Dark Rider
Prologue
Odessa Ambrosia. When you hear that name, what do you think of? A college? A city? Greek gods and goddesses? Yeah, Ambrosia. That’s what the gods and goddesses drank. Plus, the Ambrosia made the gods and goddesses shiny and glowy and stuff. Odessa is also the name of a college and a city. My parents are kind of greek god and mythology freaks. So when I was born, they named me Odessa. I don’t know if Odessa was a name of a greek goddess, but I’m pretty sure it is. And my mom’s maiden name is Ambrosia. And my dad’s last name was Nelson. But he changed his last name to Ambrosia when he and my mom got married. Because it turns out that he was a greek mythology fanatic, too - like my mom! At least my brother is not into greek mythology, he’s into superheros and Star Wars. But me, I was always into something different, last week I was into Taylor Swift and this week I like this one show called Liv and Maddie. I also used to have a dog. Her name was Mia. She was an awesome dog, she never pulled on the leash when I walked her and she never chased my cat. Unfortunately she died from old age. My cat's name was Lily. She is the worst cat in the world! Whenever I tried to pet her she would run away. If I tried to pick her up, she would hiss and scratch me - then run away. So me and my mom returned her to the animal shelter. Now I don’t have any pets, just have my brother, Finn. He is named after a character in Irish mythology.
You know how rich people are all like; “Darn it! I’m so unlucky! I didn't get to go to Hawaii for summer break. I had to go to Florida and the Bahamas instead!” Well, they should know that they are lucky! I’ve never even been to Hawaii once! And they’ve been to Hawaii, like, a million times! They should be grateful that they actually get to go anywhere. Because I’m not rich. But I’m not poor, either. I mean, I’m not trying to brag or anything, but I’ve been to Disney once, New York once, and Chicago twice. I know it’s not anything fancy or anything, unlike all those rich and snobby people out there! Also, if any of you rich people are reading this… you know what? I won’t even say what I’ll do if you guys are caught reading this!
Now I have to tell you a story about what happened to me one day. I must tell you. Even though it is a scary story. I survived it, living through it, then you can survive at least reading it! So get ready to believe…
Chapter One
“Help! Help me!” I yelled as I ran as fast as I could down a long corridor. The corridor was in somewhat of a maze. And I was stuck in it.
I could only imagine what the thing chasing me would do to me if it caught me. Well, I didn’t even know what “it” was. I just knew that it was behind me, and getting closer. It didn’t look very friendly, either. When I first caught sight of it, I saw that it was big and hairy, and I was like, “So, you say you’re giving out free haircuts with that chainsaw in your hand? Well, you should get one yourself!”
I was starting to slow down, gasping for air. “Please!” I choked out. “Stop!” But it was no use. The thing was gaining speed, since we were now going downhill. This was a never ending game of tag. And the monster was “it.”
It felt like I’d been stuck in this maze for a month. But I knew it was only a couple of hours. A couple of hours… a couple of hours…
I was getting dizzy. The dark room was spinning, the chandelier was shaking and the floor was quivering. It looked like it would fall on me. I rushed out from under it. The thing? No such luck.
“Ughhhhh!” I heard a sickening cry. The chandelier had fallen on the monster. But, there was something familiar about the thing’s cry. It seemed like I had heard it from long ago.
“Let’s play, daddy!” three year old me exclaimed. “Okay, honey. What would you like to play?” A much younger than now dad asked me. “Horsey! Horsey! Ride horsey!” I yelled, and threw myself on my dad’s back. “All right. Horsey it is,” Dad smiled. He bucked his back and almost threw me off - gently, of course. “Again! Again!” I laughed. “One more time, sweetie,” then, dad stood up and danced around, with me on his back! “Fun! Fun! Yay!” I screamed with delight. Then it was my friends turn, my friend that had came over for a play date. “Can I do?” she had asked. “Sure,” my dad replied. And he did the same with my friend. Then, she fell off. “Ughhhhh!” she wailed.
Sorry. That was a flashback, from when I was about three. My friend had fallen off my dad’s back, and started to scream. That yell was the same cry of agony as the thing behind me had just uttered. I whirled around to face the monster, who, at the moment, was on the ground with a chandelier on top of it.
There was no way that I was going to stick around to find out if the monster was okay or not. I flew down the corridor, swerved around a sharp corner, charged up two flights of stairs, and came to a stop. Right in front of me, was a mirror. And in the mirror’s glass, I saw the monster. It must have been right behind me! I turned around, to face a certain death, but there was no one.
“Hello?” I called to eery silence. “Hello! Is anyone there?” I asked once more, but again - no answer. “Then how...” I stopped, and slowly turned around to face the mirror. “Then how was the monster right behind me?” I finished wondering aloud. Was I thinking clearly?
When I looked at the mirror again, my reflection was gone. In place of it, was the monster. “Okay. Where are you hiding?!” I yelled to no one. The monster was out of sight. But I still had questions.
How had the monster been right behind, but no one was there? And where was my reflection? “Aha!” I had a sudden thought. I turned around so my back was facing the mirror. And I craned my neck so I could see the mirror reflection and myself. And sure enough, there was the monster’s reflection. But no me. Also, the monster was doing the exact same thing I was doing. Facing it’s back toward the mirror. And turning it’s head to the mirror.
“What is happening?!” I yelled. I had no idea why the monster was copying everything I was doing. And I had no idea why the monster was invisible every time I turned around. “Okay. I’ve had enough of this! Where are you, monster… ish… um, thing? Where are you hiding? I demand to see you! This instant!” I stomped my foot for effect.
THUMP! I heard a loud noise and whirled around - to face nothing. Of course. “What was that noise?” I asked myself. There was an echo, and laughter rang in my ears. I had enough! I ran behind the mirror - and fell into a deep dark hole.
Chapter Two
“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh!” I shrieked. “Help meeeee!” I thought that I would eventually land somewhere. But I didn’t. I just kept falling and falling. And then, my feet hit a hard surface. “Huh?” I looked down. I was standing on somewhat of a rotating disk. Sort of like a giant frisbee I looked over the disk and down the hole. I couldn’t see the bottom.
But I decided to do the impossible. Well - not really impossible, that’s just one of my favorite phrases: “I decided to do the impossible,” that phrase sounds more dramatic than if I just say, “I was going to walk off the disk.”
I tried to walk to the end of the disk, but a deafening crash stopped me from doing so. “Ahhhh!” I screamed for what seemed to be the one hundredth time that day. A cage that had been hidden in the darkness had fallen on the edge of the disk! In the process, it had landed on my foot!
Pain shot up and down my leg like a confused race car. “Ouch! Ouch! Ouch!” I grimaced. How many pounds is that thing? I wondered, pointing to the cage sitting on the rotating disk that I was standing on. It felt like my foot was broken! I tried to put my foot down and straighten up. “Ow!” I yelled. I couldn’t even put any weight on it!
“This is gonna be hard,” I muttered. “Getting down from this disk. Finding my way out. Yep, it’s gonna be tough.”
All of a sudden my foot stopped hurting, now the confused race car had started the race again; in my leg! I pinched myself, to make sure I wasn’t dreaming. When I looked down in the dim light, there was fog drifting all around me. “How odd,” I said to myself.
I was definitely awake, though. On my arm was a throbbing red pinch mark, fighting to be seen through the fog. A stinging sensation zipped through my leg and foot. I could put weight on it again!
I tried inching off the other side of the disk, looking up every few seconds; in search of any more falling cages, coming down from the darkness. “No cages,” I reassured myself.
“Raaaaaaaurghhhh!” A roar echoed off the unseen walls. “Raaaaaaaurghhhh!” the cry of pure evil was right above me.
I was so surprised and frightened that I fell off the disk! “Aaaaaaaaah!” I screamed in terror, awaiting the death that was about to meet me. But surprisingly, I fell rather lightly on a bouncy surface. Sort of like a trampoline. It was pitch black down there, so I couldn’t tell.
“Raaaaaaaurghhh!” the cry seemed closer now. Sort of like it was inching it’s way closer to me, inching it’s way towards me, inching it’s way to kill.
I gulped, and ran blindly through the blackness. “Hello?” I whispered, of course there was no answer - I had whispered! So no one heard me, duh!
“Hello!” I yelled this time.
There was somewhat of a reply. “Solla hee. Ha keema. Lo potta,” a voice murmured somewhere.
“Hello?” I asked for the third time. It seemed like the voice that had talked to me was speaking in a foreign language.
“Solla, hee! Ha keema! Lo potta!” the words seemed distant, now. Further away.
“Solla, hee! Help me! Ha keema! Help me! Lo potta! Help me!” I could hear a faint cry for help.
“Is anyone here?” I asked, peering into the darkness.
“O-over here!” came a weak reply.
“Who’s there? I can help you!” I explained toward the direction of the cry. That’s when I tripped on a crack in the floor. “Owww…” I moaned weakly.
I woke to find myself in a large room with a dim light bulb hanging in the center of the ceiling. I got up and walked into one of the dark corners and stopped right before I walked right into a small girl.
Chapter Three
“Ahhhhhh!” I shrieked as I stumbled backwards sending myself crashing into the floor. “Who was that?” I asked myself.
“Me,” replied a faint voice.
“Who and where are you?” I asked with a hint of confusion.
“In the corner, where you just crashed from,” explained the little girl.
“Okay…” I trailed off. There was something suspicious about the girl. “Where’d you come from?” I asked her.
“Right here,” she gestured all around her. “I came from right here.”
“Where am I? Where are we? What is this place? Am I dreaming?” I asked, feeling a bit dizzy.
“What’s with all the questions?” the girl laughed. A nice laugh, not an evil one.
“Um, sorry. I’m just really confused. Can you answer my questions? Please?” I asked her, practically begging.
“Sure. Okay, so your first question; where are you? You are in a hole in the ground. Well, it’s more of a really long tunnel with disks, monsters, and a lot of things. I’ve been trapped in here for years. With food, of course. Clowns serve the food.”
“What?” I stepped back. “Clowns?!” I’ve had a fear of clowns since I was little.
“Yep. Clowns. Now, for question number two; you asked where are we. And that is basically the same question as what you asked before. So, same answer: in a long tunnel.”
“Okay…” I trailed off. “But how did I get here? How did you get here?” I asked. Now I was really confused.
“Um, question number three; what is this place. Uh, same answer, again. This place is a tunnel where clowns serve the food. Question number four. Are you dreaming? No. You are not dreaming. This is perfectly real,” the girl gestured around with her hands.
“Yeah, I get that,” I said, maybe sounding a bit too stuck up, because the girl looked a little hurt and she backed away until she was wedged in the corner, again.
“Oh, sorry. I was just answering your questions,” the girl said, looking down. “I thought you wanted to know. ‘Cause you asked them, ya know? So I was answering them.” And with that, the girl ran around me and into the darkness.
“Wait! Wait!” I called out to her. “Please, I have more questions to ask you! I didn’t mean to sound mean, I’m just so confused!” I took a deep breath. “Plus, when I get confused, I get annoyed. So I’m sorry I snapped at you!” I was desperate to get my questions answered. And all I wanted to do was to get out of this living nightmare!
I heard someone sniffle nearby. “Hello? Are you there, little girl?” I asked again.
“My name isn’t ‘little girl’! Please don’t call me that!” a voice came from the other side of the tunnel. The voice sounded like it had been crying.
“Okay, then what should I call you?” I yelled back, and my voice echoed off the unseen walls.
“My name is Annabelle! So please call me that! And I am in the corner. If you wish to find me.”
“Which corner, exactly? I mean, is there even a corner?”
“Yes, there are many, many, corners in this tunnel. Because it is not just a tunnel. It’s the basement of a very, very, large room. In a very, very, large house!”
“Huh?” Now I was the most confused I had ever been. I was in a tunnel in a basement in a house? When had I entered the house? Was this real?
Annabelle’s voice rang out again. “I’m in the corner across from you, in the dusty one!”
I groped my way along the indentations along the wall. It was dark and I couldn’t even see my hands in front of my face! “What are these hole thingies in the walls?” I asked Annabelle, who was apparently right across from me.
“Oh, those,” Annabelle said, like it was the most normal thing in the world. “They’re claw marks.”
“Claw marks?!” I shrieked and stumbled back. What were claw marks doing here? Along a wall?
“Yep. They’re from the monster. She was angry that day,” Annabelle explained.
I raised my eyebrows in disbelief. “Hey, Annabelle?” I called out to her.
“Yes?”
“How do you know the marks on the wall are claw marks?” I questioned, crossing my arms in the dim light from the lone flickering light bulb. I had walked closer to Annabelle’s corner, closer to the light.
“Um, I don’t know. I was just guessing. ‘Cause there’s a monster here, ya know?” she stammered. Now I could see her face. It was streaked with panic.
“Sure,” I could see that I had Annabelle in just the place I wanted; right where she would spill the beans on all the secrets she was hiding.
“Oh. Okay. Well, do you want me to, uh, come out of the corner?” Annabelle’s nervous voice asked me.
“Do whatever you want. But first, can you answer my two questions?” I asked smiling.
“Sure. I’ll answer your questions. But I never asked. What’s your name?” Annabelle wondered, her voice sounding more confident now.
My name? Uh, oh. She had asked my name! I decided to make up a fake name, just in case she was evil. “My name is Carly. Carly Johnson,” I lied.
“Okay. Hi, Carly. What are your questions? More questions on the tunnels? I can answer those. Well, let’s see. These tunnels are pretty old, and…” this Annabelle person was really good at changing the subject!
I interrupted her, “I don’t want to know about the tunnels. Okay? I want to know about the monster.”
Annabelle gulped. “Okay, sure. W-what do you want to know, um, about the m-m-monster?” Annabelle’s quivering voice stammered.
I breathed in slowly. “I want to know why you think that the monster made claw marks on the wall.”
“Um, uh, I don’t know. I guess that since there’s a monster here, that there would be monster evidence. So I’m guessing that the marks on the wall are monster claw marks.”
“Why do you think that the monster made the claw marks when it was mad? Because you said that the monster was angry that day, when it made the scratches. Why do you think that, Annabelle?” I raised my eyebrows, to show Annabelle that I was on to her.
“Well, the claw marks are all over the place, so I thought the monster might have been really mad or something, ‘cause she had claw marks on the walls, floors, and ceiling. It might have been having a tantrum,” Annabelle shrugged.
“But how would you know that the claw marks were on the ceiling, walls, and floor? There’s only one light bulb in this whole room. And you can’t see the floor that well, and you certainly can’t see the ceiling!” I proved.
Annabelle bit her lip in the dim light. “I did see ‘em. I did! The clowns have flashlights, ya know,” she said rather snottily.
“What clowns?!” I yelled.
Chapter Four
“The clowns that serve the food! The clowns that I told you about! Or were you even listening?” Annabelle curled up into an even tighter ball on the floor.
“Oh, yeah. That’s right,” I looked down at the floor. “But how do I know you’re telling the truth? How do I know that there are really clowns here?”
“Because!” Annabelle looked absolutely exasperated.
“Because why? I don’t know you at all, I just met you today! How do you expect me to trust you all of a sudden? I barely know you.”
Annabelle seemed to shrink back. “Well, you could trust me. I’ve been here way longer than you, ya know!”
This girl said the words, ‘ya know’ a lot. “Exactly how long have you been down here?” I asked, suspecting that she would tell me an unbelievable story. Maybe about how she’d been down here hundreds of years. Now that would be a total lie!
“About four or five years? I don’t really know, I might’ve been down here longer, though,” Annabelle shrugged her shoulders.
“Just as I suspected, an unbelievable thing to say,” I muttered.
“Huh? Did you say something?” Annabelle turned to me.
“Nope. But, before I forget, can I ask you my questions? That I was going to ask before you changed the subject?” I looked at her knowingly.
“Um, yeah. What do you want to know?”
“Why do you think that the monster is a girl?” I asked.
“Huh? What do you mean?” Annabelle looked confused.
“When you were talking about the monster having it’s tantrum. You said the monster was a ‘she’.”
“Oh. I just assumed that the monster was a girl. I guess maybe it might be a boy, but I thought….” Annabelle trailed off.
“You thought what?” I questioned her.
“I thought that it might be a girl monster because of the claw marks. I, uh, thought that they were more close together rather than a male’s claws would be,”
How did Annabelle know all this? “Annabelle, how do you know this much about monsters?” I asked.
She shrugged, and obviously, changed the subject.
“Um, do you need to know anything else? I can tell you kinda the history of these tunnels. Or something else?” then Annabelle started crying.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, bending down to where she was hunched in the darkness.
“It’s gone. It’s all gone!” she sobbed.
“What’s gone?” I didn’t understand.
“The dark,” Annabelle sniffled and covered her head in her hands.
“What do you mean? Are you talking about being in the dark?” I wrinkled my eyebrows in thought. Why would she be scared of the dark?
“No. I don’t care about being in the dark,” Annabelle crossed her arms.
“Then why are you crying, Annabelle?”
Annabelle sniffed again, rubbed her eyes, and scooted over to the dim light bulb. “I have to be in the light. Where they can see me,” Annabelle crossed her legs and sighed.
“Where who can see you?” I asked.
“They are evil,” Annabelle explained. “They put us here. They’re trying to kill us!” she yelled at me.
“Who are you talking about? Do you mean the monster?” I shook my hands in frustration.
“Yes! Of course I’m talking about the monster!” Annabelle said that like it was an obvious fact. “I saw the monster chasing you,” she said rather suspiciously.
“How did you see the monster chasing me?” I asked. How had she seen me getting chased by that hideous thing?
“Of course I saw you!” Annabelle smirked.
“Oh that’s right! You kinda live here. Right?” I smiled because I had finally figured it out.
“No. That’s not why I saw you. I wasn’t in this tunnel while the monster was chasing you,” Annabelle explained.
“Well then where were you? How’d you see me?” Guess what, I was confused again! Surprise, surprise.
“Because I am the monster!” Annabelle yelled. And with that, she morphed her features into the face of the monster. Then she changed herself into the monster. Her small face transformed into the scraggly face. Her light hair were curled, yellowing horns. Annabelle’s small kind eyes turned blazing red, with no pupils. Her petite frame was suddenly huge with scales and moldy orange-green fur. Annabelle had dripping fangs, and a snout with green slime oozing out of it. Her tail was like a dragon’s tail, long and scaly, but Annabelle’s tail had a blazing ball of fire at the end of her tail.
Chapter Five
“Ahhhhhh!” I screamed in horror. “Please don’t kill me!”
“Hmmm, my answer for that is yes. No. Maybe so.”
“Please!” I was up against the wall. “Please! Don’t you remember that when you weren’t a monster, you came to my house and rode on my dad’s back!” I pleaded with Annabelle, trying to make her remember the ‘good ol’ days.’
“Stop!” a non familiar voice yelled. The voice came closer and closer and then a person grabbed my arm. “We have to run!” whispered the strange person.
The girl who was now a monster, dropped dead. The fire at the end of her tail went out, leaving us in the darkness.
I was pulled away with the stranger who had made the monster stop like a deer in headlights, and die. “Why is the monster is dead?” I asked him.
“There is more!” he replied.
“What does that mean? What is more?” I asked, confused once again.
“Yes. There is more to what I am telling you. And they are coming for us!”
“Who are you?” I asked the stranger pulling me in tow.
“I don't know who I am,” the person said. I could tell the stranger was a male because of how low his voice was.
Now I was frustrated. “I’m serious! Who are you?” I said, raising my voice. We were now climbing a long flight of stairs, the hand railings had little light bulbs built into them, sort of like auditorium seats. I could see a little bit in the dim light, and on the walls next us, were very old portraits of stone faced people.
The stranger looked down at me, he looked about fifteen or sixteen. “It’s the truth. I don't know who I am!” he yelled at me.
