Writing Prompt
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STORY STARTER
Holding a torch in front of them, the main character decides to explore the basement to find out what has been making that noise.
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He tiptoed into the basement, holding his breath. Sweat started to gather between his palm and the flashlight as he approached the bottom of the staircase. He cringed as he heard the noise again, closer than it had ever been. His foot finally stepped off the staircase and he slowly turned his head around the corner. A brief rush of relief washed over him as he saw that there was nothing there. He knew there was still something to be afraid of. He had never believed in thr supernatural, but his grip on reality was starting to slip, and what he used to be so sure of felt distant, unreliable. ****.
It had been knocking all night. Thump thump. Thump thump. I had been home alone all weekend, wondering where this sound was coming from. I chose the middle of the night to walk down into the basement with a torch. This was an old Victorian style home that belonged to my wife’s family going back generations. It was on our first date that she told me about some of the myths and legends surrounding the house--notably the game of hide n' seek where a kid from the surrounding area was never found during or after the game. His name was Sid. Sid Hornby. In the basement, there was a hatch that led by ladder down to a network of tunnels leading to various areas of the surrounding landscape. Around town there were manhole covers in different areas that these tunnels led to. I have never found out the original purpose of these tunnels, but many suspected that Sid Hornby tried to hide in the tunnels and got lost. The manhole that was the furthest distance away from the house was three miles out. Some believed that he climbed up one of the ladders and found himself lost, never to be found again. Or rather, never found by one of us. There was only one suspect in question while the police were thinking about a potential kidnapping. His name was Barnaby Winchester. He was a strange old man that lived alone at the end of Rat Street. On the day that Sid went missing nobody could provide an alibi for old Barnaby. He said he had gone to the store around the time that the game of hide and seek took place, but the young man that was working that day couldn’t remember him. The case was dropped when too little evidence was brought against him. Some say that he can occasionally be seen walking around town and abroad the landscape, sometimes near where the manhole covers lie, but I’ve never seen this, and others I know say that the old man stays in his house or goes to the store.
I made it to the bottom of the steps. The electricity in the basement had been out for a week. All I had was that torch. Somewhere there was dripping water. As a cold draft flew past me, a shiver went down my spine. Whatever lived down here didn’t know the sun. The ground was made of concrete and was cracked in many places. There were wooden beams to support the ceiling. They were covered in cobwebs that hung like silky strands of cloud. I started to wonder why I had even come down here in the first place. Was the sound really that important? I easily could have put on music, or the television, but my curiosity had gotten the best of me. I felt it might lead to my doom. I suddenly heard scuttling across the floor. I turned to my left and could have sworn I saw a dark figure darting into the shadows. My heart began to pound. I began to tremble. “H-hello?” No response. And then my blood turned to ice. Out of the corner of the basement, the form of a young boy crawling on all fours came out into the light of my torch. His eyes were bright red. He spoke, “…run.” Suddenly an old man came running out of the shadows right towards me. I fled upstairs. The second I was safely in the light I threw my torch back down at what I thought was the man. Something went up in flames. I slammed the door shut. And then it dawned on me—those wooden posts. Would the house somehow burn down? I did not know. All I knew was I just saw something…I didn’t want to think about it. I ran outside and looked back at the house. Something horrible, some horrible feeling was gripping me. Was that boy Sid? Was that old man Barnaby? I had no idea. I began to run away. I ran as fast as I could. And I never saw that house again.
