The Castle

By Samuel W.

Grade 10

            (We never should have entered the ruined castle.  It was a stupid thing to do.  Now we shall all die here.  It is only a matter of time, before It finds us.  Only a matter of time.  But I want the world to know. To know our story.  So with the little time I have left, I shall tell it.)

            It began at night, my friends, two guys, Jake, and Matthew, and two girls, Helen and Alexis, and I decided to go out into the forest behind our small town.

(Stupid idea, why did we do it?)

            It was dark out, but with the full moon, we had light.  We had been walking down some trails, when all of a sudden; we all tripped and fell down a hill, narrowly avoiding trees on the way down.  When we finally got to the bottom, we checked to make sure that everyone was ok.  That’s when we realized that we were lost.

            So, being as dim-witted as we were, we started to wander around looking for a trail.  We walked on and on, when suddenly we heard something howling in the distance.  The girls began to freak out. Then we heard this eerie whisper, coming through the trees. “Coooommmee heerrreee, cooommmee heerrreeee.”  Thinking that there was someone out there that could help us, we followed. 

(Idiots, that’s what we were … idiots.)

            We followed the whisper, until we came to an opening in the trees. And that’s when we saw it.  The Castle.  In front of us laid the remains of a massive stone castle.  It was old, very old.  It didn’t make any sense, what was a castle doing here?  We thought it was so cool.  Forgetting our fear, and thinking of the gold and jewels that may lie within, we decided to go inside.

            We went in through a massive archway whose large doors seemed to have been ripped off.  We came into a courtroom that was lit with torches.  Someone was here.  The courtroom had a dome ceiling hundreds of feet above us.  The floor was made of solid black marble.  At the end of the room was one large midnight black stone throne standing.  We ran up to it thinking it looked sweet.  We marveled at it for a moment, and then Matthew got the bright idea to sit in the throne. 

(If only we had known then, we could have stopped him.)

            He sat down into the huge throne and started to smile.  But just as his grin was forming, there was a deafening explosion as the ceiling above the archway collapsed upon itself.  We were thrown back as the shock wave hit us.  Dust was thrown into the air blocking all sight.  When the dust settled we saw to our dismay that the entrance had been destroyed.  Jake and I were worried but we were ok, we figured that we would be able to find another way out.  But the girls, Helen and Alexis were freaking out.  They were screaming at the top of their lungs.  It took us a while to calm them down, that’s when we noticed that Matthew was not with us.  We looked at the throne to see if he was still sitting in it, but to our horror the throne was gone, crushed, under a massive block of stone.  Matthew’s severed arm was still visible, leaking crimson blood.  We know that Matthew could not have survived.  Then the girls started to scream again.  We needed to get out.  We decided to split up so that we could cover more ground.  We decided that if anyone found a way out then they were to come back to the courtroom and wait for everyone else.  So with that decided, we split up, each going into one of the corridors.  Alone.

            (By far one of the stupidest things we did.  How many horror movies had I watched when this happens? But I didn’t know then, not like I know now.)

            To make a long story short, I walked for a long time, through twisting tunnels, also lit by torches, and down darkly lit passageways.  I went through rooms covered in skeletons, and other bodily remains.  I had walked on for a bit more when I became aware of the feeling that I was being watched.  I kept going, and then I heard it, silent footsteps coming closer and closer.  I called out, but no reply came.  I quickened my pace, and so did the thing that was following me.  It was getting closer and closer, I could feel it.

            Then a high pitched scream pierced the darkness, one of the girls.  The scream bounced and echoed off of the stone walls.  That’s when I started to sprint.  I didn’t care where I was going, all I wanted was out.  Through dark corridors, past disheveled rooms. Turning corners at random, running through the first door I could see. I ran.  I was running down some tunnel as fast as I could, when I turned a corner and, BAM, I slammed into something.  My body fell limp to the ground.  I could feel blood running down my face, my eyes started to cloud.  Then blackness took me, and I lost all consciousness.

            I dreamed.  In my dream, there was a man.  This man had blond hair, and was dressed in strange looking black leather armor, with a black cloak that covered most of him.  And around his neck hung a long orange-gold medallion, which bore a strange Ω symbol.  He looked no older than 25, but he had an aura of terrible power.

            He said to me, “You need to leave this place, it is not safe.  My name is Orren, I mean you no harm.  But you must leave this place, before the, CorLygVereor, or in your language, Shadow of Heart, gets you.  It is a creature born of darkness, and it will stop at nothing until It, kills you.  You don’t have much time; It has already killed two of your four friends.  Only the two you call Alexis, and Jake, still draw breath.  But it is already too late, for Jake.”

            Orren removed the medallion from his neck, and handed it to me.  “Take this medallion; it will lead you to your friend, if you hurry you can save her.  This medallion will slightly protect you as long as you wear it around your neck. This is all the help I can five you, not run! RUN!”

            Run……Run….. I abruptly regained consciousness. I was lying on the cold stone floor, in a pool of my own blood.  I slowly got to my feet.  It was then that I could see around my neck hung the orange-gold medallion.  I immediately remembered the dream, if it was a dream, and I knew what I had to do.  I ran down the tunnels, no longer going in a random direction, but going in the direction I knew was the right one.  I didn’t know how I knew, I just did.  I ran until I came upon the court room.  I then ran down the corridor that Alexis had taken.  I kept going, until I found the mutilated body of Helen.  I ran leaving her barely recognizable body behind.  At last, I reached a dark wooden door.  I knew this was where Alexis was.  I tried to push open the door.  It was barred shut.  I knocked on it. I heard Alexis scream.  I called out to her.  “Alexis, it’s me.”  Instantly the door was unbolted.  The door swung open, and there was Alexis.  Her eyes were red, she had been crying.  She threw her arms around me.  I told her “It’s ok now, you’re ok, but now we need to get out of here.”

            And so we ran, I now knew that there was now only one way out of the accursed castle, and we ran straight for it.  We had just come out of a corridor, the exit was in sight, Alexis screamed.  The Shadow of Heart, It was the size of a man, all black.  But It did not have a body; its body moved and flowed like a shadow.  It was hunched over the body of Jake; It had torn his throat out.  It looked at us with Its piercing yellow eyes.  It had come for us, It blocked the exit, I knew that we couldn’t get past It without one of us dieing.  So we turned around and ran.  We ran into a room and barricaded the entrance with everything we could, and here we stayed, until the end.

            (And so now you know our story… we don’t have long now… the medallion will only protect one of us… I have given it to Alexis… not much time now… I can hear It getting closer… It is coming… we don’t have much time… It is coming… It is battering down the door… the barricade won’t hold much long…. It is only a matter of time.)