I sighed, this was all part of a normal day for me! Being chased by a monster, seeing a girl - a former friend of mine change into a monster, being taken by a total stranger, and the stranger not knowing his name. All part of a totally normal day - NOT! “Well, I’ll call you Jackson. Because you look like the kind of person whose name would be Jackson,” I decided.
Jackson ran with me deeper into the darkness. “Okay, call me Jackson. I’ll try to remember to answer when you say the name Jackson. I’m not used to anyone talking to me, I’ve been alone all these years,” he smiled a weak, forced smile.
Wait, why was I trusting a total stranger? “Uh, Jackson?” I tapped him on the shoulder as we were running. Well, more like he was running and dragging me along.
“Yeah?” Jackson turned his head to look down at me, but just for a second. Then he had to look up again to see where we were going.
I gulped. Was he going to get mad at me? “How do I know that I can trust you? I mean, you did save me from a monster, but still!” I wasn’t sure if I could trust him or not.
“I did save you from a monster and I’m taking you away,” Jackson explained.
I gasped. “Wait, what? You’re taking me away? From what?!” I shrieked.
“More,” he said solemnly.
“More what? Why won’t you tell me?” I was getting really mad at this Jackson guy.
“The monsters. There are more of them… okay? So, just trust me. Or go back to the monster-girl and trust her. It’s your decision. Who do you wanna pick? If you pick me… then I will go to a random place. If you pick the monster, she will go to a random place,” Jackson said, rather out of breath. Then he let go of my arm and took off full speed into the deep darkness.
Chapter Six
As soon as Jackson disappeared, a glowing orb appeared in his place.
“How would I trust the monster? She’s dead, don’t you remember? Plus, would the random place be a good place or a bad place?” I called over to the Jackson/orb. I knew the monster was dead, I’d seen her drop dead. But… what if she had just fainted? Not died?
“The monster didn’t die! I shot her with a sleeping dart!” yelled Jackson. “I don’t know how long the monster will be asleep. It might be a few more minutes, or a few more hours. I also don’t know which spot is the good place, or the bad place!” Jackson must have cupped his hands around his mouth, because his voice sounded louder and clearer.
“Wait! Jackson! I don't know who to choose!” I yelled to the spot where he used to be standing, but now the orb was floating there.
“You have to choose me or the monster!” he yelled back.
“But if I choose you, then what?”
“I don't know! Just make your choice!”
I was sweating because if I chose Jackson, I could send him to a possible bad place or a possible good place. I didn’t want to send Jackson to a bad place, especially since he had saved me from the Annabelle monster. “I choose Jackson!” I yelled at the strange floating orb.
“Hee hee hee ha ha!” the orb cackled. Now the orb’s color changed from an army green to the face of the monster. “Ah!” I gasped and stumbled back.
The monster’s face swirled around and around in the orb. “You made the wrong choice, deary!” the Annabelle monster’s voice sounded like an old lady. “Jackson is now stuck in the Dungeon of No Return!”
I gasped again - it seemed like I was always gasping. “What? No! He can’t be stuck! How did he get there?”
The Annabelle monster’s face morphed into Jackson’s face. “Yoooou put meeee heeeere. Yoooou put meee in the dungeeeon of nooo reeeturn! It’s yooour fault!” he moaned.
“I have to save you!” I said, my voice panicky.
“There is no way - so give up!” Jackson’s features swirled back into nothingness, and then into the face of Annabelle, in her human form. “Sorry, you’ll never get your poor Jackson Wackson back, never ever,” she said in a whiny baby voice, talking to me like I was a really young kid.
“Never!” I screamed. “I’ll never ever give up! What did Jackson ever do to you? Huh, Annabelle? What did he do to you? Why’d he deserve that?” Now I was screaming at the top of my lungs. “Did he deserve that? Or did you just feel like doing that to an innocent person?” now my voice was hoarse.
“Nope. He deserved it,” Annabelle almost sounded nice, but then she turned back into the monster. “And I think that you deserve it too!” she roared.
“I deserve it? What did I do?” I challenged.
“You didn’t help me when I fell off your father’s back. Your dad helped me, you didn’t. Do you know what you did? You went to go eat a popsicle, that’s what you did!” and with that, Annabelle leaped out of the floating orb. As she was flying through the air, towards the ground, she turned herself back into the monster.
I jumped out of the way as Annabelle clawed the air, trying to rip me apart.
“See, you do deserve it! You’re going to go to the same place you sent your friend!” the monster yelled. Annabelle grabbed me, and in the process, scratched me with her long yellowish claws.
“Ha ha ha ha ha!” was all I heard as I was dragged away to a certain death.
“Wake up, hurry! Wake up! We don’t have much time,” someone whispered in my ear.
Chapter Seven
“What?” I squinted groggily up at a boy’s face.
“Wake up!” he yelled and shook me.
“Okay, okay! I’m awake!” I yelled at the boy. Then I realized it was Jackson. “Oh,” I said more softly, feeling bad for yelling at him. “I’m awake.”
“Good, because we need to get out of here, fast,” he replied, grabbing my hand.
“Why do we need to get out of here? Where am I? Where are we?” I asked, rubbing my eyes.
“We need to get out of here ‘cause the monster is coming back to kill you. And she’s probably gonna kill me, too.”
“Why would she wanna kill you? Hey, that reminds me, how’d you get out of the Dungeon of No Return?” I asked him.
Jackson wrinkled his eyebrows and let go of my hand, “Huh?”
“the Dungeon of No Return,” I repeated. “How did you escape? Remember, I trusted you, so you were sent to the Dungeon by the monster.”
“Oh, you mean that,” Jackson slapped his forehead. “I’m always forgetting things. It’s because of these tunnels. They take you memory away, and eventually they take your souls away from you, too,” Jackson explained.
“Oh my gosh! They take your memory and souls?!” I exclaimed.
“Yep,” Jackson pursed his lips. “So, I don’t remember how I escaped the… the Dungeon of No… unicorns?” he guessed.
“No, Jackson! The Dungeon of No… No… um, I can’t remember either!” I wailed. Now I knew that I had to get myself and Jackson out of these tunnels - and fast!
“It’s okay. Really, it’s okay. Um… oh no! I forgot your name - plus I forgot my name! What’s your name? Quick, tell me!” he sounded really desperate to know my name.
“Why do you want to know so badly?” I questioned.
“I don’t know, I mean, these days I feel like I don’t know anything,” Jackson muttered.
“Well maybe you didn’t forget my name. Maybe I just forgot to tell you. Yeah - that’s it! I never told you my name!” I exclaimed, suddenly relieved. Jackson wasn’t forgetting everything, I had just forgotten to tell him!
“I guess that’s possible,” Jackson pondered. “But it would be helpful if you told me your name,” he chuckled.
“Um, yeah. My name is… uh, my name is - I forgot my name, too!” I yelled.
“Shh! The monster will hear you, follow the noise, and kill us! I mean, you do realize that we are trying to get away from the monster - not attract it, right?” Jackson asked me.
“Yep,” I said sheepishly. “But what about my memory? Will I forget everything, too?” I was frightened that I would forget about my parents, my brother, my name, and my home. Then a flashback came to my mind.
“Oh!” my mood brightened. “My name is Odessa Ambrosia, that’s my name! I remember! Jackson, I remember my name! Yay!” I squealed.
Jackson covered his mouth and let out a weird sound, I knew he was trying to hold back a laugh.
I pretended to have my feelings hurt. “Jackson, you said you wouldn’t laugh,” I whined.
“No, no. You got it all wrong, Odessa. I was laughing at your squealing! I mean, I don’t think I’ve heard squealing before, and if I did, I wouldn’t remember it, ya know?” Jackson shrugged and smiled.
“Okay, I wouldn’t laugh, but we’ve gotta get moving if we want to lose the monster. Okay?” Jackson grabbed my hand again.
“Okay,” I agreed, nodding my head to emphasize my agreement. “But I never told you my name yet,” I bit my lip.
“Yeah you did, just now. Or did you? I don’t know, and I’m feeling kinda queasy. Ugh,” Jackson moaned and grabbed his stomach.
“Are you alright?” I asked, my eyes wide.
“Yeah, I’ll be fine. It’s just these tunnels. They not only take away your memory and souls, but they also make you sick in the process of taking them. It’ll happen to you, too. If we don’t get out of here soon, but I haven’t found a secret exit out of here, even though I’ve been here a while, I don’t actually don’t know how long, though. Have you found an exit?” he turned to me, but he faced nothingness. “Odessa?”
“Yep, ugh! Down here, oooohhhh…” I groaned on the cold, stone ground.
“Are you okay, Odessa?” Jackson reached down his hand to help me up.
“Yeah, I’ll be fine. It’s just like you said - it’s these tunnels.” My stomach, like Jackson’s, was churning like a garbage disposal.
“Do you think that I will ever see my family again... or find my name?” asked Jackson.
“Of course you will! Don’t be silly, you’ll find them,” I said. “Hopefully,” I whispered the last part.
Chapter Eight
“Maybe not,” Jackson brushed his shaggy hair out of his eyes.
“Jackson, we are getting out of these tunnels and we will find your family and your name! So let’s go!” I turned to him and smiled.
Jackson put a finger to his lips to remind me that we should be quiet.
“Oh, right. I’m forgetting things again,” I sighed.
“Yeah, that’ll happen. But how do you plan on escaping?” he cocked his head. “I mean, I’ve been in these tunnels way, way longer than you. And I’ve never even found any exits, so unless you have a special gift or something, I don’t think that we will be getting out any time soon.”
“Well, I think that we’ll need to find a trapdoor, they always have those in dungeons and scary movies,” I pointed out.
“But this isn’t a dungeon or a scary movie, it’s real life. But I guess this place could be considered a dungeon, maybe,” Jackson shrugged.
“I think we should look, just in case, right?” I raised my eyebrows.
“Okay then. If you think that’ll work,” Jackson said.
“Let’s split up. We’ll cover more ground that way, okay?” I looked at Jackson to see if he agreed.
“Okay, boss,” he joked and playfully saluted.
I rolled my eyes and smiled. “Wow, Jackson.”
Jackson walked in one direction and I got on my hands and knees and crawled around in the other. I moved my hands around the mossy, moist ground to try to find ridges, hinges, or anything else that seemed peculiar.
“Ah ha! Odessa, I think I found it!” Jackson exclaimed from the other side of the dark room.
“You did? Awesome!” I was suddenly relieved, we would be out of here soon! I ran toward the sound of Jackson’s voice, and bumped right into him!
“Oh!” he gasped in surprise and toppled backwards from the impact.
“Sorry, Jackson! It’s too dark in here. Are you okay?” I asked, extending my hand to help him up.
“Yeah, I think so,” Jackson brushed the dust and dirt off of his pants and sweatshirt.
“I’m really sorry,” I apologized again. “Where’s the trapdoor?”
“Right here, you see it? I was ripping the moss off and it was bronze underneath. I think it’s some sort of door or something,” Jackson explained.
I stepped closer to the spot where Jackson was pointing. “You mean that?” I asked, nodding to the bronze tube running up and down the wall.
“Yeah. What do you think?” Jackson ran his hand through his hair.
“Um, Jackson?” I smiled weakly. “That’s a plumbing pipe.”
“Oh, sorry,” he grinned sheepishly.
“No, no. It’s fine! I probably would’ve done the same thing. Saw a pipe, got so excited and thought it was something cool. Yeah, that's pretty much me in a nutshell. Don’t worry,” I patted him on the back and turned away to go back to looking for a hidden door.
“Hey, Odessa?” Jackson called over to me.
“Yeah?”
“Next time I’ll look more closely before I yell for you to come over. Okay?”
“Okay, sounds good,” I agreed and got back down on my knees. I crawled around, digging my fingernails under the moss, feeling for a hidden trapdoor. Suddenly, I felt something like metal. Upon closer inspection, it looked like a door!
Chapter Nine
“Yes! I think I found it!” I exclaimed.
“Are you sure?” Jackson asked, throwing a handful of dirt and moss over his shoulder from where he was digging.
“Yeah, I’m pretty sure,” I replied. “Come look at this!”
Jackson ran over to me and stooped over, squinting at the rusted silver patch on the ground.
“Yeah, it has hinges. It looks like a door, let’s try it!” he agreed.
I pulled on the raised knob. The door creaked, but it didn’t budge. “Jackson, can you help me?” I turned to him.
“Yeah, let me see,” he bent over even more and grasped the handle. “Uggghh!” he groaned with the weight of the door, it was lifting up, exposing the late morning light. “Help me, Odessa! Or I’ll drop it,” Jackson closed his eyes to concentrate on lifting the trapdoor.
I joined in, pulling, yanking and heaving. We strained with the weight of the hidden compartments’ lid. With a final burst of strength, the trap door opened with a puff of dust.
I was climbing out the trapdoor when my eyes were almost blinded by the sun “Look! Jackson, it’s the sun!” I smiled broadly.
“Yeah! I don’t remember ever seeing the sun!” he was so happy, he was practically glowing.
I almost screamed in excitement as I stepped on the perfectly green grass and breathed in the fresh air. “Hey, Jackson?”
“Yeah?” he cocked his head.
“Can I hug you? I mean - I am so excited I could just… kiss you!” but seeing Jackson’s bewildered face when I said the word ‘kiss,’ I just hugged him instead.
“Tessa, do you know where we are? Because my sense of direction has withered down into nothing when I was in the tunnles. So, do you know where we are? Tessa?” Jackson had said the name twice before I realized he was talking to me and had forgotten my name.
“Um, sorry Jackson, but my name is Odessa, not Tessa…” I trailed off, but then I realized where we were. “Wait! Jackson! I know where we are! This is my yard!” I exclaimed happily and took off towards the front door of my house.
“Sorry, Odessa. I - I just, can’t help it. The tunnels are eating my soul and memory.”
“That’s okay, Jackson, just try your best!” I called over my shoulder.
When I reached the door, I tried to open it. “Ugh, it won’t open! My mom and dad must not be home. Whenever they leave the house, they always lock the door. But I don’t know why they do that. Probably for safety and making sure that burgalurs can’t get in,” I explained.
“Oh,” Jackson said. “Try knocking, that usually helps,” he smiled sarcastically.
“Okay, smart boy,” I joked. “I’ll try that.” I raised my fist to the cool, white door. But, for some reason, I was afraid to knock.
“What’s wrong, Rosetta?” he put a hand on my shoulder.
I smiled. “My name’s not Rosetta, that’s the name of a fairy in Tinkerbell. At least, I think it is. I haven't watched Tinkerbell in a long time! My name is Odessa.”
Jackson blushed. “Oh, sorry. I guess the tunnels have done their thing. I just might keep forgetting forever! Unless…”
“Unless what?” I urged him on.
Jackson grimaced. “I don’t know! That’s the problem!”
“All right. I guess that’s fine. I’ll knock. Hopefully my parents will be home. Right?” I tried to sound optimistic, but most of the hope I had was gone.
“Right.”
I placed my hand against the door for the second time. My fear had drained out of me. I knocked, and the sound echoed around the house.
Jackson smiled encouragingly. “Your parents will probably answer soon. If they’re home - that is.”
I smiled back, a tight lipped smile. It was forced-a fake one. Somewhere in my gut, I knew my parents weren’t going to come. They weren't going to answer, because, they were gone.
“Jackson, there was no answer!” I explained to him.
“Oh, I’m sorry. Well, we can wait ‘til your parents get home from work,” he suggested.
I sighed. “That’s the problem!” I bit my lip. “My parents didn’t go to work today! It’s their day off!”
Jackson rubbed his forehead in thought. “Then where d’ya think your parents are?”
“I don’t know.” It was true, I had no idea where my parents could be.
“Then, we’ll just have to find out!”
Just then, the front door opened with a swoosh. Then slammed just again. It began doing that repeatedly. “Jackson?” I cried in a shrill voice. “What’s happening?”
The door opened and closed, this time, almost crushing my finger!
“Oh yeah, that always happens in the maze. So I’m used to it.”
I raised my eyebrows. “It always happens?”
“Yep.”
“Oh. Did the door ever slam on you? Like, hurt you?” I asked.
Jackson licked his lips, like he was nervous. “Um, once it did…” he trailed off. “But it’s a sore subject.”
“You can tell me. You know you can, Jackson,” I tried to sound soothing.
“Yeah, okay. It was a yellow door with a silver knocker. It started slamming and I tried to run through - real quick! But it slammed on my neck. I felt like I couldn’t breathe. I thought I was gonna die, and I was really scared. Then the door opened and I knew it was my chance. I still have the scar, wanna see?” Jackson finished explaining.
I wrinkled my nose. “Uh… sure,” I backed away a little.
Jackson pulled down the collar of his shirt, to reveal a long white scar.
“Ooh. Looks painful,” I said, pointing to his wound.
“Sometimes it is, not all the time. But now I know how to stop those crazy doors. Here, lemme do it,” Jackson pushed me aside gently. He whispered some strange words through the keyhole.
Chapter Ten
I jumped back. What would happen? Would something explode? Was Jackson some kind of wizard? Did he have magical powers?
A few moments later, my fourth question was answered. The door stopped it’s slamming abruptly.
“Whoa!” I uttered a cry and stumbled back.
Jackson smiled a toothy grin. “Don’t worry. There’s no reason to be afraid, Odette.”
I looked at him strangely. Sure, there was nothing to be afraid of: a monster that was trying to kill us, Jackson just talked to a door and it stopped slamming. Yeah, everything is perfectly normal!
“Jackson, my name is Odessa. Odessa, not Odette. Odessa, okay?” I breathed slowly through my nose. My plan wasn’t working-Jackson was forgetting more and more!
Jackson grabbed my hand, and pulled me through the door, into my house. I ran up the stairs, while Jackson stayed downstairs. I took a running start and leaped onto my bed. I immediately jumped off of my bedspread ; it was like hot coals. My bed was hard and it had red dots all over it . “What the heck happened to my bed?!” I yelled.
Then, I heard thudding footsteps on the stairs. Coming closer and closer to me. “What’s wrong?” asked Jackson, out of breath.
“Look at my bed!” I shrieked, but Jackson had never seen my bed before it was turned rock-hard and polka dotted.
“Cool bed spread. I’m likin’ the dots,” he flashed me a thumbs up, but when he saw my face, and realized I wasn’t happy, his face contorted into a look of concern. “What’s wrong?” he repeated.
I coughed and shook my head. “It used to be really soft, with a cloud themed bed spread. Not it’s as hard as a rock! And you can see, now this is the blanket.”
Jackson reached out his hand and gently placed his hand on my bed. “Oh, geez. It is hard!” he agreed. “What if the same thing happened to every bed in your house?”
“That would be bad,” I replied worriedly. “Let’s go check!” we exclaimed at the exact same time.
We ran into my and dad’s room and saw their bed in the exact same state that we left it. “I don’t understand,” I said, wrinkling my eyebrows. “How come my bed was really hard and polka dotted. And my parent’s bedroom was fine?”
“Where are your mom and dad? Didn’t you say that they were home?” Jackson was intrigued.
“I, I guess I was wrong. But if there’s no one here, then where are they? I saw both their cars in the garage, so they must be home, right?” I asked myself.
“Probably,” Jackson answered. “Hey, look,” Jackson pointed to my parent’s bed. There was no one there, I was confused. But then I saw two lumps; one on each side of the bed.
“Hello?” I said to the lumps. Of course, no one answered. I walked up to the bed and slowly lifted the covers, to reveal… “Ahhhh!” I screamed as I looked down at the two frozen monsters.
Chapter Eleven
Jackson came up behind me and put his hand on my shoulder, “It’s okay, the monsters are trying to trick you... I think. Yeah, I’m pretty sure the monsters are trying to trick us. I just realized why your parents aren't home. Do you have any siblings?” he asked me.
“Yeah. A brother, and an annoying one at that,” I replied. “Why?”
Jackson smiled a triumphant grin. “I knew it! The monsters are trying to trick you! This is a fake world, the real world, where you and your family lives, is on the other side.”