It had been three days since the knocking that kept Evelyn up at night began. Having been a NYC girl all her life and only recently moving to Pennsylvania, Evelyn had quickly adjusted to calm, silent nights. The only lights were the stars in the sky and the occasional streetlamp. The only sounds were autumn leaves rustling and the gentle hum of the furnace in the basement. So, when the knocking joined the suburbian night’s orchestra, she noticed it immediately. At first, she thought it was a woodpecker. Knock-knock-knock, then a pause. _Knock-knock-knock. _Sometimes, the sound was accompanied by the cracking of branches. By the third night, Evelyn decided the woodpecker had overstayed its welcome. “James,” she whispered, “what’s that noise?” Her husband had the uncanny ability to sleep anywhere and through anything - a skill she attributed to his years of being a commercial pilot. “James,” she said again, nudging his shoulder lightly, “what’s that?” He mumbled something incoherent, then yawned and opened his eyes all at once. “What?” “The noise!” “What noise?” “This noise! The knocking!” Evelyn hissed, growing frustrated. James groaned, pulled on his glasses, and switched on the bedside lamp. “I don’t know. I guess I can check the basement.” “I think it might be a bird,” Evelyn suggested. “I was cleaning up a little down there a few days ago, and it might’ve gotten trapped or something.” “Highly doubt that. Most likely a raccoon. Though they usually prefer attics. I’ll take a look.” “I’ll go with you.” James grabbed a flashlight from the bedside table. “Just in case.” The couple made their way to the basement. Evelyn tried to turn on the light, but it didn’t work. The thin beam from the flashlight was the only comfort she could get, and this made her uneasy. “Let’s just check in the morning,” she whispered. “We’re already here. Let’s just take a look for a piece of mind. You’ll sleep better. I promise I’ll fix the light in the morning,” James reassured her. The flashlight’s beam swept across the basement, moving from corner to corner, up and down. Suddenly, the knocking intensified. Evelyn clamped her hands over her ears, terrified by the deafening sound. “I don’t think it’s a woodpecker,” she whimpered. “Or a raccoon, either.” The knocking stopped abruptly. “A woodpecker?” A raspy, unpleasant voice laughed. “A raccoon? Seriously?” James aimed the torchlight at an old refrigirator near the utility room door. On the top of it sat a creature. The beam caught its red, swollen eyes, its skin glistening with ooze and filth. “I was wondering when you’d give up and finally come downstairs. Took you long enough! Last time, it was only about five hours or so, if I’m not mistaken.” The creature jumped off the fridge and stepped closer to James. “Let’s play a game,” it said with a sneer. “Guess what I am.” “You’re a monster!” James screamed. The creature tsked, shaking its head. “Wrong.” A deep cut appeared on James’ neck, and thick, dark liquid poured out, speeding up. His eyes widened as he collapsed to the floor, trembling. “Now,” the creature said, turning to Evelyn, “your turn, sweetheart. What am I?” Evelyn sobbed. “No, no, no,” the creature chided. “No crying. You wouldn’t want to spoil the last moments of your dear significant other’s life, would you?” It placed its long, bony fingers around Evelyn’s neck. Its breath reeked of blood and soil. “Say my name,” it whispered. “Th-the… the devil!” Evelyn cried out. The creature smiled, baring sharp teeth. “Finally got it right.” Blood streamed down Evelyn’s neck.
John is awoken by a hard scratching sound from the basement again. “Every night for a week straight, I swear this sound will drive me mad. It’s time to finally man up like Dad would say and ghost down there.” John speaks quietly under his breath as if psyching himself up, but trying to not wake his still sleeping wife. John blindly grabs the oil lantern and matches on the side table and leaves the bedroom before striking a match and lighting the light, making sure to keep the shutters mostly closed so as to be as stealth as possible. His footsteps are light and the only sound is the gentle scratch of his slippers on the hardwood floor, and his nervous breathing. After heading down the hallway, then the staircase, cold but comfortable, he pauses to listen. Scratch, scratch, scratch, he hears clear as day muffled only by distance down the stairs and the old basement door. “Now or never’ he whispers to himself as he descends the stairs towards the kitchen. He looks into the dark kitchen, signs of his wife’s cooking from dinner earlier still linger, he swears he can still smell the roast she surprised him with, briefly distracting him from the mission at hand. He slowly approaches the basement door after shaking his reminiscing of the warm and lovely night he had with her. He hesitates as he reaches for the basement doorknob. Slowly turning the brass knob he tries to avoided that blasted squeak the door always makes. “I really need to fix the squeaking” he thinks trying to distract himself further from his nerves. But he is quickly brought back to reality by the scratching, so loud he flinches. A sudden burst of bravery overtakes him as he swings the door open. The squeaking hinges barely audible over the relentless scratching. He opens the lantern shutters more to illuminate the dark basement stairs. A sudden wave of icy air greets him ,”I hate how cold it is down here” he can’t help but to think as he calls out, “Who is down here?! I’m armed so let yourself be known now!” He bluffs. The scratching suddenly stops and the silence can only unnerve him further. He begins down the stairs, more vigilant than he’s ever been in his life. Suddenly a massive figure runs to confront him at the bottom of the stairs. His beam of light reveals a massive rat nearly the size of a teenager, and John can’t help but to let out a blood curdling scream as the rat leaps to him with unbelievable speed. It’s yellowed teeth sink deep into his cowering arms and he can only think of the danger he’s just put himself and his family in.
