Elsa Rogers - Aged 13
We were totally gripped by this story. It’s a splendidly good example of a ghost story and so well written. The slow build-up of dread, the playful display of horror conventions, and the mature understanding of fear, both overt and intimate, all suggest a keen eye for stories of the ghostly kind. The suspense was heightened perfectly - bit by tiny bit. We loved the creepy details scattered through this story before it reaches its horrifying conclusion. The plot was really imaginative and last two paragraphs were written with such maturity and understanding.! The description in this was brilliant and we had such insight to Michael’s thoughts and feelings.
When the time came for his school trip, to some lame caves near his school, Michael already knew it was going to be boring. He had dawdled down to the buses where his friends were, and now he was at the back of the group, being spoken to patronizingly by the instructor, who was telling them some sort of stupid ghost story. Michael wasn’t really paying attention. The instructor dismissed them and the group dispersed, Michael going to find his friend Billy.
"That was a load of rubbish," Billy proclaimed, stretching his arms above his head. Michael nodded in agreement, shivering from the cold. Who knew caves were this freezing? He looked at Billy in a way that suggested he had not been paying attention.
"I mean,” Billy said “all it was a boy who died here years ago in some dumb mining accident, haunting the caves, waiting for someone to play with? And uh…What did the guy say? He waits for people to venture into the depths of caves, and asks them if they’re there to play? Absolutely ridiculous."
Michael nodded again, but his focus was on a dark corner of a cave.
"You alright dude?" Billy asked, looking first at Michael, then at where he was staring.
He seemed to wake from his trance, and he nodded, rushing off to join the group. Billy simply shrugged and joined him.
Neither boy thought to look back to the corner. But if they had…
"Oof!" Billy cried out as an apple core hit him in the head, falling to the floor. The group of boys behind them laughed manically, as if it was the funniest thing in the world. Michael glared at them, and turned back to his lunch. The morning had been utterly boring, with the instructor going on about every little detail of the structure of the rock, and the painful-looking equipment the miners used all those years ago. Michael noticed that not once did he even mention the scratches on the ceiling, or the claw marks on the walls. Or what looked like… small handprints, embedded in the rock? He pointed all this out to Billy, but he just looked at him like he was seeing things, proclaiming that there were no such things adorned upon the caves, so Michael didn’t press it, telling himself it was a trick of the light.
"Up you get! Come on you lot, 10 minutes to finish your lunch, then we'll go further into the cave! Just remember…Don't go too far, or you may never come out…" the instructor gave a wry smile and continued talking to the teacher.
The two boys rolled their eyes at each other, and grinned. The other instructor came back from escorting some kids to the toilets and started talking to the teacher and first instructor, probably about the children, Michael thought.
"Oi!" Luke hollered across the cave "Nerds!". Michael and Billy turned, more out of reflex than anything. Refusing to do so would only lead to more old food thrown at their heads, or worse.
"You wimps, I bet you won't go to the end of the caves. As a dare, you know. Ever heard of such a thing?” he leered over at them infuriatingly, goading them to reply.
Michael and Billy turned to each other; Michael shrugged his shoulders as an inclination of indifference. Billy reluctantly turned to Luke.
"Alright then," he said begrudgingly "We'll do it, if - if you leave us alone afterwards. Forever, I mean,” he added in a rush.
Michael was mildly satisfied to see the slight look of surprise on Luke's face, as if he hadn't expected them to say yes, before this was replaced by one of scorn.
"Well, bu-bye then! Off you pop!" he said, waving his hand at them in a dismissive way, before sauntering back towards the rest of the class.
The water dripped from the ceiling with a splash as it hit their obnoxious orange helmets. Michael had his phone torch out, illuminating the passages in front of them, and Billy was breathing heavily, his breath coming out as steam in the cold air. He paused, groping for his inhaler, before taking a deep puff and continuing. In fact, the air did seem to be getting increasingly colder, but no matter. All the boys wanted to do at this point was to get to the end of the caves and get out. Suddenly, darkness engulfed the boys. Billy shrieked, and Michael froze, grabbing onto Billy to get him to do the same. He glanced at his phone - the torch had gone off, obviously, but when Michael tried to turn his phone back on, nothing happened.
"Wasn't…Wasn't your phone on, like, 90% a minute ago?" Billy asked in a scared tone. It was, and Michael briefly nodded before turning back to look at the dark screen - not that he could properly make it out - the caves were now almost pitch black.
"Oh well, technology is weird sometimes!" Billy said this in an unnaturally high-pitched voice, giggling slightly manically as he did so. Michael simply looked at him.
"Right sorry, I'll get my phone out."
Once Billy had turned his torch on, they ventured another hundred yards or so, before Michael felt his feet enter freezing water. He gestured towards Billy, who turned his torch down. It was a pool of icy water, seeming to glow silver from the torchlight.
Michael simply shrugged, grabbing at Billy's sleeve to pull him along, when Billy froze.
"Can you hear that?" He asked, and without waiting for an answer, he began to back away, splashing through the water.
Michael couldn't hear anything apart from the constant dripping of the water down the walls. He was about to say as much, when Billy gave a start and ran back the way they had come. Michael opened his mouth to cry out to him, to tell him to come back, but he was too late. Billy had gone. Michael could hear his feet pounding on the floor of the cave, and he could even vaguely hear the jeers of the rest of the class as he presumed Bill had re-entered the group. Michael sighed in exasperation, but he knew that if he went back now, when he was so close, Luke would never let him forget it - he hated Michael more than Billy did anyway. He turned back around and continued to wade through the water, pulling out the spare torch his mum made him bring.
After a little while - Michael wasn't sure how long, due to his phone being dead and his lack of a watch – Michael’s torch flickered. He looked down, about to check the batteries were in properly, when he stopped.
A small, thin voice, humming a tune, wavering in the air.
The sounds of scuffing in the floor, like a child was skipping, echoing around the caves.
Michael shook his head, as if shaking water out his ears. Just my imagination, he told himself.
He stopped to listen for a few more seconds, before continuing onwards. The water was waist deep now. He shivered, but he could see the end of the cave. Then, out of nowhere, the torch flickered out. Darkness. It seemed to engulf Michael, wrapping itself around him like a blanket, suffocating him, trapping him.
He started running, as well as he could through the now shoulder high water - if only he could make it to the wall of the cave, he could say he had made it. Nearly there now, he could feel it. Seconds away! Centimetres! So close…
Michael stopped dead. At first, there appeared to be nothing. Then, wisp of a laugh. A cold gust of wind. And then…
A child's voice. Such a small, innocent sound, but it filled the cave, bouncing off the walls, and emitted such terror into Michael’s heart.
"Hello. Are you here to play with me?"
It hurts, you know. The cold embrace of reality. The knowledge of existence and the simultaneous understanding of incapability. The undeniable, unescapable, inevitable awakening of the darkest depths inside. Death's open arms, welcoming, comforting, so, so tantalizingly close, yet just out of reach. Because even death would be preferable to this. Anything would.
I screamed that night. When the darkness took me. When that simple question ended my life, and yet did not quite finish it. I screamed a lot at first, you know. And then? Well. Then I just stopped screaming.