“The other side of what?” I inquired.
Jackson looked up at me. “The other side,” he repeated.
“Okay, then…” I trailed off. “Are you saying that these monsters aren’t real? And my family live in another world?”
“Well, the monsters right here, aren’t real. But the monster in the tunnel is real. The monster in the tunnel is really a girl named Annabelle. I used to be friends with her,” Jackson sighed.
“Yeah, me too. I used to be besties with her. She came over to my house a lot,” I was remembering the good ol’ times.
“We’re getting off track here, Amelia.”
‘Amelia?’ Where did he get the name, ‘Amelia?’ It didn’t even sound like ‘Odessa.’
I smiled weakly, “It’s Odessa, not Amelia.
“Oops, sorry Odessa. I’m forgetting things again… but we can’t get off track. We have to find the real Annabelle Monster! Okay?”
“Okay. But are these monsters real?” I asked him.
“No! I’ve answered that already!” Jackson exclaimed.
I could feel my face turning red. “Yup. I’m forgetting things too, Jackson. But can I touch the monsters?”
“No! I wouldn’t do that if I were-”
I poked the monster that was on my mom’s side of the bed. “Aaarghhh!” the monster screamed at me. I jumped back at least a foot.
“Really, Odessa?” Jackson half-yelled at me, “You had to touch the monster?!”
“Well, I didn't know!” I said in my defense. “You’re the one who told me they were fake!”
Jackson and I dashed out the doorway-away from the monsters. We ran down the stairs and skidded into the kitchen. “Jackson?” I gasped, out of breath.
“Yeah?” he panted. “What is it? Anything more important getting away from the Tyrannosaurus Twins?” he jabbed a thumb in the monster’s direction. They were darting toward us!
“I’m pretty sure they’re monsters. Some kind of hybrids, probably. Not dinosaurs!” I called over my shoulder to Jackson, who was still in the kitchen.
“Okay!” I yelled back in the loudest voice I could manage. I tried to run down the steps on the deck, down to the lawn, but I tripped and fell. The last sounds I remember are the breaking of a window and a cry for help…
“Ha, ha, ha!” I heard a wicked laugh from above me.
Without thinking I jumped and grabbed the rope that was hanging from the unseen ceiling. As soon as the rope came in contact with my hand, a thick metal strap latched around my hand and the rope started going up towards the ceiling; while my hand was still stuck!
Now I was far off the ground and couldn't get my hand out! When I thought about it it’s kinda good my hand was stuck because falling would not be good, especially at this height. Then, a platform came into view. It looked like a catwalk!
My feet touched the platform and my hand was released. “Hello, Odessa,” said Annabelle as she walked out of the darkness. Annabelle was in her human form, and creepily staring at me.
“How did you know my name?” I asked.
“Ha, ha! Don't you get it Odessa?” she laughed at me.
“Get what?” I asked. Was this really Annabelle, or was this another fake - like Jackson had said?
“You don’t get it. You are never getting out and you will never ever see the light of day for the rest of your life.” Annabelle crossed her arms triumphantly. “But that shouldn’t matter, now should it? Because you’re not going to live much longer.”
“Why are you doing this to me?” I asked her, a better question to ask would be “What are you going to do to me?”
“Don't you remember that day, Odessa?” Annabelle questioned, arching her eyebrows.
“What day?” I was seriously confused.
“Hmmm, let’s see…” Annabelle pretended to think hard about that time. “It was a day about nine years ago. Remember when I came to your house and you almost killed me?! I fell off your dad’s back and you. Did. Nothing! I almost died!” she yelled, eyes filled with raging fire.
“What? No! You were fine when you fell!” I said, despretly trying to display my innocence. I did not want to be guilty of almost killing someone!
Now Annabelle was seething. “I was NOT fine! Like I said, I almost DIED!” Annabelle screamed at me, her voice echoing.
“But I saw you were fine when you fell off my dad’s back!” I argued.
“No! I was NOT fine! I wasn’t, I wasn’t. I wasn’t! Don’t you remember anything?” Annabelle shrieked at me, her voice shrill and high. “I was sent home! I had to go to bed! I was hurt pretty badly! And You did nothing! When I woke up -” Annabelle stopped.
“What, Annabelle? What happened when you woke up?!” I was desperate for answers. Answers to my never ending questions. “Answer me!”
“I was partially dead.” Annabelle whispered solemnly.
Chapter Twelve
I couldn’t beleive that Annabelle was lying to me like this, she couldn’t possibly be partially dead when she woke up. I mean, you’re either dead or alive - not partially dead!
“Look down at the audience. You’re audience. They’re all here to watch your death.” Annabelle said without emotion.
I gasped, my mom and dad were hear to watch my death? Did they even know why they were here - and what they were about to witness? Did they even care?
“Yes, Odessa. It is your parents. Soon, very soon, you will be down there with them.”
What did that even mean? I’m going to join my parents down there? I would finally be able to reunite with them! Or did Annabelle mean that my parents were already dead and i was going to die with them?
“Seriously, Annabelle. You really think that I’m going to jump from this high up?” I scoffed.
“No, Odessa. No I do not think you would jump.”
“Then how would I get down there?” But I knew what was coming next. Annabelle was the villain, so she was going to kill me… one way or another.
“Well, I was planning on pushing you!” an evil grin was growing on Annabelle’s face.
My mouth dropped open like a door with very loose hinges. Even though I thought Ib knew what was coming, it surprised me yet again. “What did me or my family do to you? Why are you doing this? Come on, can’t we settle this with talking?” I asked, pretending to be desperate, but I had a plan.
Annabelle put her hands on her hips. “Um, no. We cannot settle this by talking. Why would we do that?” Annabelle raised her hands to push me, but I was ready.
I swung around and tried to push Annabelle off the catwalk, intsead of the other way around. But apparently Annabelle saw that coming, and shook her finger in my face. “Nuh uh uh, hon! You don’t try to push me down! I push you down!” And with that, Annabelle pushed me off the catwalk.
I fell, waiting for the impact of the ground, or the auditorium seats, or the stage, but nothing happened. I found myself hagning onto the rusty chains, connecting the catwalk to the ceiling. I looked up to see Annabelle’s sneering face staring at me.
“Gosh, Odessa! You just fell! Are you okay?” she asked, with fake concern.
I glared at her. I was surprisingly calm for almost being killed. “Yeah, sure. I’m okay. Just stop!” Now I was not so calm anymore. “Just stop! Stop going after me! Stop going after Jackson! Stop going after both of us! You’re evil and crazy! Just stop!”
“You don't have to be so rude about it” Annabelle whimpered and started crying.
I struggled back onto the catwalk and stepped in front of her. “Sorry, Anna-” I was stopped.
“Tricked you!” Annabelle yelled triumphantly and pushed me off the catwalk. The world seemed to stop, then everything happened in slow motion. I could feel myself falling and falling and falling. I closed my eyes and took my last breath. Then everything went black.
Mom’s View After Odessa’s Death
I stumbled out of the car and looked at the sky, it was gray and it looked like it would rain. I sadly looked at the theatre where my daughter had died the week before. One of the policemen came up to me.
“I’m sorry, ma’am. The only evidence we found was a note on the catwalk, here take a look,” the policeman handed me a note inside of an evidence bag.
“Can I take the note out of the bag?” I asked, I would probably be able to read it better outside the bag.
“No, ma’am, I’m sorry. We cannot take any evidence out of the evidence bags. Because if your fingerprints get on the evidence, that would just mess up the investigation.”
I forced a smile. “I understand, sir.”
Dear person who finds this note and any other people who read this, I killed Odessa and you will never find me. But here is a hint: if you want to find me, I Lurk deep in the shadows of the underground tunnels. They were abandoned many years ago. I sit in a room with a single lightbulb hanging from the middle of the ceiling. There I wait in the dark corner, forever in the shadows. I hope you miss Odessa very much, I hope you are in pain forever. One thing is for sure, I will come back again... someday...
Hugs, kisses, and murder wishes, Annabelle.
“What?” I sputtered. “Where did you find this?” I was in shock. Someone named Annabelle had purposely killed my daughter, Odessa. And who signs a note ‘hugs, kisses, and murder wishes? That is just sick!
The policeman sighed grimly. “Like I said, we found it on the catwalk. I read it and it’s very clear that whoever this ‘Annabelle’ person is, she knew your daughter. She knew that someone would find this note, and she wants you to be in pain,” the policeman’s words were like a dagger stabbing my heart.
“You must find this Annabelle! She killed my daughter and I need you to find her-make her pay!” I thinking that this Annabelle girl must be mentally disturbed, to kill my little girl… take me up to the catwalk, now!” I told the police officer.
The policeman tugged at his uniform collar. “Um, I’m sorry ma’am, but this is a crime scene and this area is off limits.”
I grit my teeth in frustration. “This is the place where my daughter died.” I could barely choke out the word ‘died.’ I was breathing hard and my breath was coming out in short gasps. “I want to see the place where my daughter died! Take me there!” I ordered the officer.
“Alright,” he sighed. “I guess we could make an exception, just this once. But this is not a regular thing, okay, lady?”
I was so used to the officer calling me “ma’am,” that I was caught off guard when I was addressed as ‘lady.’
The police officer started off towards the theatre blanketed in Crime Scene do Not Cross tape. I followed him inside the auditorium and up the stairs to the catwalk. Once we got to the top of the catwalk, I spotted a thick metal cage. “Why is this here?” I asked the officer, whose name was Jack Hendermann.
“I don’t know, probably for construction workers or tech people to fix the lights or sound stage? But I’m not exactly sure,” Officer Hendermann said.
I decided to check it out and stepped cautiously onto the metal bars of the cage - against the officer’s warning.
Officer Hendermann came up to the cage beside me and closed the heavy cage door. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a key, inserting it into the keyhole of the cage. The officer had just locked me inside a cage that was hanging from a very high ceiling!
“What are you doing, officer? I thought that I wasn’t supposed to mess with the evidence. Let me out!”
The officer’s smile gleamed under the stage lights. “You’re not messing with any evidence. I’m just locking you up,” he said in a monotone voice.
“What are you doing?!” I repeated, my voice shrill.
Officer Henderson’s smile grew until I couldn’t tell if it was a smile or a frown. “Annabelle asked me to!” he yelled and left the catwalk.
“Officer! Officer! You don’t know what you’re doing! Officer!” I screamed, desperate to get someone’s attention so they could free me. “Please!”
I must have been in that cage for hours, when suddenly a small girl walked out of the shadows. “Hello, Mrs. Ambrosia,” she said without emotion.
I thought it was a little strange that she called me by my name, when I had never seen her before, but maybe I was hallucinating. “Hello, there. Could you get me out of here, please?” I begged her.
“No. Why would I do that?” the girl cocked her head mischievously.
“Sweetheart, could you please free me? If you’re lost I could help you find your parents. And you never told me, what is your name?” I was talking rather quickly.
“And why would that matter to you?” the girl sneered.
I gasped in surprise, only one little girl I knew would talk to an adult like that. “I know who you are!” I yelled through the metal bars.
“Then who am I?” she smirked.
“You're Annabelle!” I accused her.
“Give the lady a gold star...” Annabelle muttered under her breath. “And I suppose you know why I’m here, Mrs. Ambrosia?”
Suddenly my throat felt dry, I swallowed hard. “Tell me why you did it!” I demanded.
Annabelle’s face contorted into a look of mock confusion. “Did what?” she asked, pretending she had no idea what I was talking about.
“Tell me why you killed my daughter Odessa!” I yelled. I was like a raging bull and Annabelle was wearing all red, but she was surprisingly calm.
“Stop yelling or I will kill you!” Annabelle covered her ears with pale fingers.
I certainly didn’t want to meet the same fate that Odessa had, so I shut my mouth. “You killed my daughter! I should have a right to be mad! You should go to jail and be locked up for the rest of your life! Just wait until the police find you,” I whispered.
Annabelle smiled. “Oh, the police won’t find me. They’ll find you.” Annabelle turned on her heel, whispered some odd words to the darkness, and left.
Just as Annabelle walked out of the room, four shaded figures stepped out of the darkness, seeming to glide across the ground towards me. The hunched men stooped down and began to drag the cage that I was suspended into a different location.
“Where are you taking me?!” I shrieked. The figures didn’t answer me. “Where are you taking me?!” I repeated even louder.
“I told you to stop being so loud!” someone who must have been Annabelle yelled at me. “It hurts my ears!”
I hadn’t even noticed that the four figures had disappeared, and I was in a dark room with a single light bulb suspended from the ceiling. I thought that this must be the room that Annabelle talked about this must be the room that Annabelle was talking about in the note. Annabelle had mentioned a room with one lightbulb hanging from the ceiling.
My phone started vibrating in my purse - I had forgotten I had it with me! I answered it and my husband’s voice filled my ears. “Honey, guess what! I have some very good news for you!”
My ears were aching to hear something good after all that had happened in the last week. “Did the doctors find something in the autopsy?” my voice cracked, thinking about Odessa’s death.
“No, Jessica. But it does have something to do with Odessa! It turns out that she was just in a severe coma! She came out of it this afternoon! The doctors had to make sure before I called you… but she’s alive! It’s a miracle! A true miracle from God; Odessa’s alive!” my husband’s voice danced around in the speakers, singing to a joyful tune.
“Oh, Mark!” I practically collapsed from joy. “Odessa’s alive! Oh my God, oh my God! Odessa’s alive!”
I had forgotten Annabelle’s rule about no yelling, yet again. The line was cut.
To Be Continued In The Dark Rider
Odessa Ambrosia. When you hear that name, what do you think of? A college? A city? Greek gods and goddesses? Yeah, Ambrosia. That’s what the gods and goddesses drank. Plus, the Ambrosia made the gods and goddesses shiny and glowy and stuff. Odessa is also the name of a college and a city. My parents are kind of greek god and mythology freaks. So when I was born, they named me Odessa. I don’t know if Odessa was a name of a greek goddess, but I’m pretty sure it is. And my mom’s maiden name is Ambrosia. And my dad’s last name was Nelson. But he changed his last name to Ambrosia when he and my mom got married. Because it turns out that he was a greek mythology fanatic, too - like my mom! At least my brother is not into greek mythology, he’s into superheros and Star Wars. But me, I was always into something different, last week I was into Taylor Swift and this week I like this one show called Liv and Maddie. I also used to have a dog. Her name was Mia. She was an awesome dog, she never pulled on the leash when I walked her and she never chased my cat. Unfortunately she died from old age. My cat's name was Lily. She is the worst cat in the world! Whenever I tried to pet her she would run away. If I tried to pick her up, she would hiss and scratch me - then run away. So me and my mom returned her to the animal shelter. Now I don’t have any pets, just have my brother, Finn. He is named after a character in Irish mythology.
Now I have to tell you a story about what happened to me one day. I must tell you. Even though it is a scary story. I survived it, living through it, then you can survive at least reading it! So get ready to believe…
Chapter One
“Help! Help me!” I yelled as I ran as fast as I could down a long corridor. The corridor was in somewhat of a maze. And I was stuck in it.
I could only imagine what the thing chasing me would do to me if it caught me. Well, I didn’t even know what “it” was. I just knew that it was behind me, and getting closer. It didn’t look very friendly, either. When I first caught sight of it, I saw that it was big and hairy, and I was like, “So, you say you’re giving out free haircuts with that chainsaw in your hand? Well, you should get one yourself!”
I was starting to slow down, gasping for air. “Please!” I choked out. “Stop!” But it was no use. The thing was gaining speed, since we were now going downhill. This was a never ending game of tag. And the monster was “it.”
It felt like I’d been stuck in this maze for a month. But I knew it was only a couple of hours. A couple of hours… a couple of hours…
I was getting dizzy. The dark room was spinning, the chandelier was shaking and the floor was quivering. It looked like it would fall on me. I rushed out from under it. The thing? No such luck.
“Ughhhhh!” I heard a sickening cry. The chandelier had fallen on the monster. But, there was something familiar about the thing’s cry. It seemed like I had heard it from long ago.
“Let’s play, daddy!” three year old me exclaimed. “Okay, honey. What would you like to play?” A much younger than now dad asked me. “Horsey! Horsey! Ride horsey!” I yelled, and threw myself on my dad’s back. “All right. Horsey it is,” Dad smiled. He bucked his back and almost threw me off - gently, of course. “Again! Again!” I laughed. “One more time, sweetie,” then, dad stood up and danced around, with me on his back! “Fun! Fun! Yay!” I screamed with delight. Then it was my friends turn, my friend that had came over for a play date. “Can I do?” she had asked. “Sure,” my dad replied. And he did the same with my friend. Then, she fell off. “Ughhhhh!” she wailed.
Sorry. That was a flashback, from when I was about three. My friend had fallen off my dad’s back, and started to scream. That yell was the same cry of agony as the thing behind me had just uttered. I whirled around to face the monster, who, at the moment, was on the ground with a chandelier on top of it.
There was no way that I was going to stick around to find out if the monster was okay or not. I flew down the corridor, swerved around a sharp corner, charged up two flights of stairs, and came to a stop. Right in front of me, was a mirror. And in the mirror’s glass, I saw the monster. It must have been right behind me! I turned around, to face a certain death, but there was no one.
“Hello?” I called to eery silence. “Hello! Is anyone there?” I asked once more, but again - no answer. “Then how...” I stopped, and slowly turned around to face the mirror. “Then how was the monster right behind me?” I finished wondering aloud. Was I thinking clearly?
When I looked at the mirror again, my reflection was gone. In place of it, was the monster. “Okay. Where are you hiding?!” I yelled to no one. The monster was out of sight. But I still had questions.
How had the monster been right behind, but no one was there? And where was my reflection? “Aha!” I had a sudden thought. I turned around so my back was facing the mirror. And I craned my neck so I could see the mirror reflection and myself. And sure enough, there was the monster’s reflection. But no me. Also, the monster was doing the exact same thing I was doing. Facing it’s back toward the mirror. And turning it’s head to the mirror.
“What is happening?!” I yelled. I had no idea why the monster was copying everything I was doing. And I had no idea why the monster was invisible every time I turned around. “Okay. I’ve had enough of this! Where are you, monster… ish… um, thing? Where are you hiding? I demand to see you! This instant!” I stomped my foot for effect.
THUMP! I heard a loud noise and whirled around - to face nothing. Of course. “What was that noise?” I asked myself. There was an echo, and laughter rang in my ears. I had enough! I ran behind the mirror - and fell into a deep dark hole.
Chapter Two
“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh!” I shrieked. “Help meeeee!” I thought that I would eventually land somewhere. But I didn’t. I just kept falling and falling. And then, my feet hit a hard surface. “Huh?” I looked down. I was standing on somewhat of a rotating disk. Sort of like a giant frisbee I looked over the disk and down the hole. I couldn’t see the bottom.
But I decided to do the impossible. Well - not really impossible, that’s just one of my favorite phrases: “I decided to do the impossible,” that phrase sounds more dramatic than if I just say, “I was going to walk off the disk.”
I tried to walk to the end of the disk, but a deafening crash stopped me from doing so. “Ahhhh!” I screamed for what seemed to be the one hundredth time that day. A cage that had been hidden in the darkness had fallen on the edge of the disk! In the process, it had landed on my foot!
Pain shot up and down my leg like a confused race car. “Ouch! Ouch! Ouch!” I grimaced. How many pounds is that thing? I wondered, pointing to the cage sitting on the rotating disk that I was standing on. It felt like my foot was broken! I tried to put my foot down and straighten up. “Ow!” I yelled. I couldn’t even put any weight on it!
“This is gonna be hard,” I muttered. “Getting down from this disk. Finding my way out. Yep, it’s gonna be tough.”
All of a sudden my foot stopped hurting, now the confused race car had started the race again; in my leg! I pinched myself, to make sure I wasn’t dreaming. When I looked down in the dim light, there was fog drifting all around me. “How odd,” I said to myself.