Trish said, “I’m going first”, as she took the torch from Ted’s hand. The light switch did not work. “What’s wrong with all of you? It’s just a cat or mouse down there making that noise”, she said in a sarcastic manner as she started toward the basement.
The three other teens followed hesitantly behind Trish. Trish walked slowly down each creaky step.
“Let’s just leave whatever it is alone. Let’s go back upstairs”, Miles said as they got to the bottom of the stairs.
“Miles, this is your house! You should want to know what’s going on in your basement.” Trish said as she kept her eyes focused on the darkness in front of her.
“I know”, Miles said softly.
The scratching noise was louder and could be heard from across the room. Everyone stopped in their tracks.
Susan said, “It’s coming from over there”, as she pointed to the left.
Everyone looked left except Teddy, who looked right. They began walking slowly towards the left side of the basement while Miles stayed near the bottom of the stairs.
The scratching noise seemed to get louder.
Trish said, “What’s behind this door Miles? The noise seems to be coming from behind this door.” She swiped at the cobwebs that covered the door and turned the doorknob but the door didn’t budge.
“Let’s just leave guys. I’m getting a bad feeling about this.” Susan said as she turned around to go back toward the stairs. She took a couple steps and then froze. She stood still as she stared blindly into the darkness.
No one noticed Trish was still behind them.
“Miles where is the key to this door?”, Trish asked. “There is something in there. What if it’s someone’s cat or dog?”
Miles didn’t answer.
Trish turned around to look for Miles in the darkness. “Miles? Miles?” She held up the torch to see if she saw her friend of 11 years. “Where did Miles go?” She looked left and right in the blackness but didn’t see Miles. She turned around quickly to talk to the group and lost her footing and fell on to the cold hard floor.
“Shit! Hello?” Trish was alone on the floor. “Miles, Susan, Ted? Where is everybody?”
The torch began to flicker.The doorknob on the locked door turned slowly and creaked as it opened slowly. The torch went out.
Trish screamed, “No! Please!” Help..!” There was a long moan that seemed to go on for minutes.
Miles and Ted walked up the creaky stairs in the darkness and walked out the door. The basement door locked behind them.
She crept down the stairwell, the faint sputtering of her torch echoed beside her. With each step her weariness grew, the cramped and musty basement was illuminated by a feeble yellow light. She halted at the last step and stretched her arm along whatever she couldn’t make out of the muddled room. The floorboard creaked with the faint scuttling of rats under old furniture, the dust enough to give someone a coughing fit if they took a long enough breath. When she took another step, a wall-scaled bookshelf toppled over, the books flying out in a pile of molded covers and pages. She covered her mouth with the sleeve of her shirt and went to step over it. A tile of the ceiling above her creaked, fissures spidered out of where it was placed. Then it all went black.
At 3:33am, Sam was listening to a thunderous round of appalause. For the third night in a row, claps, cheers, and whistles erupted from the dark basement and lasted for exactly one minute. When the clock read 3:34am, the world was completely silent again.
