Asher Banning still mourns his mother after three years. When his friend, Caden, decides to get their group of friends together for Christmas as a way to help Asher not feel lonely for the holidays, things quickly turn upside down.
MATURE: for expl...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
The idea of having a tunnel underneath my parents' house confused me because I had no idea when we had one, why it was here, or how no one seemed to mention that there was a creepy tunnel hidden in our basement!
"Okay, what the actual fuck?" Piper said. "Why the fuck is there a tunnel here?"
"I don't know." I continued staring into the nothingness as if hoping for an answer to jog up to us, explaining why this was here. But the more I stared into the abyss, the more curious I was about it and where it led.
"And you have no idea this was here?" Freyja asked, hovering over my shoulder.
"No," I said, turning to her. "Of course not. If I did, I wouldn't have been this surprised. Did anyone know of this?"
Everyone shook their heads, followed by "no's."
"It just doesn't make sense." I turned to face the door again. Nothing ever does, so of course it doesn't make sense. Why would it? Your life doesn't make sense! "Why would my family need this? It couldn't have come with the house, right? I don't remember it at all."
"I don't know," began Caden. "Weren't these mattresses always here?"
"Why would that matter?" said Tori. "Even if they were, wouldn't anyone remember a door that went to a tunnel?"
"I remember my parents buying the house with beds already here, so these were old mattresses of the previous owners. I don't know why we never got rid of them, but I also don't remember the door there, though."
"Well, hold on a minute . . . how old were you?" Nick asked.
"I don't know. Maybe ten or eleven?"
"Why?" Sam spoke up, itching the bridge of his nose.
"Because if it happened a long time ago, his memory could be blurry. Especially if you weren't paying attention." He had a point. I probably wasn't paying attention to the details of the house when it was first bought. In fact, the tunnel could've been here, and I could've known about it before, but I wouldn't have remembered. But you would remember a tunnel in your basement, wouldn't you?
"That . . . could be a reason? But it still begs the question: where does it lead?" I said, turning to face him.
Caden pushed through the crowd, coming up front and center. "Don't tell me you're wantin' to find out where it ends?" My silence answered his question. It wasn't that I wanted to for the heck of it; I had too many questions buzzing around my brain and the thought of something like this answering at least one of them could help tremendously. "You are a fuckin' retard! Ya do realize you could die or somethin'?"
"Caden has a point here," Freyja agreed. "'Member all those horror movies we watched. The main thing to take away from it is to not go toward the danger. If you go into the tunnel, you're heading toward danger."