I was definitely awake, though. On my arm was a throbbing red pinch mark, fighting to be seen through the fog. A stinging sensation zipped through my leg and foot. I could put weight on it again!
I tried inching off the other side of the disk, looking up every few seconds; in search of any more falling cages, coming down from the darkness. “No cages,” I reassured myself.
“Raaaaaaaurghhhh!” A roar echoed off the unseen walls. “Raaaaaaaurghhhh!” the cry of pure evil was right above me.
I was so surprised and frightened that I fell off the disk! “Aaaaaaaaah!” I screamed in terror, awaiting the death that was about to meet me. But surprisingly, I fell rather lightly on a bouncy surface. Sort of like a trampoline. It was pitch black down there, so I couldn’t tell.
“Raaaaaaaurghhh!” the cry seemed closer now. Sort of like it was inching it’s way closer to me, inching it’s way towards me, inching it’s way to kill.
I gulped, and ran blindly through the blackness. “Hello?” I whispered, of course there was no answer - I had whispered! So no one heard me, duh!
“Hello!” I yelled this time.
There was somewhat of a reply. “Solla hee. Ha keema. Lo potta,” a voice murmured somewhere.
“Hello?” I asked for the third time. It seemed like the voice that had talked to me was speaking in a foreign language.
“Solla, hee! Ha keema! Lo potta!” the words seemed distant, now. Further away.
“Solla, hee! Help me! Ha keema! Help me! Lo potta! Help me!” I could hear a faint cry for help.
“Is anyone here?” I asked, peering into the darkness.
“O-over here!” came a weak reply.
“Who’s there? I can help you!” I explained toward the direction of the cry. That’s when I tripped on a crack in the floor. “Owww…” I moaned weakly.
I woke to find myself in a large room with a dim light bulb hanging in the center of the ceiling. I got up and walked into one of the dark corners and stopped right before I walked right into a small girl.
Chapter Three
“Ahhhhhh!” I shrieked as I stumbled backwards sending myself crashing into the floor. “Who was that?” I asked myself.
“Me,” replied a faint voice.
“Who and where are you?” I asked with a hint of confusion.
“In the corner, where you just crashed from,” explained the little girl.
“Okay…” I trailed off. There was something suspicious about the girl. “Where’d you come from?” I asked her.
“Right here,” she gestured all around her. “I came from right here.”
“Where am I? Where are we? What is this place? Am I dreaming?” I asked, feeling a bit dizzy.
“What’s with all the questions?” the girl laughed. A nice laugh, not an evil one.
“Um, sorry. I’m just really confused. Can you answer my questions? Please?” I asked her, practically begging.
“Sure. Okay, so your first question; where are you? You are in a hole in the ground. Well, it’s more of a really long tunnel with disks, monsters, and a lot of things. I’ve been trapped in here for years. With food, of course. Clowns serve the food.”
“What?” I stepped back. “Clowns?!” I’ve had a fear of clowns since I was little.
“Yep. Clowns. Now, for question number two; you asked where are we. And that is basically the same question as what you asked before. So, same answer: in a long tunnel.”
“Okay…” I trailed off. “But how did I get here? How did you get here?” I asked. Now I was really confused.
“Um, question number three; what is this place. Uh, same answer, again. This place is a tunnel where clowns serve the food. Question number four. Are you dreaming? No. You are not dreaming. This is perfectly real,” the girl gestured around with her hands.
“Yeah, I get that,” I said, maybe sounding a bit too stuck up, because the girl looked a little hurt and she backed away until she was wedged in the corner, again.
“Oh, sorry. I was just answering your questions,” the girl said, looking down. “I thought you wanted to know. ‘Cause you asked them, ya know? So I was answering them.” And with that, the girl ran around me and into the darkness.
“Wait! Wait!” I called out to her. “Please, I have more questions to ask you! I didn’t mean to sound mean, I’m just so confused!” I took a deep breath. “Plus, when I get confused, I get annoyed. So I’m sorry I snapped at you!” I was desperate to get my questions answered. And all I wanted to do was to get out of this living nightmare!
I heard someone sniffle nearby. “Hello? Are you there, little girl?” I asked again.
“My name isn’t ‘little girl’! Please don’t call me that!” a voice came from the other side of the tunnel. The voice sounded like it had been crying.
“Okay, then what should I call you?” I yelled back, and my voice echoed off the unseen walls.
“My name is Annabelle! So please call me that! And I am in the corner. If you wish to find me.”
“Which corner, exactly? I mean, is there even a corner?”
“Yes, there are many, many, corners in this tunnel. Because it is not just a tunnel. It’s the basement of a very, very, large room. In a very, very, large house!”
“Huh?” Now I was the most confused I had ever been. I was in a tunnel in a basement in a house? When had I entered the house? Was this real?
Annabelle’s voice rang out again. “I’m in the corner across from you, in the dusty one!”
I groped my way along the indentations along the wall. It was dark and I couldn’t even see my hands in front of my face! “What are these hole thingies in the walls?” I asked Annabelle, who was apparently right across from me.
“Oh, those,” Annabelle said, like it was the most normal thing in the world. “They’re claw marks.”
“Claw marks?!” I shrieked and stumbled back. What were claw marks doing here? Along a wall?
“Yep. They’re from the monster. She was angry that day,” Annabelle explained.
I raised my eyebrows in disbelief. “Hey, Annabelle?” I called out to her.
“Yes?”
“How do you know the marks on the wall are claw marks?” I questioned, crossing my arms in the dim light from the lone flickering light bulb. I had walked closer to Annabelle’s corner, closer to the light.
“Um, I don’t know. I was just guessing. ‘Cause there’s a monster here, ya know?” she stammered. Now I could see her face. It was streaked with panic.
“Sure,” I could see that I had Annabelle in just the place I wanted; right where she would spill the beans on all the secrets she was hiding.
“Oh. Okay. Well, do you want me to, uh, come out of the corner?” Annabelle’s nervous voice asked me.
“Do whatever you want. But first, can you answer my two questions?” I asked smiling.
“Sure. I’ll answer your questions. But I never asked. What’s your name?” Annabelle wondered, her voice sounding more confident now.
My name? Uh, oh. She had asked my name! I decided to make up a fake name, just in case she was evil. “My name is Carly. Carly Johnson,” I lied.
“Okay. Hi, Carly. What are your questions? More questions on the tunnels? I can answer those. Well, let’s see. These tunnels are pretty old, and…” this Annabelle person was really good at changing the subject!
I interrupted her, “I don’t want to know about the tunnels. Okay? I want to know about the monster.”
Annabelle gulped. “Okay, sure. W-what do you want to know, um, about the m-m-monster?” Annabelle’s quivering voice stammered.
I breathed in slowly. “I want to know why you think that the monster made claw marks on the wall.”
“Um, uh, I don’t know. I guess that since there’s a monster here, that there would be monster evidence. So I’m guessing that the marks on the wall are monster claw marks.”
“Why do you think that the monster made the claw marks when it was mad? Because you said that the monster was angry that day, when it made the scratches. Why do you think that, Annabelle?” I raised my eyebrows, to show Annabelle that I was on to her.
“Well, the claw marks are all over the place, so I thought the monster might have been really mad or something, ‘cause she had claw marks on the walls, floors, and ceiling. It might have been having a tantrum,” Annabelle shrugged.
“But how would you know that the claw marks were on the ceiling, walls, and floor? There’s only one light bulb in this whole room. And you can’t see the floor that well, and you certainly can’t see the ceiling!” I proved.
Annabelle bit her lip in the dim light. “I did see ‘em. I did! The clowns have flashlights, ya know,” she said rather snottily.
“What clowns?!” I yelled.
Chapter Four
“The clowns that serve the food! The clowns that I told you about! Or were you even listening?” Annabelle curled up into an even tighter ball on the floor.
“Oh, yeah. That’s right,” I looked down at the floor. “But how do I know you’re telling the truth? How do I know that there are really clowns here?”
“Because!” Annabelle looked absolutely exasperated.
“Because why? I don’t know you at all, I just met you today! How do you expect me to trust you all of a sudden? I barely know you.”
Annabelle seemed to shrink back. “Well, you could trust me. I’ve been here way longer than you, ya know!”
This girl said the words, ‘ya know’ a lot. “Exactly how long have you been down here?” I asked, suspecting that she would tell me an unbelievable story. Maybe about how she’d been down here hundreds of years. Now that would be a total lie!
“About four or five years? I don’t really know, I might’ve been down here longer, though,” Annabelle shrugged her shoulders.
“Just as I suspected, an unbelievable thing to say,” I muttered.
“Huh? Did you say something?” Annabelle turned to me.
“Nope. But, before I forget, can I ask you my questions? That I was going to ask before you changed the subject?” I looked at her knowingly.
“Um, yeah. What do you want to know?”
“Why do you think that the monster is a girl?” I asked.
“Huh? What do you mean?” Annabelle looked confused.
“When you were talking about the monster having it’s tantrum. You said the monster was a ‘she’.”
“Oh. I just assumed that the monster was a girl. I guess maybe it might be a boy, but I thought….” Annabelle trailed off.
“You thought what?” I questioned her.
“I thought that it might be a girl monster because of the claw marks. I, uh, thought that they were more close together rather than a male’s claws would be,”
How did Annabelle know all this? “Annabelle, how do you know this much about monsters?” I asked.
She shrugged, and obviously, changed the subject.
“Um, do you need to know anything else? I can tell you kinda the history of these tunnels. Or something else?” then Annabelle started crying.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, bending down to where she was hunched in the darkness.
“It’s gone. It’s all gone!” she sobbed.
“What’s gone?” I didn’t understand.
“The dark,” Annabelle sniffled and covered her head in her hands.
“What do you mean? Are you talking about being in the dark?” I wrinkled my eyebrows in thought. Why would she be scared of the dark?
“No. I don’t care about being in the dark,” Annabelle crossed her arms.
“Then why are you crying, Annabelle?”
Annabelle sniffed again, rubbed her eyes, and scooted over to the dim light bulb. “I have to be in the light. Where they can see me,” Annabelle crossed her legs and sighed.
“Where who can see you?” I asked.
“They are evil,” Annabelle explained. “They put us here. They’re trying to kill us!” she yelled at me.
“Who are you talking about? Do you mean the monster?” I shook my hands in frustration.
“Yes! Of course I’m talking about the monster!” Annabelle said that like it was an obvious fact. “I saw the monster chasing you,” she said rather suspiciously.
“How did you see the monster chasing me?” I asked. How had she seen me getting chased by that hideous thing?
“Of course I saw you!” Annabelle smirked.
“Oh that’s right! You kinda live here. Right?” I smiled because I had finally figured it out.
“No. That’s not why I saw you. I wasn’t in this tunnel while the monster was chasing you,” Annabelle explained.
“Well then where were you? How’d you see me?” Guess what, I was confused again! Surprise, surprise.
“Because I am the monster!” Annabelle yelled. And with that, she morphed her features into the face of the monster. Then she changed herself into the monster. Her small face transformed into the scraggly face. Her light hair were curled, yellowing horns. Annabelle’s small kind eyes turned blazing red, with no pupils. Her petite frame was suddenly huge with scales and moldy orange-green fur. Annabelle had dripping fangs, and a snout with green slime oozing out of it. Her tail was like a dragon’s tail, long and scaly, but Annabelle’s tail had a blazing ball of fire at the end of her tail.
Chapter Five
“Ahhhhhh!” I screamed in horror. “Please don’t kill me!”
“Hmmm, my answer for that is yes. No. Maybe so.”
“Please!” I was up against the wall. “Please! Don’t you remember that when you weren’t a monster, you came to my house and rode on my dad’s back!” I pleaded with Annabelle, trying to make her remember the ‘good ol’ days.’
“Stop!” a non familiar voice yelled. The voice came closer and closer and then a person grabbed my arm. “We have to run!” whispered the strange person.
The girl who was now a monster, dropped dead. The fire at the end of her tail went out, leaving us in the darkness.
I was pulled away with the stranger who had made the monster stop like a deer in headlights, and die. “Why is the monster is dead?” I asked him.
“There is more!” he replied.
“What does that mean? What is more?” I asked, confused once again.
“Yes. There is more to what I am telling you. And they are coming for us!”
“Who are you?” I asked the stranger pulling me in tow.
“I don't know who I am,” the person said. I could tell the stranger was a male because of how low his voice was.
Now I was frustrated. “I’m serious! Who are you?” I said, raising my voice. We were now climbing a long flight of stairs, the hand railings had little light bulbs built into them, sort of like auditorium seats. I could see a little bit in the dim light, and on the walls next us, were very old portraits of stone faced people.
The stranger looked down at me, he looked about fifteen or sixteen. “It’s the truth. I don't know who I am!” he yelled at me.
I sighed, this was all part of a normal day for me! Being chased by a monster, seeing a girl - a former friend of mine change into a monster, being taken by a total stranger, and the stranger not knowing his name. All part of a totally normal day - NOT! “Well, I’ll call you Jackson. Because you look like the kind of person whose name would be Jackson,” I decided.
Jackson ran with me deeper into the darkness. “Okay, call me Jackson. I’ll try to remember to answer when you say the name Jackson. I’m not used to anyone talking to me, I’ve been alone all these years,” he smiled a weak, forced smile.
Wait, why was I trusting a total stranger? “Uh, Jackson?” I tapped him on the shoulder as we were running. Well, more like he was running and dragging me along.
“Yeah?” Jackson turned his head to look down at me, but just for a second. Then he had to look up again to see where we were going.
I gulped. Was he going to get mad at me? “How do I know that I can trust you? I mean, you did save me from a monster, but still!” I wasn’t sure if I could trust him or not.
“I did save you from a monster and I’m taking you away,” Jackson explained.
I gasped. “Wait, what? You’re taking me away? From what?!” I shrieked.
“More,” he said solemnly.
“More what? Why won’t you tell me?” I was getting really mad at this Jackson guy.
“The monsters. There are more of them… okay? So, just trust me. Or go back to the monster-girl and trust her. It’s your decision. Who do you wanna pick? If you pick me… then I will go to a random place. If you pick the monster, she will go to a random place,” Jackson said, rather out of breath. Then he let go of my arm and took off full speed into the deep darkness.
Chapter Six
As soon as Jackson disappeared, a glowing orb appeared in his place.
“How would I trust the monster? She’s dead, don’t you remember? Plus, would the random place be a good place or a bad place?” I called over to the Jackson/orb. I knew the monster was dead, I’d seen her drop dead. But… what if she had just fainted? Not died?
“The monster didn’t die! I shot her with a sleeping dart!” yelled Jackson. “I don’t know how long the monster will be asleep. It might be a few more minutes, or a few more hours. I also don’t know which spot is the good place, or the bad place!” Jackson must have cupped his hands around his mouth, because his voice sounded louder and clearer.
“Wait! Jackson! I don't know who to choose!” I yelled to the spot where he used to be standing, but now the orb was floating there.
“You have to choose me or the monster!” he yelled back.
“But if I choose you, then what?”
“I don't know! Just make your choice!”
I was sweating because if I chose Jackson, I could send him to a possible bad place or a possible good place. I didn’t want to send Jackson to a bad place, especially since he had saved me from the Annabelle monster. “I choose Jackson!” I yelled at the strange floating orb.
“Hee hee hee ha ha!” the orb cackled. Now the orb’s color changed from an army green to the face of the monster. “Ah!” I gasped and stumbled back.
The monster’s face swirled around and around in the orb. “You made the wrong choice, deary!” the Annabelle monster’s voice sounded like an old lady. “Jackson is now stuck in the Dungeon of No Return!”
I gasped again - it seemed like I was always gasping. “What? No! He can’t be stuck! How did he get there?”
The Annabelle monster’s face morphed into Jackson’s face. “Yoooou put meeee heeeere. Yoooou put meee in the dungeeeon of nooo reeeturn! It’s yooour fault!” he moaned.
“I have to save you!” I said, my voice panicky.
“There is no way - so give up!” Jackson’s features swirled back into nothingness, and then into the face of Annabelle, in her human form. “Sorry, you’ll never get your poor Jackson Wackson back, never ever,” she said in a whiny baby voice, talking to me like I was a really young kid.
“Never!” I screamed. “I’ll never ever give up! What did Jackson ever do to you? Huh, Annabelle? What did he do to you? Why’d he deserve that?” Now I was screaming at the top of my lungs. “Did he deserve that? Or did you just feel like doing that to an innocent person?” now my voice was hoarse.
“Nope. He deserved it,” Annabelle almost sounded nice, but then she turned back into the monster. “And I think that you deserve it too!” she roared.
“I deserve it? What did I do?” I challenged.
“You didn’t help me when I fell off your father’s back. Your dad helped me, you didn’t. Do you know what you did? You went to go eat a popsicle, that’s what you did!” and with that, Annabelle leaped out of the floating orb. As she was flying through the air, towards the ground, she turned herself back into the monster.
I jumped out of the way as Annabelle clawed the air, trying to rip me apart.
“See, you do deserve it! You’re going to go to the same place you sent your friend!” the monster yelled. Annabelle grabbed me, and in the process, scratched me with her long yellowish claws.
“Ha ha ha ha ha!” was all I heard as I was dragged away to a certain death.
“Wake up, hurry! Wake up! We don’t have much time,” someone whispered in my ear.
Chapter Seven
“What?” I squinted groggily up at a boy’s face.
“Wake up!” he yelled and shook me.
“Okay, okay! I’m awake!” I yelled at the boy. Then I realized it was Jackson. “Oh,” I said more softly, feeling bad for yelling at him. “I’m awake.”
“Good, because we need to get out of here, fast,” he replied, grabbing my hand.
“Why do we need to get out of here? Where am I? Where are we?” I asked, rubbing my eyes.
“We need to get out of here ‘cause the monster is coming back to kill you. And she’s probably gonna kill me, too.”
“Why would she wanna kill you? Hey, that reminds me, how’d you get out of the Dungeon of No Return?” I asked him.
Jackson wrinkled his eyebrows and let go of my hand, “Huh?”
“the Dungeon of No Return,” I repeated. “How did you escape? Remember, I trusted you, so you were sent to the Dungeon by the monster.”
“Oh, you mean that,” Jackson slapped his forehead. “I’m always forgetting things. It’s because of these tunnels. They take you memory away, and eventually they take your souls away from you, too,” Jackson explained.
“Oh my gosh! They take your memory and souls?!” I exclaimed.
“Yep,” Jackson pursed his lips. “So, I don’t remember how I escaped the… the Dungeon of No… unicorns?” he guessed.
“No, Jackson! The Dungeon of No… No… um, I can’t remember either!” I wailed. Now I knew that I had to get myself and Jackson out of these tunnels - and fast!
“It’s okay. Really, it’s okay. Um… oh no! I forgot your name - plus I forgot my name! What’s your name? Quick, tell me!” he sounded really desperate to know my name.
“Why do you want to know so badly?” I questioned.
“I don’t know, I mean, these days I feel like I don’t know anything,” Jackson muttered.
“Well maybe you didn’t forget my name. Maybe I just forgot to tell you. Yeah - that’s it! I never told you my name!” I exclaimed, suddenly relieved. Jackson wasn’t forgetting everything, I had just forgotten to tell him!
“I guess that’s possible,” Jackson pondered. “But it would be helpful if you told me your name,” he chuckled.
“Um, yeah. My name is… uh, my name is - I forgot my name, too!” I yelled.
“Shh! The monster will hear you, follow the noise, and kill us! I mean, you do realize that we are trying to get away from the monster - not attract it, right?” Jackson asked me.
“Yep,” I said sheepishly. “But what about my memory? Will I forget everything, too?” I was frightened that I would forget about my parents, my brother, my name, and my home. Then a flashback came to my mind.
“Oh!” my mood brightened. “My name is Odessa Ambrosia, that’s my name! I remember! Jackson, I remember my name! Yay!” I squealed.
