The House Project *currently editing*

Chapter 7: Magic 8 Ball

We made our way to the stairwell. I unlocked the door and entered. "What's the plan?" I asked. Right as I walked into the room I noticed something. All of the stairs were gone, they must have all collapsed the last time that we were in this room. The railings were still there, though. I had an idea, it was crazy, but it was all we had.

"Follow me", I said. I walked over to the railing and grabbed the top one. Then I put my feet on the bottom rail. I started to climb up the stainless stairwell. Jaydan was standing there watching me. "Are you coming?" I asked him. He snapped back into reality and walked over to the railings. He climbed up onto the railing, that was beside me. We started to climb. Jaydan climbed a little faster than me and got up to the top first.

Then he reached his hand out and said: "Here I'll help you up." I let one of my hands go and reached my hand towards his. Right, when my hand was about to grab onto his my foot slipped and fell off of the bottom bar. At the last second, my hand grabbed the bottom railing. "Hold on!" Jaydan yelled down to me. Even though I was part of the wolf colony I still had some fears, and one of them was heights. I looked down to see how far I was from the ground, and that was a mistake. I thought I was close to the ground, but I was at least 20 feet off of the ground. I had fear take over my body. Tears of fear started to run down my face. My body froze, but I still had enough energy to hold on.

"Help me" I yelled. My voice was shaking with fear. "Hold on! Grab my hand!" Jaydan yelled, as he kneeled down and extended his hand. I yelled back up to him "I'll fall". He looked straight into my eyes and said, "You won't fall. Trust me!" he yelled. He reached his hand out further. I trusted him and grabbed his hand. He pulled me up and when he pulled me up to the ledge. When he got me up I was standing right on the edge, I was so close to falling back off the edge so I pulled myself closer to Jaydan. He helped me away from the edge, and when I noticed what I was doing I let go of him and stepped back. "Thank you," I said, trying to look away. He was still looking at me when he said, "You're welcome". Then Jaydan walked forward and asked, "This is the last floor?" I said, "Yes" and then continued down the hall. "Okay, then let's get going," he said. We walked up to a door, and I asked: "How about this one?" Then Jaydan walked over to it and opened the door. We didn't need a key for this door, so Jaydan just pushed the door open. "It's a pool hall," he said when he peeked inside.

We entered the room and we started to search around the space. There were three huge pool tables and a shelf with the game balls and pool cues. Everything seemed to be here, but then I noticed something was sitting on one of the tables. I walked over to it and picked it up. It was a card with an 8 ball on it. I ran back over to the shelf with the balls, with the card still in my hand. "Hey, Jaydan, I think you would want to see this," I said. Jaydan walked over to me. "What is it?" he asked. I pointed to space where the 8 ball should have been and said: "It's missing". Then when Jaydan understood what I was saying he said, "That's what we need to find then". He was right, but where could it be? "Well it's probably on one of the other tables, check those," Jaydan said, calmly. I looked at the tables and it still wasn't there. I told Jaydan that I couldn't find it and he said, "What do you mean?". I turned to him and said, "I mean that it's not in this room." He walked back to the other side of the room, and while he was walking away he said, "Keep looking". He was very determined.

I kept looking. I noticed one ball, it wasn't one that I have ever seen. It was completely made out of gold and had the number 100 on it. It was different, I couldn't recall this type of ball. I tried to pick it up, but when I did it triggered some type of trap. Pool balls started to pelt through the walls, like a tsunami. They quickly flooded to the room. I saw the 8 ball fall out of the wall. It fell onto the highest ledge on the other side of the room. "There it is!" I yelled to Jaydan.

Jaydan and I made our way over to the other side of the room, but every step we took caused us to sink deeper and deeper into the pool. I looked over, I couldn't see Jaydan anywhere. Then I saw his hands emerge from the pool balls. "Jaydan, no!" I yelled, as his hands sank back under. If I tried to go over to Jaydan I would surely end up the same way he did, and if I continued I would also sink. I had an idea, I grabbed onto the shelves that lined the walls. I climbed up onto them and started to move down the shelves. I moved carefully, because if I fell I would surely be buried underneath the pool, and fail the challenge. I finally reached the last shelf. The 8 ball was right in front of me, it was too far to reach, but I probably could make it if I jumped. I took a deep breath and leapt towards the ball.