The first night that it happened, Sam thought she was dreaming. A loud, sudden noise startled her awake and shocked her into consciousnesses. She tried to process what she was hearing, but was left with more questions than answers.
Is somebody in the house? Are they screaming? No, that’s not screaming, it’s cheering. It sounds like a big audience. Is the noise coming from a tv?
Just as suddenly as it started, the mysterious applause stopped.
The second night, Sam thought she might be crazy. Jolted awake again, she lay frozen in bed holding her breath, trying to make sense of the hooting and hollering. The only possible explanation was that she was losing her mind.
On the third night, Sam stayed awake all night staring at the blaring red numbers of the alarm clock on her end table. It was 3:32am.
When the minute changed, the applause began. Although Sam was expecting it this time, her body tensed and her hair stood on end. It was a warm, welcoming, happy sound, but it still filled her with dread.
The next night, Sam stood guard in the dark hallway in front of the basement door. With a flashlight in hand, she waited. Soon it would be time.
Raucous cheers erupted from the basement. Sam placed her hand on the thick wooden door, feeling the pulses and vibrations. She pushed the door open and beamed her flashlight down the stairs, softly illuminating the small room below.
Sam was greeted by a room full of familiar faces. Clapping hands, bright smiles, shouts of joy. Her mom waved to her excitedly. Her best friend from high school jumped up and down, still looking 16 years old. She recognized her grandfather from old family photos she’d seen before, although she never had the chance to meet him. An audience full of people that she missed dearly gave her a standing ovation.
At 3:34am, Sam took a bow.
It’s been a few years since we moved here, and everyday since at exactly 10pm we’ve been hearing some noises from the locked basement, to get into some context of our situation, me and my roommates moved to Colorado for a beautiful opportunity in our life but it fell through shortly after we moved here, seems a lot of things have been. When we first moved here we were told not to go into the basement and being curious teenagers we tried and tried again. But this door is stealed like no other, it took us years to even make it budge but we were persistent because we needed to know what these sounds were. They were like screaming? But almost as if it was farther than just the basement like there was somewhere else that room led to, we tried to contact the landlord and no luck. We honestly haven’t heard from him in months and that’s why today we decided it’s time to do what we’ve been trying so hard for. We looked up stories about this place to see if maybe others knew but the reviews are all weirdly positive.. too positive if that makes sense. Me and my roommate and a couple of friends we normally hang out with at our flat all got together to figure this out, we began pulling and prying on the door but no budge, we didn’t want to try at night because that would’ve been too difficult, we gave up and all had a few drinks, 10pm roll around and that door is cracked but won’t budge anymore. We’re all feeling a pretty good after awhile and laughing but then, the sound from the locked door gets louder. There’s a storm rolling in and the lights have been flickering for the last 20 minutes, our drunk selves obviously had to investigate, our friend John goes over to the door and screamed “you don’t scare me spirts” and just like that the power went out, knowing John and how he can’t hold his liquor his fear is still unseen. He grabs a match and lights one of the little wall torches, I always have thought it was weird that this hallway has torches, but it’s an older house so I didn’t think much of it, we all thought John was too drunk so we pulled him away and he just kept arguing that this is the night we planned it is when it’ll happen. Then the next second we heard a lock click. The door came wide open and I stepped forward because I was the most obviously sober person here, I grabbed the torch off the wall and began to walk down the stairs. I look back up to the top on my 4th step down and seen everyone watching me, I knew I couldn’t turn back now because then John would have to do it, I began to walk down a few more steps and that’s when I heard the sound again, I felt my body trembling and the floor shake from how loud it had seemed this time, I finally reach the bottom and the door at the top slams pushing John and Alison inside they scream “Hailey?” I turned around and realized there was torches on the walls descending into the basement I lit them up and the growls got louder. Alison says “Hailey.. I think we should go back, but I knew we couldn’t. The door wouldn’t open before and it sure as hell won’t now we need to figure this out, we get to a hallway