Jackson covered his mouth and let out a weird sound, I knew he was trying to hold back a laugh.
I pretended to have my feelings hurt. “Jackson, you said you wouldn’t laugh,” I whined.
“No, no. You got it all wrong, Odessa. I was laughing at your squealing! I mean, I don’t think I’ve heard squealing before, and if I did, I wouldn’t remember it, ya know?” Jackson shrugged and smiled.
“Okay, I wouldn’t laugh, but we’ve gotta get moving if we want to lose the monster. Okay?” Jackson grabbed my hand again.
“Okay,” I agreed, nodding my head to emphasize my agreement. “But I never told you my name yet,” I bit my lip.
“Yeah you did, just now. Or did you? I don’t know, and I’m feeling kinda queasy. Ugh,” Jackson moaned and grabbed his stomach.
“Are you alright?” I asked, my eyes wide.
“Yeah, I’ll be fine. It’s just these tunnels. They not only take away your memory and souls, but they also make you sick in the process of taking them. It’ll happen to you, too. If we don’t get out of here soon, but I haven’t found a secret exit out of here, even though I’ve been here a while, I don’t actually don’t know how long, though. Have you found an exit?” he turned to me, but he faced nothingness. “Odessa?”
“Yep, ugh! Down here, oooohhhh…” I groaned on the cold, stone ground.
“Are you okay, Odessa?” Jackson reached down his hand to help me up.
“Yeah, I’ll be fine. It’s just like you said - it’s these tunnels.” My stomach, like Jackson’s, was churning like a garbage disposal.
“Do you think that I will ever see my family again... or find my name?” asked Jackson.
“Of course you will! Don’t be silly, you’ll find them,” I said. “Hopefully,” I whispered the last part.
Chapter Eight
“Maybe not,” Jackson brushed his shaggy hair out of his eyes.
“Jackson, we are getting out of these tunnels and we will find your family and your name! So let’s go!” I turned to him and smiled.
Jackson put a finger to his lips to remind me that we should be quiet.
“Oh, right. I’m forgetting things again,” I sighed.
“Yeah, that’ll happen. But how do you plan on escaping?” he cocked his head. “I mean, I’ve been in these tunnels way, way longer than you. And I’ve never even found any exits, so unless you have a special gift or something, I don’t think that we will be getting out any time soon.”
“Well, I think that we’ll need to find a trapdoor, they always have those in dungeons and scary movies,” I pointed out.
“But this isn’t a dungeon or a scary movie, it’s real life. But I guess this place could be considered a dungeon, maybe,” Jackson shrugged.
“I think we should look, just in case, right?” I raised my eyebrows.
“Okay then. If you think that’ll work,” Jackson said.
“Let’s split up. We’ll cover more ground that way, okay?” I looked at Jackson to see if he agreed.
“Okay, boss,” he joked and playfully saluted.
I rolled my eyes and smiled. “Wow, Jackson.”
Jackson walked in one direction and I got on my hands and knees and crawled around in the other. I moved my hands around the mossy, moist ground to try to find ridges, hinges, or anything else that seemed peculiar.
“Ah ha! Odessa, I think I found it!” Jackson exclaimed from the other side of the dark room.
“You did? Awesome!” I was suddenly relieved, we would be out of here soon! I ran toward the sound of Jackson’s voice, and bumped right into him!
“Oh!” he gasped in surprise and toppled backwards from the impact.
“Sorry, Jackson! It’s too dark in here. Are you okay?” I asked, extending my hand to help him up.
“Yeah, I think so,” Jackson brushed the dust and dirt off of his pants and sweatshirt.
“I’m really sorry,” I apologized again. “Where’s the trapdoor?”
“Right here, you see it? I was ripping the moss off and it was bronze underneath. I think it’s some sort of door or something,” Jackson explained.
I stepped closer to the spot where Jackson was pointing. “You mean that?” I asked, nodding to the bronze tube running up and down the wall.
“Yeah. What do you think?” Jackson ran his hand through his hair.
“Um, Jackson?” I smiled weakly. “That’s a plumbing pipe.”
“Oh, sorry,” he grinned sheepishly.
“No, no. It’s fine! I probably would’ve done the same thing. Saw a pipe, got so excited and thought it was something cool. Yeah, that's pretty much me in a nutshell. Don’t worry,” I patted him on the back and turned away to go back to looking for a hidden door.
“Hey, Odessa?” Jackson called over to me.
“Yeah?”
“Next time I’ll look more closely before I yell for you to come over. Okay?”
“Okay, sounds good,” I agreed and got back down on my knees. I crawled around, digging my fingernails under the moss, feeling for a hidden trapdoor. Suddenly, I felt something like metal. Upon closer inspection, it looked like a door!
Chapter Nine
“Yes! I think I found it!” I exclaimed.
“Are you sure?” Jackson asked, throwing a handful of dirt and moss over his shoulder from where he was digging.
“Yeah, I’m pretty sure,” I replied. “Come look at this!”
Jackson ran over to me and stooped over, squinting at the rusted silver patch on the ground.
“Yeah, it has hinges. It looks like a door, let’s try it!” he agreed.
I pulled on the raised knob. The door creaked, but it didn’t budge. “Jackson, can you help me?” I turned to him.
“Yeah, let me see,” he bent over even more and grasped the handle. “Uggghh!” he groaned with the weight of the door, it was lifting up, exposing the late morning light. “Help me, Odessa! Or I’ll drop it,” Jackson closed his eyes to concentrate on lifting the trapdoor.
I joined in, pulling, yanking and heaving. We strained with the weight of the hidden compartments’ lid. With a final burst of strength, the trap door opened with a puff of dust.
I was climbing out the trapdoor when my eyes were almost blinded by the sun “Look! Jackson, it’s the sun!” I smiled broadly.
“Yeah! I don’t remember ever seeing the sun!” he was so happy, he was practically glowing.
I almost screamed in excitement as I stepped on the perfectly green grass and breathed in the fresh air. “Hey, Jackson?”
“Yeah?” he cocked his head.
“Can I hug you? I mean - I am so excited I could just… kiss you!” but seeing Jackson’s bewildered face when I said the word ‘kiss,’ I just hugged him instead.
“Tessa, do you know where we are? Because my sense of direction has withered down into nothing when I was in the tunnles. So, do you know where we are? Tessa?” Jackson had said the name twice before I realized he was talking to me and had forgotten my name.
“Um, sorry Jackson, but my name is Odessa, not Tessa…” I trailed off, but then I realized where we were. “Wait! Jackson! I know where we are! This is my yard!” I exclaimed happily and took off towards the front door of my house.
“Sorry, Odessa. I - I just, can’t help it. The tunnels are eating my soul and memory.”
“That’s okay, Jackson, just try your best!” I called over my shoulder.
When I reached the door, I tried to open it. “Ugh, it won’t open! My mom and dad must not be home. Whenever they leave the house, they always lock the door. But I don’t know why they do that. Probably for safety and making sure that burgalurs can’t get in,” I explained.
“Oh,” Jackson said. “Try knocking, that usually helps,” he smiled sarcastically.
“Okay, smart boy,” I joked. “I’ll try that.” I raised my fist to the cool, white door. But, for some reason, I was afraid to knock.
“What’s wrong, Rosetta?” he put a hand on my shoulder.
I smiled. “My name’s not Rosetta, that’s the name of a fairy in Tinkerbell. At least, I think it is. I haven't watched Tinkerbell in a long time! My name is Odessa.”
Jackson blushed. “Oh, sorry. I guess the tunnels have done their thing. I just might keep forgetting forever! Unless…”
“Unless what?” I urged him on.
Jackson grimaced. “I don’t know! That’s the problem!”
“All right. I guess that’s fine. I’ll knock. Hopefully my parents will be home. Right?” I tried to sound optimistic, but most of the hope I had was gone.
“Right.”
I placed my hand against the door for the second time. My fear had drained out of me. I knocked, and the sound echoed around the house.
Jackson smiled encouragingly. “Your parents will probably answer soon. If they’re home - that is.”
I smiled back, a tight lipped smile. It was forced-a fake one. Somewhere in my gut, I knew my parents weren’t going to come. They weren't going to answer, because, they were gone.
“Jackson, there was no answer!” I explained to him.
“Oh, I’m sorry. Well, we can wait ‘til your parents get home from work,” he suggested.
I sighed. “That’s the problem!” I bit my lip. “My parents didn’t go to work today! It’s their day off!”
Jackson rubbed his forehead in thought. “Then where d’ya think your parents are?”
“I don’t know.” It was true, I had no idea where my parents could be.
“Then, we’ll just have to find out!”
Just then, the front door opened with a swoosh. Then slammed just again. It began doing that repeatedly. “Jackson?” I cried in a shrill voice. “What’s happening?”
The door opened and closed, this time, almost crushing my finger!
“Oh yeah, that always happens in the maze. So I’m used to it.”
I raised my eyebrows. “It always happens?”
“Yep.”
“Oh. Did the door ever slam on you? Like, hurt you?” I asked.
Jackson licked his lips, like he was nervous. “Um, once it did…” he trailed off. “But it’s a sore subject.”
“You can tell me. You know you can, Jackson,” I tried to sound soothing.
“Yeah, okay. It was a yellow door with a silver knocker. It started slamming and I tried to run through - real quick! But it slammed on my neck. I felt like I couldn’t breathe. I thought I was gonna die, and I was really scared. Then the door opened and I knew it was my chance. I still have the scar, wanna see?” Jackson finished explaining.
I wrinkled my nose. “Uh… sure,” I backed away a little.
Jackson pulled down the collar of his shirt, to reveal a long white scar.
“Ooh. Looks painful,” I said, pointing to his wound.
“Sometimes it is, not all the time. But now I know how to stop those crazy doors. Here, lemme do it,” Jackson pushed me aside gently. He whispered some strange words through the keyhole.
Chapter Ten
I jumped back. What would happen? Would something explode? Was Jackson some kind of wizard? Did he have magical powers?
A few moments later, my fourth question was answered. The door stopped it’s slamming abruptly.
“Whoa!” I uttered a cry and stumbled back.
Jackson smiled a toothy grin. “Don’t worry. There’s no reason to be afraid, Odette.”
I looked at him strangely. Sure, there was nothing to be afraid of: a monster that was trying to kill us, Jackson just talked to a door and it stopped slamming. Yeah, everything is perfectly normal!
“Jackson, my name is Odessa. Odessa, not Odette. Odessa, okay?” I breathed slowly through my nose. My plan wasn’t working-Jackson was forgetting more and more!
Jackson grabbed my hand, and pulled me through the door, into my house. I ran up the stairs, while Jackson stayed downstairs. I took a running start and leaped onto my bed. I immediately jumped off of my bedspread ; it was like hot coals. My bed was hard and it had red dots all over it . “What the heck happened to my bed?!” I yelled.
Then, I heard thudding footsteps on the stairs. Coming closer and closer to me. “What’s wrong?” asked Jackson, out of breath.
“Look at my bed!” I shrieked, but Jackson had never seen my bed before it was turned rock-hard and polka dotted.
“Cool bed spread. I’m likin’ the dots,” he flashed me a thumbs up, but when he saw my face, and realized I wasn’t happy, his face contorted into a look of concern. “What’s wrong?” he repeated.
I coughed and shook my head. “It used to be really soft, with a cloud themed bed spread. Not it’s as hard as a rock! And you can see, now this is the blanket.”
Jackson reached out his hand and gently placed his hand on my bed. “Oh, geez. It is hard!” he agreed. “What if the same thing happened to every bed in your house?”
“That would be bad,” I replied worriedly. “Let’s go check!” we exclaimed at the exact same time.
We ran into my and dad’s room and saw their bed in the exact same state that we left it. “I don’t understand,” I said, wrinkling my eyebrows. “How come my bed was really hard and polka dotted. And my parent’s bedroom was fine?”
“Where are your mom and dad? Didn’t you say that they were home?” Jackson was intrigued.
“I, I guess I was wrong. But if there’s no one here, then where are they? I saw both their cars in the garage, so they must be home, right?” I asked myself.
“Probably,” Jackson answered. “Hey, look,” Jackson pointed to my parent’s bed. There was no one there, I was confused. But then I saw two lumps; one on each side of the bed.
“Hello?” I said to the lumps. Of course, no one answered. I walked up to the bed and slowly lifted the covers, to reveal… “Ahhhh!” I screamed as I looked down at the two frozen monsters.
Chapter Eleven
Jackson came up behind me and put his hand on my shoulder, “It’s okay, the monsters are trying to trick you... I think. Yeah, I’m pretty sure the monsters are trying to trick us. I just realized why your parents aren't home. Do you have any siblings?” he asked me.
“Yeah. A brother, and an annoying one at that,” I replied. “Why?”
Jackson smiled a triumphant grin. “I knew it! The monsters are trying to trick you! This is a fake world, the real world, where you and your family lives, is on the other side.”
“The other side of what?” I inquired.
Jackson looked up at me. “The other side,” he repeated.
“Okay, then…” I trailed off. “Are you saying that these monsters aren’t real? And my family live in another world?”
“Well, the monsters right here, aren’t real. But the monster in the tunnel is real. The monster in the tunnel is really a girl named Annabelle. I used to be friends with her,” Jackson sighed.
“Yeah, me too. I used to be besties with her. She came over to my house a lot,” I was remembering the good ol’ times.
“We’re getting off track here, Amelia.”
‘Amelia?’ Where did he get the name, ‘Amelia?’ It didn’t even sound like ‘Odessa.’
I smiled weakly, “It’s Odessa, not Amelia.
“Oops, sorry Odessa. I’m forgetting things again… but we can’t get off track. We have to find the real Annabelle Monster! Okay?”
“Okay. But are these monsters real?” I asked him.
“No! I’ve answered that already!” Jackson exclaimed.
I could feel my face turning red. “Yup. I’m forgetting things too, Jackson. But can I touch the monsters?”
“No! I wouldn’t do that if I were-”
I poked the monster that was on my mom’s side of the bed. “Aaarghhh!” the monster screamed at me. I jumped back at least a foot.
“Really, Odessa?” Jackson half-yelled at me, “You had to touch the monster?!”
“Well, I didn't know!” I said in my defense. “You’re the one who told me they were fake!”
Jackson and I dashed out the doorway-away from the monsters. We ran down the stairs and skidded into the kitchen. “Jackson?” I gasped, out of breath.
“Yeah?” he panted. “What is it? Anything more important getting away from the Tyrannosaurus Twins?” he jabbed a thumb in the monster’s direction. They were darting toward us!
“I’m pretty sure they’re monsters. Some kind of hybrids, probably. Not dinosaurs!” I called over my shoulder to Jackson, who was still in the kitchen.
“Okay!” I yelled back in the loudest voice I could manage. I tried to run down the steps on the deck, down to the lawn, but I tripped and fell. The last sounds I remember are the breaking of a window and a cry for help…
“Ha, ha, ha!” I heard a wicked laugh from above me.
Without thinking I jumped and grabbed the rope that was hanging from the unseen ceiling. As soon as the rope came in contact with my hand, a thick metal strap latched around my hand and the rope started going up towards the ceiling; while my hand was still stuck!
Now I was far off the ground and couldn't get my hand out! When I thought about it it’s kinda good my hand was stuck because falling would not be good, especially at this height. Then, a platform came into view. It looked like a catwalk!
My feet touched the platform and my hand was released. “Hello, Odessa,” said Annabelle as she walked out of the darkness. Annabelle was in her human form, and creepily staring at me.
“How did you know my name?” I asked.
“Ha, ha! Don't you get it Odessa?” she laughed at me.
“Get what?” I asked. Was this really Annabelle, or was this another fake - like Jackson had said?
“You don’t get it. You are never getting out and you will never ever see the light of day for the rest of your life.” Annabelle crossed her arms triumphantly. “But that shouldn’t matter, now should it? Because you’re not going to live much longer.”
“Why are you doing this to me?” I asked her, a better question to ask would be “What are you going to do to me?”
“Don't you remember that day, Odessa?” Annabelle questioned, arching her eyebrows.
“What day?” I was seriously confused.
“Hmmm, let’s see…” Annabelle pretended to think hard about that time. “It was a day about nine years ago. Remember when I came to your house and you almost killed me?! I fell off your dad’s back and you. Did. Nothing! I almost died!” she yelled, eyes filled with raging fire.
“What? No! You were fine when you fell!” I said, despretly trying to display my innocence. I did not want to be guilty of almost killing someone!
Now Annabelle was seething. “I was NOT fine! Like I said, I almost DIED!” Annabelle screamed at me, her voice echoing.
“But I saw you were fine when you fell off my dad’s back!” I argued.
“No! I was NOT fine! I wasn’t, I wasn’t. I wasn’t! Don’t you remember anything?” Annabelle shrieked at me, her voice shrill and high. “I was sent home! I had to go to bed! I was hurt pretty badly! And You did nothing! When I woke up -” Annabelle stopped.
“What, Annabelle? What happened when you woke up?!” I was desperate for answers. Answers to my never ending questions. “Answer me!”
“I was partially dead.” Annabelle whispered solemnly.
Chapter Twelve
I couldn’t beleive that Annabelle was lying to me like this, she couldn’t possibly be partially dead when she woke up. I mean, you’re either dead or alive - not partially dead!
“Look down at the audience. You’re audience. They’re all here to watch your death.” Annabelle said without emotion.
I gasped, my mom and dad were hear to watch my death? Did they even know why they were here - and what they were about to witness? Did they even care?
“Yes, Odessa. It is your parents. Soon, very soon, you will be down there with them.”
What did that even mean? I’m going to join my parents down there? I would finally be able to reunite with them! Or did Annabelle mean that my parents were already dead and i was going to die with them?
“Seriously, Annabelle. You really think that I’m going to jump from this high up?” I scoffed.
“No, Odessa. No I do not think you would jump.”
“Then how would I get down there?” But I knew what was coming next. Annabelle was the villain, so she was going to kill me… one way or another.
“Well, I was planning on pushing you!” an evil grin was growing on Annabelle’s face.
My mouth dropped open like a door with very loose hinges. Even though I thought Ib knew what was coming, it surprised me yet again. “What did me or my family do to you? Why are you doing this? Come on, can’t we settle this with talking?” I asked, pretending to be desperate, but I had a plan.
Annabelle put her hands on her hips. “Um, no. We cannot settle this by talking. Why would we do that?” Annabelle raised her hands to push me, but I was ready.
I swung around and tried to push Annabelle off the catwalk, intsead of the other way around. But apparently Annabelle saw that coming, and shook her finger in my face. “Nuh uh uh, hon! You don’t try to push me down! I push you down!” And with that, Annabelle pushed me off the catwalk.
I fell, waiting for the impact of the ground, or the auditorium seats, or the stage, but nothing happened. I found myself hagning onto the rusty chains, connecting the catwalk to the ceiling. I looked up to see Annabelle’s sneering face staring at me.
“Gosh, Odessa! You just fell! Are you okay?” she asked, with fake concern.
I glared at her. I was surprisingly calm for almost being killed. “Yeah, sure. I’m okay. Just stop!” Now I was not so calm anymore. “Just stop! Stop going after me! Stop going after Jackson! Stop going after both of us! You’re evil and crazy! Just stop!”
“You don't have to be so rude about it” Annabelle whimpered and started crying.
I struggled back onto the catwalk and stepped in front of her. “Sorry, Anna-” I was stopped.
“Tricked you!” Annabelle yelled triumphantly and pushed me off the catwalk. The world seemed to stop, then everything happened in slow motion. I could feel myself falling and falling and falling. I closed my eyes and took my last breath. Then everything went black.
Mom’s View After Odessa’s Death
I stumbled out of the car and looked at the sky, it was gray and it looked like it would rain. I sadly looked at the theatre where my daughter had died the week before. One of the policemen came up to me.
“I’m sorry, ma’am. The only evidence we found was a note on the catwalk, here take a look,” the policeman handed me a note inside of an evidence bag.
“Can I take the note out of the bag?” I asked, I would probably be able to read it better outside the bag.
“No, ma’am, I’m sorry. We cannot take any evidence out of the evidence bags. Because if your fingerprints get on the evidence, that would just mess up the investigation.”
I forced a smile. “I understand, sir.”
Dear person who finds this note and any other people who read this, I killed Odessa and you will never find me. But here is a hint: if you want to find me, I Lurk deep in the shadows of the underground tunnels. They were abandoned many years ago. I sit in a room with a single lightbulb hanging from the middle of the ceiling. There I wait in the dark corner, forever in the shadows. I hope you miss Odessa very much, I hope you are in pain forever. One thing is for sure, I will come back again... someday...
Hugs, kisses, and murder wishes, Annabelle.
“What?” I sputtered. “Where did you find this?” I was in shock. Someone named Annabelle had purposely killed my daughter, Odessa. And who signs a note ‘hugs, kisses, and murder wishes? That is just sick!
The policeman sighed grimly. “Like I said, we found it on the catwalk. I read it and it’s very clear that whoever this ‘Annabelle’ person is, she knew your daughter. She knew that someone would find this note, and she wants you to be in pain,” the policeman’s words were like a dagger stabbing my heart.
“You must find this Annabelle! She killed my daughter and I need you to find her-make her pay!” I thinking that this Annabelle girl must be mentally disturbed, to kill my little girl… take me up to the catwalk, now!” I told the police officer.
The policeman tugged at his uniform collar. “Um, I’m sorry ma’am, but this is a crime scene and this area is off limits.”
I grit my teeth in frustration. “This is the place where my daughter died.” I could barely choke out the word ‘died.’ I was breathing hard and my breath was coming out in short gasps. “I want to see the place where my daughter died! Take me there!” I ordered the officer.
“Alright,” he sighed. “I guess we could make an exception, just this once. But this is not a regular thing, okay, lady?”
I was so used to the officer calling me “ma’am,” that I was caught off guard when I was addressed as ‘lady.’
The police officer started off towards the theatre blanketed in Crime Scene do Not Cross tape. I followed him inside the auditorium and up the stairs to the catwalk. Once we got to the top of the catwalk, I spotted a thick metal cage. “Why is this here?” I asked the officer, whose name was Jack Hendermann.
“I don’t know, probably for construction workers or tech people to fix the lights or sound stage? But I’m not exactly sure,” Officer Hendermann said.
I decided to check it out and stepped cautiously onto the metal bars of the cage - against the officer’s warning.
Officer Hendermann came up to the cage beside me and closed the heavy cage door. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a key, inserting it into the keyhole of the cage. The officer had just locked me inside a cage that was hanging from a very high ceiling!
“What are you doing, officer? I thought that I wasn’t supposed to mess with the evidence. Let me out!”
The officer’s smile gleamed under the stage lights. “You’re not messing with any evidence. I’m just locking you up,” he said in a monotone voice.
“What are you doing?!” I repeated, my voice shrill.
Officer Henderson’s smile grew until I couldn’t tell if it was a smile or a frown. “Annabelle asked me to!” he yelled and left the catwalk.
“Officer! Officer! You don’t know what you’re doing! Officer!” I screamed, desperate to get someone’s attention so they could free me. “Please!”
I must have been in that cage for hours, when suddenly a small girl walked out of the shadows. “Hello, Mrs. Ambrosia,” she said without emotion.
I thought it was a little strange that she called me by my name, when I had never seen her before, but maybe I was hallucinating. “Hello, there. Could you get me out of here, please?” I begged her.
“No. Why would I do that?” the girl cocked her head mischievously.
“Sweetheart, could you please free me? If you’re lost I could help you find your parents. And you never told me, what is your name?” I was talking rather quickly.
“And why would that matter to you?” the girl sneered.
I gasped in surprise, only one little girl I knew would talk to an adult like that. “I know who you are!” I yelled through the metal bars.
“Then who am I?” she smirked.
“You're Annabelle!” I accused her.
“Give the lady a gold star...” Annabelle muttered under her breath. “And I suppose you know why I’m here, Mrs. Ambrosia?”
Suddenly my throat felt dry, I swallowed hard. “Tell me why you did it!” I demanded.
Annabelle’s face contorted into a look of mock confusion. “Did what?” she asked, pretending she had no idea what I was talking about.
“Tell me why you killed my daughter Odessa!” I yelled. I was like a raging bull and Annabelle was wearing all red, but she was surprisingly calm.
“Stop yelling or I will kill you!” Annabelle covered her ears with pale fingers.
I certainly didn’t want to meet the same fate that Odessa had, so I shut my mouth. “You killed my daughter! I should have a right to be mad! You should go to jail and be locked up for the rest of your life! Just wait until the police find you,” I whispered.
Annabelle smiled. “Oh, the police won’t find me. They’ll find you.” Annabelle turned on her heel, whispered some odd words to the darkness, and left.
Just as Annabelle walked out of the room, four shaded figures stepped out of the darkness, seeming to glide across the ground towards me. The hunched men stooped down and began to drag the cage that I was suspended into a different location.
“Where are you taking me?!” I shrieked. The figures didn’t answer me. “Where are you taking me?!” I repeated even louder.
“I told you to stop being so loud!” someone who must have been Annabelle yelled at me. “It hurts my ears!”
I hadn’t even noticed that the four figures had disappeared, and I was in a dark room with a single light bulb suspended from the ceiling. I thought that this must be the room that Annabelle talked about this must be the room that Annabelle was talking about in the note. Annabelle had mentioned a room with one lightbulb hanging from the ceiling.
My phone started vibrating in my purse - I had forgotten I had it with me! I answered it and my husband’s voice filled my ears. “Honey, guess what! I have some very good news for you!”
My ears were aching to hear something good after all that had happened in the last week. “Did the doctors find something in the autopsy?” my voice cracked, thinking about Odessa’s death.
“No, Jessica. But it does have something to do with Odessa! It turns out that she was just in a severe coma! She came out of it this afternoon! The doctors had to make sure before I called you… but she’s alive! It’s a miracle! A true miracle from God; Odessa’s alive!” my husband’s voice danced around in the speakers, singing to a joyful tune.
“Oh, Mark!” I practically collapsed from joy. “Odessa’s alive! Oh my God, oh my God! Odessa’s alive!”
I had forgotten Annabelle’s rule about no yelling, yet again. The line was cut.
To Be Continued In The Dark Rider
Prologue
Odessa Ambrosia. When you hear that name, what do you think of? A college? A city? Greek gods and goddesses? Yeah, Ambrosia. That’s what the gods and goddesses drank. Plus, the Ambrosia made the gods and goddesses shiny and glowy and stuff. Odessa is also the name of a college and a city. My parents are kind of greek god and mythology freaks. So when I was born, they named me Odessa. I don’t know if Odessa was a name of a greek goddess, but I’m pretty sure it is. And my mom’s maiden name is Ambrosia. And my dad’s last name was Nelson. But he changed his last name to Ambrosia when he and my mom got married. Because it turns out that he was a greek mythology fanatic, too - like my mom! At least my brother is not into greek mythology, he’s into superheros and Star Wars. But me, I was always into something different, last week I was into Taylor Swift and this week I like this one show called Liv and Maddie. I also used to have a dog. Her name was Mia. She was an awesome dog, she never pulled on the leash when I walked her and she never chased my cat. Unfortunately she died from old age. My cat's name was Lily. She is the worst cat in the world! Whenever I tried to pet her she would run away. If I tried to pick her up, she would hiss and scratch me - then run away. So me and my mom returned her to the animal shelter. Now I don’t have any pets, just have my brother, Finn. He is named after a character in Irish mythology.
You know how rich people are all like; “Darn it! I’m so unlucky! I didn't get to go to Hawaii for summer break. I had to go to Florida and the Bahamas instead!” Well, they should know that they are lucky! I’ve never even been to Hawaii once! And they’ve been to Hawaii, like, a million times! They should be grateful that they actually get to go anywhere. Because I’m not rich. But I’m not poor, either. I mean, I’m not trying to brag or anything, but I’ve been to Disney once, New York once, and Chicago twice. I know it’s not anything fancy or anything, unlike all those rich and snobby people out there! Also, if any of you rich people are reading this… you know what? I won’t even say what I’ll do if you guys are caught reading this!
Now I have to tell you a story about what happened to me one day. I must tell you. Even though it is a scary story. I survived it, living through it, then you can survive at least reading it! So get ready to believe…
Chapter One
“Help! Help me!” I yelled as I ran as fast as I could down a long corridor. The corridor was in somewhat of a maze. And I was stuck in it.
I could only imagine what the thing chasing me would do to me if it caught me. Well, I didn’t even know what “it” was. I just knew that it was behind me, and getting closer. It didn’t look very friendly, either. When I first caught sight of it, I saw that it was big and hairy, and I was like, “So, you say you’re giving out free haircuts with that chainsaw in your hand? Well, you should get one yourself!”
I was starting to slow down, gasping for air. “Please!” I choked out. “Stop!” But it was no use. The thing was gaining speed, since we were now going downhill. This was a never ending game of tag. And the monster was “it.”
It felt like I’d been stuck in this maze for a month. But I knew it was only a couple of hours. A couple of hours… a couple of hours…
I was getting dizzy. The dark room was spinning, the chandelier was shaking and the floor was quivering. It looked like it would fall on me. I rushed out from under it. The thing? No such luck.
“Ughhhhh!” I heard a sickening cry. The chandelier had fallen on the monster. But, there was something familiar about the thing’s cry. It seemed like I had heard it from long ago.
“Let’s play, daddy!” three year old me exclaimed. “Okay, honey. What would you like to play?” A much younger than now dad asked me. “Horsey! Horsey! Ride horsey!” I yelled, and threw myself on my dad’s back. “All right. Horsey it is,” Dad smiled. He bucked his back and almost threw me off - gently, of course. “Again! Again!” I laughed. “One more time, sweetie,” then, dad stood up and danced around, with me on his back! “Fun! Fun! Yay!” I screamed with delight. Then it was my friends turn, my friend that had came over for a play date. “Can I do?” she had asked. “Sure,” my dad replied. And he did the same with my friend. Then, she fell off. “Ughhhhh!” she wailed.
Sorry. That was a flashback, from when I was about three. My friend had fallen off my dad’s back, and started to scream. That yell was the same cry of agony as the thing behind me had just uttered. I whirled around to face the monster, who, at the moment, was on the ground with a chandelier on top of it.
There was no way that I was going to stick around to find out if the monster was okay or not. I flew down the corridor, swerved around a sharp corner, charged up two flights of stairs, and came to a stop. Right in front of me, was a mirror. And in the mirror’s glass, I saw the monster. It must have been right behind me! I turned around, to face a certain death, but there was no one.
“Hello?” I called to eery silence. “Hello! Is anyone there?” I asked once more, but again - no answer. “Then how...” I stopped, and slowly turned around to face the mirror. “Then how was the monster right behind me?” I finished wondering aloud. Was I thinking clearly?
When I looked at the mirror again, my reflection was gone. In place of it, was the monster. “Okay. Where are you hiding?!” I yelled to no one. The monster was out of sight. But I still had questions.
How had the monster been right behind, but no one was there? And where was my reflection? “Aha!” I had a sudden thought. I turned around so my back was facing the mirror. And I craned my neck so I could see the mirror reflection and myself. And sure enough, there was the monster’s reflection. But no me. Also, the monster was doing the exact same thing I was doing. Facing it’s back toward the mirror. And turning it’s head to the mirror.
“What is happening?!” I yelled. I had no idea why the monster was copying everything I was doing. And I had no idea why the monster was invisible every time I turned around. “Okay. I’ve had enough of this! Where are you, monster… ish… um, thing? Where are you hiding? I demand to see you! This instant!” I stomped my foot for effect.
THUMP! I heard a loud noise and whirled around - to face nothing. Of course. “What was that noise?” I asked myself. There was an echo, and laughter rang in my ears. I had enough! I ran behind the mirror - and fell into a deep dark hole.
Chapter Two
“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh!” I shrieked. “Help meeeee!” I thought that I would eventually land somewhere. But I didn’t. I just kept falling and falling. And then, my feet hit a hard surface. “Huh?” I looked down. I was standing on somewhat of a rotating disk. Sort of like a giant frisbee I looked over the disk and down the hole. I couldn’t see the bottom.
But I decided to do the impossible. Well - not really impossible, that’s just one of my favorite phrases: “I decided to do the impossible,” that phrase sounds more dramatic than if I just say, “I was going to walk off the disk.”
I tried to walk to the end of the disk, but a deafening crash stopped me from doing so. “Ahhhh!” I screamed for what seemed to be the one hundredth time that day. A cage that had been hidden in the darkness had fallen on the edge of the disk! In the process, it had landed on my foot!
Pain shot up and down my leg like a confused race car. “Ouch! Ouch! Ouch!” I grimaced. How many pounds is that thing? I wondered, pointing to the cage sitting on the rotating disk that I was standing on. It felt like my foot was broken! I tried to put my foot down and straighten up. “Ow!” I yelled. I couldn’t even put any weight on it!
“This is gonna be hard,” I muttered. “Getting down from this disk. Finding my way out. Yep, it’s gonna be tough.”
All of a sudden my foot stopped hurting, now the confused race car had started the race again; in my leg! I pinched myself, to make sure I wasn’t dreaming. When I looked down in the dim light, there was fog drifting all around me. “How odd,” I said to myself.
I was definitely awake, though. On my arm was a throbbing red pinch mark, fighting to be seen through the fog. A stinging sensation zipped through my leg and foot. I could put weight on it again!
I tried inching off the other side of the disk, looking up every few seconds; in search of any more falling cages, coming down from the darkness. “No cages,” I reassured myself.
“Raaaaaaaurghhhh!” A roar echoed off the unseen walls. “Raaaaaaaurghhhh!” the cry of pure evil was right above me.
I was so surprised and frightened that I fell off the disk! “Aaaaaaaaah!” I screamed in terror, awaiting the death that was about to meet me. But surprisingly, I fell rather lightly on a bouncy surface. Sort of like a trampoline. It was pitch black down there, so I couldn’t tell.
“Raaaaaaaurghhh!” the cry seemed closer now. Sort of like it was inching it’s way closer to me, inching it’s way towards me, inching it’s way to kill.
I gulped, and ran blindly through the blackness. “Hello?” I whispered, of course there was no answer - I had whispered! So no one heard me, duh!
“Hello!” I yelled this time.
There was somewhat of a reply. “Solla hee. Ha keema. Lo potta,” a voice murmured somewhere.
“Hello?” I asked for the third time. It seemed like the voice that had talked to me was speaking in a foreign language.
“Solla, hee! Ha keema! Lo potta!” the words seemed distant, now. Further away.
“Solla, hee! Help me! Ha keema! Help me! Lo potta! Help me!” I could hear a faint cry for help.
“Is anyone here?” I asked, peering into the darkness.
“O-over here!” came a weak reply.
“Who’s there? I can help you!” I explained toward the direction of the cry. That’s when I tripped on a crack in the floor. “Owww…” I moaned weakly.
I woke to find myself in a large room with a dim light bulb hanging in the center of the ceiling. I got up and walked into one of the dark corners and stopped right before I walked right into a small girl.
Chapter Three
“Ahhhhhh!” I shrieked as I stumbled backwards sending myself crashing into the floor. “Who was that?” I asked myself.
“Me,” replied a faint voice.
“Who and where are you?” I asked with a hint of confusion.
“In the corner, where you just crashed from,” explained the little girl.
“Okay…” I trailed off. There was something suspicious about the girl. “Where’d you come from?” I asked her.
“Right here,” she gestured all around her. “I came from right here.”
“Where am I? Where are we? What is this place? Am I dreaming?” I asked, feeling a bit dizzy.
“What’s with all the questions?” the girl laughed. A nice laugh, not an evil one.
“Um, sorry. I’m just really confused. Can you answer my questions? Please?” I asked her, practically begging.
“Sure. Okay, so your first question; where are you? You are in a hole in the ground. Well, it’s more of a really long tunnel with disks, monsters, and a lot of things. I’ve been trapped in here for years. With food, of course. Clowns serve the food.”
“What?” I stepped back. “Clowns?!” I’ve had a fear of clowns since I was little.
“Yep. Clowns. Now, for question number two; you asked where are we. And that is basically the same question as what you asked before. So, same answer: in a long tunnel.”
“Okay…” I trailed off. “But how did I get here? How did you get here?” I asked. Now I was really confused.
“Um, question number three; what is this place. Uh, same answer, again. This place is a tunnel where clowns serve the food. Question number four. Are you dreaming? No. You are not dreaming. This is perfectly real,” the girl gestured around with her hands.
“Yeah, I get that,” I said, maybe sounding a bit too stuck up, because the girl looked a little hurt and she backed away until she was wedged in the corner, again.
“Oh, sorry. I was just answering your questions,” the girl said, looking down. “I thought you wanted to know. ‘Cause you asked them, ya know? So I was answering them.” And with that, the girl ran around me and into the darkness.
“Wait! Wait!” I called out to her. “Please, I have more questions to ask you! I didn’t mean to sound mean, I’m just so confused!” I took a deep breath. “Plus, when I get confused, I get annoyed. So I’m sorry I snapped at you!” I was desperate to get my questions answered. And all I wanted to do was to get out of this living nightmare!
I heard someone sniffle nearby. “Hello? Are you there, little girl?” I asked again.
“My name isn’t ‘little girl’! Please don’t call me that!” a voice came from the other side of the tunnel. The voice sounded like it had been crying.
“Okay, then what should I call you?” I yelled back, and my voice echoed off the unseen walls.
“My name is Annabelle! So please call me that! And I am in the corner. If you wish to find me.”
“Which corner, exactly? I mean, is there even a corner?”
“Yes, there are many, many, corners in this tunnel. Because it is not just a tunnel. It’s the basement of a very, very, large room. In a very, very, large house!”
“Huh?” Now I was the most confused I had ever been. I was in a tunnel in a basement in a house? When had I entered the house? Was this real?
Annabelle’s voice rang out again. “I’m in the corner across from you, in the dusty one!”
I groped my way along the indentations along the wall. It was dark and I couldn’t even see my hands in front of my face! “What are these hole thingies in the walls?” I asked Annabelle, who was apparently right across from me.
“Oh, those,” Annabelle said, like it was the most normal thing in the world. “They’re claw marks.”
“Claw marks?!” I shrieked and stumbled back. What were claw marks doing here? Along a wall?
“Yep. They’re from the monster. She was angry that day,” Annabelle explained.
I raised my eyebrows in disbelief. “Hey, Annabelle?” I called out to her.
“Yes?”
“How do you know the marks on the wall are claw marks?” I questioned, crossing my arms in the dim light from the lone flickering light bulb. I had walked closer to Annabelle’s corner, closer to the light.
“Um, I don’t know. I was just guessing. ‘Cause there’s a monster here, ya know?” she stammered. Now I could see her face. It was streaked with panic.
“Sure,” I could see that I had Annabelle in just the place I wanted; right where she would spill the beans on all the secrets she was hiding.
“Oh. Okay. Well, do you want me to, uh, come out of the corner?” Annabelle’s nervous voice asked me.
“Do whatever you want. But first, can you answer my two questions?” I asked smiling.
“Sure. I’ll answer your questions. But I never asked. What’s your name?” Annabelle wondered, her voice sounding more confident now.
My name? Uh, oh. She had asked my name! I decided to make up a fake name, just in case she was evil. “My name is Carly. Carly Johnson,” I lied.
“Okay. Hi, Carly. What are your questions? More questions on the tunnels? I can answer those. Well, let’s see. These tunnels are pretty old, and…” this Annabelle person was really good at changing the subject!