at the bottom of the stairs and on the walls was engraved stones with a weird language none of us understand, Alison studied Latin for 4 years and could make out some of the words but the fear in her eyes told me I should just keep walking. We reach another door and then a smell hits us, John vomits and screams that we need to leave now. I turn around and there is a man crawling on the floor covered in this slimy mess. His eyes are bloodshot and he looks malnourished, he opened his mouth and says “you shouldn’t have came here”, I would recognize that voice anywhere, “it’s our landlord” I say with fear in my chest, Alison finally sees one of the little engraved stones and it’s a grave stone “ITS A Crypt” Alison shouts, I look away and in one second the landward lunges at John pinning him by his throat, “I told you not to come here and now you can’t leave”, Alison screams and drops her torch lighting the satin curtain hanging from wall, the landlord doesn’t seem to like that she damaged his property and he drops John and screams “you’ll all pay for this” alison falls to her knees in shock because now he’s right in front of her he opens his mouth and says “I’ve been waiting for years for this moment you just had to have a little courage or I know you’ve been too scared, your friends love is what will end you alison” he pulls her forward and snaps her neck right in front of us, breathing heavily John gets up and grabs the landlord trying to buy me enough time to get out “RUN HAILEY” he screamed but the landlord can’t let that happen. He threw John into the wall and being how under the influence he was I couldn’t get away, the landlord grabs me and says “you’re the one I’ve always adored Hailey, you are to blame for their deaths not me”, he drags me back to the basement along with John, I knew I had to get out I needed to for John. I managed to escape his slimy grasp and I make a run for it lighting up the entrance to the basement with the torches that were along the walls, “I managed to escape! I knew I could” I said as I got to the top. I looked down and he has John’s lifeless body, he begins to pull his bones out of his skin like he’s just a sack of skin, he screams “don’t forget me” in this ungodly voice he begins to pull John’s flesh around his own wearing it like a suit. “PLEASE STOP” I screamed as I watched John’s body rip apart, my friends stsrted opening the door and by this point my friends body is halfway on and there’s blood everywhere, the landlord walked up a few steps and said “I’ll always be with you Hailey” and I’ll never forget how much his voice sounded just like John’s. The door opened more and the landlord retreated bsck to the door at the end of the hallway, my friends pulled me out and asked where the others were but I was in shock, I finally snapped out of it when Leah and mark wanted to go find them. They could never go down there. I called the police and they searched everywhere and turns out the landlord never existed, and there was nothing in that basement, that’s probably why I am where I am now. They’ll never believe me, I’ll never trust them! He could still be here he’s always here….always with me.
Deep inside the basement, the main character smelled a mixture of rotten meat and decaying potatoes. He was confused, he doubt his family store meat since they’re all vegans. He explored deeper inside the basement and closer to where the noise came from. Suddenly he felt he step on something soft and squishy , he look at the floor it’s a mice. In front of him was a large amount of mice on the floor, it seem like it was the mice that has been making the noises. Before he turn back upstairs, his eye caught something terribly scared him. A corpse laying on the floor almost completely covered with mice, its flesh was nearly all eaten up. The main character fell to the ground because of this terrifying scene, he accidentally drop his torch on his pant. He then screamed so loud that even his neighbors can hear him. Then he lost his consciousness. After he woke up he found himself in a hospital, his doctor told him that his neighbors called the police because he screamed so freaking loud at 1AM. The police then arrived to his house and discovered that its burning and saved him. The doctor told him that his body was mostly burned and his leg and arm need to be amputated. The most unlucky part is that he couldn’t reproduce anymore. The main character told the police about the corpse under his basement after he fully recovered. Ironically it’s actually his dead fathers pet monkey that accidentally died while playing in the basement. The main character cursed the god and world and said that his life was too unfair. Then the jade emperor came down to the mortal world and told him that he will be punished and be sent to the eighteenth levels of hell, never be reincarnated.
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