I interrupted her, “I don’t want to know about the tunnels. Okay? I want to know about the monster.”
Annabelle gulped. “Okay, sure. W-what do you want to know, um, about the m-m-monster?” Annabelle’s quivering voice stammered.
I breathed in slowly. “I want to know why you think that the monster made claw marks on the wall.”
“Um, uh, I don’t know. I guess that since there’s a monster here, that there would be monster evidence. So I’m guessing that the marks on the wall are monster claw marks.”
“Why do you think that the monster made the claw marks when it was mad? Because you said that the monster was angry that day, when it made the scratches. Why do you think that, Annabelle?” I raised my eyebrows, to show Annabelle that I was on to her.
“Well, the claw marks are all over the place, so I thought the monster might have been really mad or something, ‘cause she had claw marks on the walls, floors, and ceiling. It might have been having a tantrum,” Annabelle shrugged.
“But how would you know that the claw marks were on the ceiling, walls, and floor? There’s only one light bulb in this whole room. And you can’t see the floor that well, and you certainly can’t see the ceiling!” I proved.
Annabelle bit her lip in the dim light. “I did see ‘em. I did! The clowns have flashlights, ya know,” she said rather snottily.
“What clowns?!” I yelled.
Chapter Four
“The clowns that serve the food! The clowns that I told you about! Or were you even listening?” Annabelle curled up into an even tighter ball on the floor.
“Oh, yeah. That’s right,” I looked down at the floor. “But how do I know you’re telling the truth? How do I know that there are really clowns here?”
“Because!” Annabelle looked absolutely exasperated.
“Because why? I don’t know you at all, I just met you today! How do you expect me to trust you all of a sudden? I barely know you.”
Annabelle seemed to shrink back. “Well, you could trust me. I’ve been here way longer than you, ya know!”
This girl said the words, ‘ya know’ a lot. “Exactly how long have you been down here?” I asked, suspecting that she would tell me an unbelievable story. Maybe about how she’d been down here hundreds of years. Now that would be a total lie!
“About four or five years? I don’t really know, I might’ve been down here longer, though,” Annabelle shrugged her shoulders.
“Just as I suspected, an unbelievable thing to say,” I muttered.
“Huh? Did you say something?” Annabelle turned to me.
“Nope. But, before I forget, can I ask you my questions? That I was going to ask before you changed the subject?” I looked at her knowingly.
“Um, yeah. What do you want to know?”
“Why do you think that the monster is a girl?” I asked.
“Huh? What do you mean?” Annabelle looked confused.
“When you were talking about the monster having it’s tantrum. You said the monster was a ‘she’.”
“Oh. I just assumed that the monster was a girl. I guess maybe it might be a boy, but I thought….” Annabelle trailed off.
“You thought what?” I questioned her.
“I thought that it might be a girl monster because of the claw marks. I, uh, thought that they were more close together rather than a male’s claws would be,”
How did Annabelle know all this? “Annabelle, how do you know this much about monsters?” I asked.
She shrugged, and obviously, changed the subject.
“Um, do you need to know anything else? I can tell you kinda the history of these tunnels. Or something else?” then Annabelle started crying.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, bending down to where she was hunched in the darkness.
“It’s gone. It’s all gone!” she sobbed.
“What’s gone?” I didn’t understand.
“The dark,” Annabelle sniffled and covered her head in her hands.
“What do you mean? Are you talking about being in the dark?” I wrinkled my eyebrows in thought. Why would she be scared of the dark?
“No. I don’t care about being in the dark,” Annabelle crossed her arms.
“Then why are you crying, Annabelle?”
Annabelle sniffed again, rubbed her eyes, and scooted over to the dim light bulb. “I have to be in the light. Where they can see me,” Annabelle crossed her legs and sighed.
“Where who can see you?” I asked.
“They are evil,” Annabelle explained. “They put us here. They’re trying to kill us!” she yelled at me.
“Who are you talking about? Do you mean the monster?” I shook my hands in frustration.
“Yes! Of course I’m talking about the monster!” Annabelle said that like it was an obvious fact. “I saw the monster chasing you,” she said rather suspiciously.
“How did you see the monster chasing me?” I asked. How had she seen me getting chased by that hideous thing?
“Of course I saw you!” Annabelle smirked.
“Oh that’s right! You kinda live here. Right?” I smiled because I had finally figured it out.
“No. That’s not why I saw you. I wasn’t in this tunnel while the monster was chasing you,” Annabelle explained.
“Well then where were you? How’d you see me?” Guess what, I was confused again! Surprise, surprise.
“Because I am the monster!” Annabelle yelled. And with that, she morphed her features into the face of the monster. Then she changed herself into the monster. Her small face transformed into the scraggly face. Her light hair were curled, yellowing horns. Annabelle’s small kind eyes turned blazing red, with no pupils. Her petite frame was suddenly huge with scales and moldy orange-green fur. Annabelle had dripping fangs, and a snout with green slime oozing out of it. Her tail was like a dragon’s tail, long and scaly, but Annabelle’s tail had a blazing ball of fire at the end of her tail.
Chapter Five
“Ahhhhhh!” I screamed in horror. “Please don’t kill me!”
“Hmmm, my answer for that is yes. No. Maybe so.”
“Please!” I was up against the wall. “Please! Don’t you remember that when you weren’t a monster, you came to my house and rode on my dad’s back!” I pleaded with Annabelle, trying to make her remember the ‘good ol’ days.’
“Stop!” a non familiar voice yelled. The voice came closer and closer and then a person grabbed my arm. “We have to run!” whispered the strange person.
The girl who was now a monster, dropped dead. The fire at the end of her tail went out, leaving us in the darkness.
I was pulled away with the stranger who had made the monster stop like a deer in headlights, and die. “Why is the monster is dead?” I asked him.
“There is more!” he replied.
“What does that mean? What is more?” I asked, confused once again.
“Yes. There is more to what I am telling you. And they are coming for us!”
“Who are you?” I asked the stranger pulling me in tow.
“I don't know who I am,” the person said. I could tell the stranger was a male because of how low his voice was.
Now I was frustrated. “I’m serious! Who are you?” I said, raising my voice. We were now climbing a long flight of stairs, the hand railings had little light bulbs built into them, sort of like auditorium seats. I could see a little bit in the dim light, and on the walls next us, were very old portraits of stone faced people.
The stranger looked down at me, he looked about fifteen or sixteen. “It’s the truth. I don't know who I am!” he yelled at me.
I sighed, this was all part of a normal day for me! Being chased by a monster, seeing a girl - a former friend of mine change into a monster, being taken by a total stranger, and the stranger not knowing his name. All part of a totally normal day - NOT! “Well, I’ll call you Jackson. Because you look like the kind of person whose name would be Jackson,” I decided.
Jackson ran with me deeper into the darkness. “Okay, call me Jackson. I’ll try to remember to answer when you say the name Jackson. I’m not used to anyone talking to me, I’ve been alone all these years,” he smiled a weak, forced smile.
Wait, why was I trusting a total stranger? “Uh, Jackson?” I tapped him on the shoulder as we were running. Well, more like he was running and dragging me along.
“Yeah?” Jackson turned his head to look down at me, but just for a second. Then he had to look up again to see where we were going.
I gulped. Was he going to get mad at me? “How do I know that I can trust you? I mean, you did save me from a monster, but still!” I wasn’t sure if I could trust him or not.
“I did save you from a monster and I’m taking you away,” Jackson explained.
I gasped. “Wait, what? You’re taking me away? From what?!” I shrieked.
“More,” he said solemnly.
“More what? Why won’t you tell me?” I was getting really mad at this Jackson guy.
“The monsters. There are more of them… okay? So, just trust me. Or go back to the monster-girl and trust her. It’s your decision. Who do you wanna pick? If you pick me… then I will go to a random place. If you pick the monster, she will go to a random place,” Jackson said, rather out of breath. Then he let go of my arm and took off full speed into the deep darkness.
Chapter Six
As soon as Jackson disappeared, a glowing orb appeared in his place.
“How would I trust the monster? She’s dead, don’t you remember? Plus, would the random place be a good place or a bad place?” I called over to the Jackson/orb. I knew the monster was dead, I’d seen her drop dead. But… what if she had just fainted? Not died?
“The monster didn’t die! I shot her with a sleeping dart!” yelled Jackson. “I don’t know how long the monster will be asleep. It might be a few more minutes, or a few more hours. I also don’t know which spot is the good place, or the bad place!” Jackson must have cupped his hands around his mouth, because his voice sounded louder and clearer.
“Wait! Jackson! I don't know who to choose!” I yelled to the spot where he used to be standing, but now the orb was floating there.
“You have to choose me or the monster!” he yelled back.
“But if I choose you, then what?”
“I don't know! Just make your choice!”
I was sweating because if I chose Jackson, I could send him to a possible bad place or a possible good place. I didn’t want to send Jackson to a bad place, especially since he had saved me from the Annabelle monster. “I choose Jackson!” I yelled at the strange floating orb.
“Hee hee hee ha ha!” the orb cackled. Now the orb’s color changed from an army green to the face of the monster. “Ah!” I gasped and stumbled back.
The monster’s face swirled around and around in the orb. “You made the wrong choice, deary!” the Annabelle monster’s voice sounded like an old lady. “Jackson is now stuck in the Dungeon of No Return!”
I gasped again - it seemed like I was always gasping. “What? No! He can’t be stuck! How did he get there?”
The Annabelle monster’s face morphed into Jackson’s face. “Yoooou put meeee heeeere. Yoooou put meee in the dungeeeon of nooo reeeturn! It’s yooour fault!” he moaned.
“I have to save you!” I said, my voice panicky.
“There is no way - so give up!” Jackson’s features swirled back into nothingness, and then into the face of Annabelle, in her human form. “Sorry, you’ll never get your poor Jackson Wackson back, never ever,” she said in a whiny baby voice, talking to me like I was a really young kid.
“Never!” I screamed. “I’ll never ever give up! What did Jackson ever do to you? Huh, Annabelle? What did he do to you? Why’d he deserve that?” Now I was screaming at the top of my lungs. “Did he deserve that? Or did you just feel like doing that to an innocent person?” now my voice was hoarse.
“Nope. He deserved it,” Annabelle almost sounded nice, but then she turned back into the monster. “And I think that you deserve it too!” she roared.
“I deserve it? What did I do?” I challenged.
“You didn’t help me when I fell off your father’s back. Your dad helped me, you didn’t. Do you know what you did? You went to go eat a popsicle, that’s what you did!” and with that, Annabelle leaped out of the floating orb. As she was flying through the air, towards the ground, she turned herself back into the monster.
I jumped out of the way as Annabelle clawed the air, trying to rip me apart.
“See, you do deserve it! You’re going to go to the same place you sent your friend!” the monster yelled. Annabelle grabbed me, and in the process, scratched me with her long yellowish claws.
“Ha ha ha ha ha!” was all I heard as I was dragged away to a certain death.
“Wake up, hurry! Wake up! We don’t have much time,” someone whispered in my ear.
Chapter Seven
“What?” I squinted groggily up at a boy’s face.
“Wake up!” he yelled and shook me.
“Okay, okay! I’m awake!” I yelled at the boy. Then I realized it was Jackson. “Oh,” I said more softly, feeling bad for yelling at him. “I’m awake.”
“Good, because we need to get out of here, fast,” he replied, grabbing my hand.
“Why do we need to get out of here? Where am I? Where are we?” I asked, rubbing my eyes.
“We need to get out of here ‘cause the monster is coming back to kill you. And she’s probably gonna kill me, too.”
“Why would she wanna kill you? Hey, that reminds me, how’d you get out of the Dungeon of No Return?” I asked him.
Jackson wrinkled his eyebrows and let go of my hand, “Huh?”
“the Dungeon of No Return,” I repeated. “How did you escape? Remember, I trusted you, so you were sent to the Dungeon by the monster.”
“Oh, you mean that,” Jackson slapped his forehead. “I’m always forgetting things. It’s because of these tunnels. They take you memory away, and eventually they take your souls away from you, too,” Jackson explained.
“Oh my gosh! They take your memory and souls?!” I exclaimed.
“Yep,” Jackson pursed his lips. “So, I don’t remember how I escaped the… the Dungeon of No… unicorns?” he guessed.
“No, Jackson! The Dungeon of No… No… um, I can’t remember either!” I wailed. Now I knew that I had to get myself and Jackson out of these tunnels - and fast!
“It’s okay. Really, it’s okay. Um… oh no! I forgot your name - plus I forgot my name! What’s your name? Quick, tell me!” he sounded really desperate to know my name.
“Why do you want to know so badly?” I questioned.
“I don’t know, I mean, these days I feel like I don’t know anything,” Jackson muttered.
“Well maybe you didn’t forget my name. Maybe I just forgot to tell you. Yeah - that’s it! I never told you my name!” I exclaimed, suddenly relieved. Jackson wasn’t forgetting everything, I had just forgotten to tell him!
“I guess that’s possible,” Jackson pondered. “But it would be helpful if you told me your name,” he chuckled.
“Um, yeah. My name is… uh, my name is - I forgot my name, too!” I yelled.
“Shh! The monster will hear you, follow the noise, and kill us! I mean, you do realize that we are trying to get away from the monster - not attract it, right?” Jackson asked me.
“Yep,” I said sheepishly. “But what about my memory? Will I forget everything, too?” I was frightened that I would forget about my parents, my brother, my name, and my home. Then a flashback came to my mind.
“Oh!” my mood brightened. “My name is Odessa Ambrosia, that’s my name! I remember! Jackson, I remember my name! Yay!” I squealed.
Jackson covered his mouth and let out a weird sound, I knew he was trying to hold back a laugh.
I pretended to have my feelings hurt. “Jackson, you said you wouldn’t laugh,” I whined.
“No, no. You got it all wrong, Odessa. I was laughing at your squealing! I mean, I don’t think I’ve heard squealing before, and if I did, I wouldn’t remember it, ya know?” Jackson shrugged and smiled.
“Okay, I wouldn’t laugh, but we’ve gotta get moving if we want to lose the monster. Okay?” Jackson grabbed my hand again.
“Okay,” I agreed, nodding my head to emphasize my agreement. “But I never told you my name yet,” I bit my lip.
“Yeah you did, just now. Or did you? I don’t know, and I’m feeling kinda queasy. Ugh,” Jackson moaned and grabbed his stomach.
“Are you alright?” I asked, my eyes wide.
“Yeah, I’ll be fine. It’s just these tunnels. They not only take away your memory and souls, but they also make you sick in the process of taking them. It’ll happen to you, too. If we don’t get out of here soon, but I haven’t found a secret exit out of here, even though I’ve been here a while, I don’t actually don’t know how long, though. Have you found an exit?” he turned to me, but he faced nothingness. “Odessa?”
“Yep, ugh! Down here, oooohhhh…” I groaned on the cold, stone ground.
“Are you okay, Odessa?” Jackson reached down his hand to help me up.
“Yeah, I’ll be fine. It’s just like you said - it’s these tunnels.” My stomach, like Jackson’s, was churning like a garbage disposal.
“Do you think that I will ever see my family again... or find my name?” asked Jackson.
“Of course you will! Don’t be silly, you’ll find them,” I said. “Hopefully,” I whispered the last part.
Chapter Eight
“Maybe not,” Jackson brushed his shaggy hair out of his eyes.
“Jackson, we are getting out of these tunnels and we will find your family and your name! So let’s go!” I turned to him and smiled.
Jackson put a finger to his lips to remind me that we should be quiet.
“Oh, right. I’m forgetting things again,” I sighed.
“Yeah, that’ll happen. But how do you plan on escaping?” he cocked his head. “I mean, I’ve been in these tunnels way, way longer than you. And I’ve never even found any exits, so unless you have a special gift or something, I don’t think that we will be getting out any time soon.”
“Well, I think that we’ll need to find a trapdoor, they always have those in dungeons and scary movies,” I pointed out.
“But this isn’t a dungeon or a scary movie, it’s real life. But I guess this place could be considered a dungeon, maybe,” Jackson shrugged.
“I think we should look, just in case, right?” I raised my eyebrows.
“Okay then. If you think that’ll work,” Jackson said.
“Let’s split up. We’ll cover more ground that way, okay?” I looked at Jackson to see if he agreed.
“Okay, boss,” he joked and playfully saluted.
I rolled my eyes and smiled. “Wow, Jackson.”
Jackson walked in one direction and I got on my hands and knees and crawled around in the other. I moved my hands around the mossy, moist ground to try to find ridges, hinges, or anything else that seemed peculiar.
“Ah ha! Odessa, I think I found it!” Jackson exclaimed from the other side of the dark room.
“You did? Awesome!” I was suddenly relieved, we would be out of here soon! I ran toward the sound of Jackson’s voice, and bumped right into him!
“Oh!” he gasped in surprise and toppled backwards from the impact.
“Sorry, Jackson! It’s too dark in here. Are you okay?” I asked, extending my hand to help him up.
“Yeah, I think so,” Jackson brushed the dust and dirt off of his pants and sweatshirt.
“I’m really sorry,” I apologized again. “Where’s the trapdoor?”
“Right here, you see it? I was ripping the moss off and it was bronze underneath. I think it’s some sort of door or something,” Jackson explained.
I stepped closer to the spot where Jackson was pointing. “You mean that?” I asked, nodding to the bronze tube running up and down the wall.
“Yeah. What do you think?” Jackson ran his hand through his hair.
“Um, Jackson?” I smiled weakly. “That’s a plumbing pipe.”
“Oh, sorry,” he grinned sheepishly.
“No, no. It’s fine! I probably would’ve done the same thing. Saw a pipe, got so excited and thought it was something cool. Yeah, that's pretty much me in a nutshell. Don’t worry,” I patted him on the back and turned away to go back to looking for a hidden door.
“Hey, Odessa?” Jackson called over to me.
“Yeah?”
“Next time I’ll look more closely before I yell for you to come over. Okay?”
“Okay, sounds good,” I agreed and got back down on my knees. I crawled around, digging my fingernails under the moss, feeling for a hidden trapdoor. Suddenly, I felt something like metal. Upon closer inspection, it looked like a door!
Chapter Nine
“Yes! I think I found it!” I exclaimed.
“Are you sure?” Jackson asked, throwing a handful of dirt and moss over his shoulder from where he was digging.
“Yeah, I’m pretty sure,” I replied. “Come look at this!”
Jackson ran over to me and stooped over, squinting at the rusted silver patch on the ground.
“Yeah, it has hinges. It looks like a door, let’s try it!” he agreed.
I pulled on the raised knob. The door creaked, but it didn’t budge. “Jackson, can you help me?” I turned to him.
“Yeah, let me see,” he bent over even more and grasped the handle. “Uggghh!” he groaned with the weight of the door, it was lifting up, exposing the late morning light. “Help me, Odessa! Or I’ll drop it,” Jackson closed his eyes to concentrate on lifting the trapdoor.
I joined in, pulling, yanking and heaving. We strained with the weight of the hidden compartments’ lid. With a final burst of strength, the trap door opened with a puff of dust.
I was climbing out the trapdoor when my eyes were almost blinded by the sun “Look! Jackson, it’s the sun!” I smiled broadly.
“Yeah! I don’t remember ever seeing the sun!” he was so happy, he was practically glowing.
I almost screamed in excitement as I stepped on the perfectly green grass and breathed in the fresh air. “Hey, Jackson?”
“Yeah?” he cocked his head.
“Can I hug you? I mean - I am so excited I could just… kiss you!” but seeing Jackson’s bewildered face when I said the word ‘kiss,’ I just hugged him instead.
“Tessa, do you know where we are? Because my sense of direction has withered down into nothing when I was in the tunnles. So, do you know where we are? Tessa?” Jackson had said the name twice before I realized he was talking to me and had forgotten my name.
“Um, sorry Jackson, but my name is Odessa, not Tessa…” I trailed off, but then I realized where we were. “Wait! Jackson! I know where we are! This is my yard!” I exclaimed happily and took off towards the front door of my house.
“Sorry, Odessa. I - I just, can’t help it. The tunnels are eating my soul and memory.”
“That’s okay, Jackson, just try your best!” I called over my shoulder.
When I reached the door, I tried to open it. “Ugh, it won’t open! My mom and dad must not be home. Whenever they leave the house, they always lock the door. But I don’t know why they do that. Probably for safety and making sure that burgalurs can’t get in,” I explained.
“Oh,” Jackson said. “Try knocking, that usually helps,” he smiled sarcastically.
“Okay, smart boy,” I joked. “I’ll try that.” I raised my fist to the cool, white door. But, for some reason, I was afraid to knock.
“What’s wrong, Rosetta?” he put a hand on my shoulder.
I smiled. “My name’s not Rosetta, that’s the name of a fairy in Tinkerbell. At least, I think it is. I haven't watched Tinkerbell in a long time! My name is Odessa.”
Jackson blushed. “Oh, sorry. I guess the tunnels have done their thing. I just might keep forgetting forever! Unless…”
“Unless what?” I urged him on.
Jackson grimaced. “I don’t know! That’s the problem!”
“All right. I guess that’s fine. I’ll knock. Hopefully my parents will be home. Right?” I tried to sound optimistic, but most of the hope I had was gone.
“Right.”
I placed my hand against the door for the second time. My fear had drained out of me. I knocked, and the sound echoed around the house.
Jackson smiled encouragingly. “Your parents will probably answer soon. If they’re home - that is.”
I smiled back, a tight lipped smile. It was forced-a fake one. Somewhere in my gut, I knew my parents weren’t going to come. They weren't going to answer, because, they were gone.
“Jackson, there was no answer!” I explained to him.
“Oh, I’m sorry. Well, we can wait ‘til your parents get home from work,” he suggested.
I sighed. “That’s the problem!” I bit my lip. “My parents didn’t go to work today! It’s their day off!”
Jackson rubbed his forehead in thought. “Then where d’ya think your parents are?”
“I don’t know.” It was true, I had no idea where my parents could be.
“Then, we’ll just have to find out!”
Just then, the front door opened with a swoosh. Then slammed just again. It began doing that repeatedly. “Jackson?” I cried in a shrill voice. “What’s happening?”
The door opened and closed, this time, almost crushing my finger!
“Oh yeah, that always happens in the maze. So I’m used to it.”
I raised my eyebrows. “It always happens?”
“Yep.”
“Oh. Did the door ever slam on you? Like, hurt you?” I asked.
Jackson licked his lips, like he was nervous. “Um, once it did…” he trailed off. “But it’s a sore subject.”
“You can tell me. You know you can, Jackson,” I tried to sound soothing.
“Yeah, okay. It was a yellow door with a silver knocker. It started slamming and I tried to run through - real quick! But it slammed on my neck. I felt like I couldn’t breathe. I thought I was gonna die, and I was really scared. Then the door opened and I knew it was my chance. I still have the scar, wanna see?” Jackson finished explaining.
I wrinkled my nose. “Uh… sure,” I backed away a little.
Jackson pulled down the collar of his shirt, to reveal a long white scar.
“Ooh. Looks painful,” I said, pointing to his wound.
“Sometimes it is, not all the time. But now I know how to stop those crazy doors. Here, lemme do it,” Jackson pushed me aside gently. He whispered some strange words through the keyhole.
Chapter Ten
I jumped back. What would happen? Would something explode? Was Jackson some kind of wizard? Did he have magical powers?
A few moments later, my fourth question was answered. The door stopped it’s slamming abruptly.
“Whoa!” I uttered a cry and stumbled back.
Jackson smiled a toothy grin. “Don’t worry. There’s no reason to be afraid, Odette.”
I looked at him strangely. Sure, there was nothing to be afraid of: a monster that was trying to kill us, Jackson just talked to a door and it stopped slamming. Yeah, everything is perfectly normal!
“Jackson, my name is Odessa. Odessa, not Odette. Odessa, okay?” I breathed slowly through my nose. My plan wasn’t working-Jackson was forgetting more and more!
Jackson grabbed my hand, and pulled me through the door, into my house. I ran up the stairs, while Jackson stayed downstairs. I took a running start and leaped onto my bed. I immediately jumped off of my bedspread ; it was like hot coals. My bed was hard and it had red dots all over it . “What the heck happened to my bed?!” I yelled.
Then, I heard thudding footsteps on the stairs. Coming closer and closer to me. “What’s wrong?” asked Jackson, out of breath.
“Look at my bed!” I shrieked, but Jackson had never seen my bed before it was turned rock-hard and polka dotted.
“Cool bed spread. I’m likin’ the dots,” he flashed me a thumbs up, but when he saw my face, and realized I wasn’t happy, his face contorted into a look of concern. “What’s wrong?” he repeated.
I coughed and shook my head. “It used to be really soft, with a cloud themed bed spread. Not it’s as hard as a rock! And you can see, now this is the blanket.”
Jackson reached out his hand and gently placed his hand on my bed. “Oh, geez. It is hard!” he agreed. “What if the same thing happened to every bed in your house?”
“That would be bad,” I replied worriedly. “Let’s go check!” we exclaimed at the exact same time.
We ran into my and dad’s room and saw their bed in the exact same state that we left it. “I don’t understand,” I said, wrinkling my eyebrows. “How come my bed was really hard and polka dotted. And my parent’s bedroom was fine?”
“Where are your mom and dad? Didn’t you say that they were home?” Jackson was intrigued.
“I, I guess I was wrong. But if there’s no one here, then where are they? I saw both their cars in the garage, so they must be home, right?” I asked myself.
“Probably,” Jackson answered. “Hey, look,” Jackson pointed to my parent’s bed. There was no one there, I was confused. But then I saw two lumps; one on each side of the bed.
“Hello?” I said to the lumps. Of course, no one answered. I walked up to the bed and slowly lifted the covers, to reveal… “Ahhhh!” I screamed as I looked down at the two frozen monsters.
Chapter Eleven
Jackson came up behind me and put his hand on my shoulder, “It’s okay, the monsters are trying to trick you... I think. Yeah, I’m pretty sure the monsters are trying to trick us. I just realized why your parents aren't home. Do you have any siblings?” he asked me.
“Yeah. A brother, and an annoying one at that,” I replied. “Why?”
Jackson smiled a triumphant grin. “I knew it! The monsters are trying to trick you! This is a fake world, the real world, where you and your family lives, is on the other side.”
“The other side of what?” I inquired.
Jackson looked up at me. “The other side,” he repeated.
“Okay, then…” I trailed off. “Are you saying that these monsters aren’t real? And my family live in another world?”
“Well, the monsters right here, aren’t real. But the monster in the tunnel is real. The monster in the tunnel is really a girl named Annabelle. I used to be friends with her,” Jackson sighed.
“Yeah, me too. I used to be besties with her. She came over to my house a lot,” I was remembering the good ol’ times.
“We’re getting off track here, Amelia.”
‘Amelia?’ Where did he get the name, ‘Amelia?’ It didn’t even sound like ‘Odessa.’
I smiled weakly, “It’s Odessa, not Amelia.
“Oops, sorry Odessa. I’m forgetting things again… but we can’t get off track. We have to find the real Annabelle Monster! Okay?”
“Okay. But are these monsters real?” I asked him.
“No! I’ve answered that already!” Jackson exclaimed.
I could feel my face turning red. “Yup. I’m forgetting things too, Jackson. But can I touch the monsters?”
“No! I wouldn’t do that if I were-”
I poked the monster that was on my mom’s side of the bed. “Aaarghhh!” the monster screamed at me. I jumped back at least a foot.
“Really, Odessa?” Jackson half-yelled at me, “You had to touch the monster?!”
“Well, I didn't know!” I said in my defense. “You’re the one who told me they were fake!”
Jackson and I dashed out the doorway-away from the monsters. We ran down the stairs and skidded into the kitchen. “Jackson?” I gasped, out of breath.
“Yeah?” he panted. “What is it? Anything more important getting away from the Tyrannosaurus Twins?” he jabbed a thumb in the monster’s direction. They were darting toward us!
“I’m pretty sure they’re monsters. Some kind of hybrids, probably. Not dinosaurs!” I called over my shoulder to Jackson, who was still in the kitchen.
“Okay!” I yelled back in the loudest voice I could manage. I tried to run down the steps on the deck, down to the lawn, but I tripped and fell. The last sounds I remember are the breaking of a window and a cry for help…
“Ha, ha, ha!” I heard a wicked laugh from above me.
Without thinking I jumped and grabbed the rope that was hanging from the unseen ceiling. As soon as the rope came in contact with my hand, a thick metal strap latched around my hand and the rope started going up towards the ceiling; while my hand was still stuck!
Now I was far off the ground and couldn't get my hand out! When I thought about it it’s kinda good my hand was stuck because falling would not be good, especially at this height. Then, a platform came into view. It looked like a catwalk!
My feet touched the platform and my hand was released. “Hello, Odessa,” said Annabelle as she walked out of the darkness. Annabelle was in her human form, and creepily staring at me.
“How did you know my name?” I asked.
“Ha, ha! Don't you get it Odessa?” she laughed at me.
“Get what?” I asked. Was this really Annabelle, or was this another fake - like Jackson had said?
“You don’t get it. You are never getting out and you will never ever see the light of day for the rest of your life.” Annabelle crossed her arms triumphantly. “But that shouldn’t matter, now should it? Because you’re not going to live much longer.”
“Why are you doing this to me?” I asked her, a better question to ask would be “What are you going to do to me?”
“Don't you remember that day, Odessa?” Annabelle questioned, arching her eyebrows.
“What day?” I was seriously confused.
“Hmmm, let’s see…” Annabelle pretended to think hard about that time. “It was a day about nine years ago. Remember when I came to your house and you almost killed me?! I fell off your dad’s back and you. Did. Nothing! I almost died!” she yelled, eyes filled with raging fire.
“What? No! You were fine when you fell!” I said, despretly trying to display my innocence. I did not want to be guilty of almost killing someone!
Now Annabelle was seething. “I was NOT fine! Like I said, I almost DIED!” Annabelle screamed at me, her voice echoing.
“But I saw you were fine when you fell off my dad’s back!” I argued.
“No! I was NOT fine! I wasn’t, I wasn’t. I wasn’t! Don’t you remember anything?” Annabelle shrieked at me, her voice shrill and high. “I was sent home! I had to go to bed! I was hurt pretty badly! And You did nothing! When I woke up -” Annabelle stopped.
“What, Annabelle? What happened when you woke up?!” I was desperate for answers. Answers to my never ending questions. “Answer me!”
“I was partially dead.” Annabelle whispered solemnly.
Chapter Twelve
I couldn’t beleive that Annabelle was lying to me like this, she couldn’t possibly be partially dead when she woke up. I mean, you’re either dead or alive - not partially dead!
“Look down at the audience. You’re audience. They’re all here to watch your death.” Annabelle said without emotion.
I gasped, my mom and dad were hear to watch my death? Did they even know why they were here - and what they were about to witness? Did they even care?
“Yes, Odessa. It is your parents. Soon, very soon, you will be down there with them.”
What did that even mean? I’m going to join my parents down there? I would finally be able to reunite with them! Or did Annabelle mean that my parents were already dead and i was going to die with them?
“Seriously, Annabelle. You really think that I’m going to jump from this high up?” I scoffed.
“No, Odessa. No I do not think you would jump.”
“Then how would I get down there?” But I knew what was coming next. Annabelle was the villain, so she was going to kill me… one way or another.
“Well, I was planning on pushing you!” an evil grin was growing on Annabelle’s face.
My mouth dropped open like a door with very loose hinges. Even though I thought Ib knew what was coming, it surprised me yet again. “What did me or my family do to you? Why are you doing this? Come on, can’t we settle this with talking?” I asked, pretending to be desperate, but I had a plan.
Annabelle put her hands on her hips. “Um, no. We cannot settle this by talking. Why would we do that?” Annabelle raised her hands to push me, but I was ready.
I swung around and tried to push Annabelle off the catwalk, intsead of the other way around. But apparently Annabelle saw that coming, and shook her finger in my face. “Nuh uh uh, hon! You don’t try to push me down! I push you down!” And with that, Annabelle pushed me off the catwalk.
I fell, waiting for the impact of the ground, or the auditorium seats, or the stage, but nothing happened. I found myself hagning onto the rusty chains, connecting the catwalk to the ceiling. I looked up to see Annabelle’s sneering face staring at me.
“Gosh, Odessa! You just fell! Are you okay?” she asked, with fake concern.
I glared at her. I was surprisingly calm for almost being killed. “Yeah, sure. I’m okay. Just stop!” Now I was not so calm anymore. “Just stop! Stop going after me! Stop going after Jackson! Stop going after both of us! You’re evil and crazy! Just stop!”
“You don't have to be so rude about it” Annabelle whimpered and started crying.
I struggled back onto the catwalk and stepped in front of her. “Sorry, Anna-” I was stopped.
“Tricked you!” Annabelle yelled triumphantly and pushed me off the catwalk. The world seemed to stop, then everything happened in slow motion. I could feel myself falling and falling and falling. I closed my eyes and took my last breath. Then everything went black.
Mom’s View After Odessa’s Death
I stumbled out of the car and looked at the sky, it was gray and it looked like it would rain. I sadly looked at the theatre where my daughter had died the week before. One of the policemen came up to me.
“I’m sorry, ma’am. The only evidence we found was a note on the catwalk, here take a look,” the policeman handed me a note inside of an evidence bag.
“Can I take the note out of the bag?” I asked, I would probably be able to read it better outside the bag.
“No, ma’am, I’m sorry. We cannot take any evidence out of the evidence bags. Because if your fingerprints get on the evidence, that would just mess up the investigation.”
I forced a smile. “I understand, sir.”
Dear person who finds this note and any other people who read this, I killed Odessa and you will never find me. But here is a hint: if you want to find me, I Lurk deep in the shadows of the underground tunnels. They were abandoned many years ago. I sit in a room with a single lightbulb hanging from the middle of the ceiling. There I wait in the dark corner, forever in the shadows. I hope you miss Odessa very much, I hope you are in pain forever. One thing is for sure, I will come back again... someday...
Hugs, kisses, and murder wishes, Annabelle.
“What?” I sputtered. “Where did you find this?” I was in shock. Someone named Annabelle had purposely killed my daughter, Odessa. And who signs a note ‘hugs, kisses, and murder wishes? That is just sick!
The policeman sighed grimly. “Like I said, we found it on the catwalk. I read it and it’s very clear that whoever this ‘Annabelle’ person is, she knew your daughter. She knew that someone would find this note, and she wants you to be in pain,” the policeman’s words were like a dagger stabbing my heart.
“You must find this Annabelle! She killed my daughter and I need you to find her-make her pay!” I thinking that this Annabelle girl must be mentally disturbed, to kill my little girl… take me up to the catwalk, now!” I told the police officer.
The policeman tugged at his uniform collar. “Um, I’m sorry ma’am, but this is a crime scene and this area is off limits.”
I grit my teeth in frustration. “This is the place where my daughter died.” I could barely choke out the word ‘died.’ I was breathing hard and my breath was coming out in short gasps. “I want to see the place where my daughter died! Take me there!” I ordered the officer.
“Alright,” he sighed. “I guess we could make an exception, just this once. But this is not a regular thing, okay, lady?”
I was so used to the officer calling me “ma’am,” that I was caught off guard when I was addressed as ‘lady.’
The police officer started off towards the theatre blanketed in Crime Scene do Not Cross tape. I followed him inside the auditorium and up the stairs to the catwalk. Once we got to the top of the catwalk, I spotted a thick metal cage. “Why is this here?” I asked the officer, whose name was Jack Hendermann.
“I don’t know, probably for construction workers or tech people to fix the lights or sound stage? But I’m not exactly sure,” Officer Hendermann said.
I decided to check it out and stepped cautiously onto the metal bars of the cage - against the officer’s warning.
Officer Hendermann came up to the cage beside me and closed the heavy cage door. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a key, inserting it into the keyhole of the cage. The officer had just locked me inside a cage that was hanging from a very high ceiling!
“What are you doing, officer? I thought that I wasn’t supposed to mess with the evidence. Let me out!”
The officer’s smile gleamed under the stage lights. “You’re not messing with any evidence. I’m just locking you up,” he said in a monotone voice.
“What are you doing?!” I repeated, my voice shrill.
Officer Henderson’s smile grew until I couldn’t tell if it was a smile or a frown. “Annabelle asked me to!” he yelled and left the catwalk.
“Officer! Officer! You don’t know what you’re doing! Officer!” I screamed, desperate to get someone’s attention so they could free me. “Please!”
I must have been in that cage for hours, when suddenly a small girl walked out of the shadows. “Hello, Mrs. Ambrosia,” she said without emotion.
I thought it was a little strange that she called me by my name, when I had never seen her before, but maybe I was hallucinating. “Hello, there. Could you get me out of here, please?” I begged her.
“No. Why would I do that?” the girl cocked her head mischievously.
“Sweetheart, could you please free me? If you’re lost I could help you find your parents. And you never told me, what is your name?” I was talking rather quickly.
“And why would that matter to you?” the girl sneered.
I gasped in surprise, only one little girl I knew would talk to an adult like that. “I know who you are!” I yelled through the metal bars.
“Then who am I?” she smirked.
“You're Annabelle!” I accused her.
“Give the lady a gold star...” Annabelle muttered under her breath. “And I suppose you know why I’m here, Mrs. Ambrosia?”
Suddenly my throat felt dry, I swallowed hard. “Tell me why you did it!” I demanded.
Annabelle’s face contorted into a look of mock confusion. “Did what?” she asked, pretending she had no idea what I was talking about.
“Tell me why you killed my daughter Odessa!” I yelled. I was like a raging bull and Annabelle was wearing all red, but she was surprisingly calm.
“Stop yelling or I will kill you!” Annabelle covered her ears with pale fingers.
I certainly didn’t want to meet the same fate that Odessa had, so I shut my mouth. “You killed my daughter! I should have a right to be mad! You should go to jail and be locked up for the rest of your life! Just wait until the police find you,” I whispered.
Annabelle smiled. “Oh, the police won’t find me. They’ll find you.” Annabelle turned on her heel, whispered some odd words to the darkness, and left.
Just as Annabelle walked out of the room, four shaded figures stepped out of the darkness, seeming to glide across the ground towards me. The hunched men stooped down and began to drag the cage that I was suspended into a different location.
“Where are you taking me?!” I shrieked. The figures didn’t answer me. “Where are you taking me?!” I repeated even louder.
“I told you to stop being so loud!” someone who must have been Annabelle yelled at me. “It hurts my ears!”
I hadn’t even noticed that the four figures had disappeared, and I was in a dark room with a single light bulb suspended from the ceiling. I thought that this must be the room that Annabelle talked about this must be the room that Annabelle was talking about in the note. Annabelle had mentioned a room with one lightbulb hanging from the ceiling.
My phone started vibrating in my purse - I had forgotten I had it with me! I answered it and my husband’s voice filled my ears. “Honey, guess what! I have some very good news for you!”
My ears were aching to hear something good after all that had happened in the last week. “Did the doctors find something in the autopsy?” my voice cracked, thinking about Odessa’s death.
“No, Jessica. But it does have something to do with Odessa! It turns out that she was just in a severe coma! She came out of it this afternoon! The doctors had to make sure before I called you… but she’s alive! It’s a miracle! A true miracle from God; Odessa’s alive!” my husband’s voice danced around in the speakers, singing to a joyful tune.
“Oh, Mark!” I practically collapsed from joy. “Odessa’s alive! Oh my God, oh my God! Odessa’s alive!”
I had forgotten Annabelle’s rule about no yelling, yet again. The line was cut.
To Be Continued In The Dark Rider