Don't Be Afraid Of The Dark

Setting Them Free

Sonic could hardly wait to see his friends. After sleeping in from staying up too long he was almost late to school- made it to his seat right as the bell rang. Then, he had to sit and wait until lunch before they were all gathered, finally!

Sonic fidgeted in his seat, pulling Sam's phone out as they all gathered around, eager to see what happened.

Their excitement was drained by the time the recording ended, their minds racing with the fact that something was caught and suddenly, ghost jokes were a lot less funny.

"That's freaky," Alan muttered as Sonic pushed the phone back to Sam. "Like, extremely creepy." His face was so pale it seemed even his freckles had lost some of their color.

"I can't believe you actually got something," Jerry whispered, his eyes wide and frozen on the table, seeming to be in deep thought.

"Sonic, you talked to them." Sam held her phone away from her body as if it was some sort of cursed item now. "I mean that's terrifying, and I'm so impressed. I would have run away!"

Sonic didn't want to admit to them he was barely able to hold still either. Every inch of him wanted to run away- to go to another world even. Facing Eggman was much better than the creepy voices.

"So, what are you going to do?" Kevin asked stiffly, his arms folded tightly across his chest. "You promised to set them free- can't you show this to Tom and Maddie?"

"They'll think I edited it here at school," Sonic almost growled. Why wouldn't they see their precious new house was so creepy? "I wanted to show them this morning, but they left for some emergency."

"Oh... That might be my fault," Sam muttered. "Our horse Sunny went into labor really early so we called Maddie to help. I guess Tom decided to tag along. I'm sorry Sonic, I didn't know you actually caught anything."

"No need to say sorry over things you can't control... But Kevin is right, I promised to set them free."

"You're all idiots," Jerry adjusted his glasses. "You can't be seriously thinking this over. The only solution is to burn the house down and run."

"I"m not burning down our new house!" Sonic groaned. "You're the smart one of us!"

"Burn. It. Down." He calmly replied. "It's the only way."

"We don't know if these spirits are bad... They asked for help, right?" Sam weakly brought up. "So why not actually help them? Maybe they're really just innocent. Come on Sonic, you're a hero!"

Well... It wasn't like he could say no now. He was supposed to be a hero, but everything about this was so creepy and unnatural.

The lunch bell rang much to Sonic's disappointment and he started to gather up the mess.

"Sonic, dude." Alan rested a hand on his back. "Do whatever you think is right, but if worse comes to worst, do what you're good at- run."

…

L

ater that afternoon, Sonic was in his room, thinking about what he should do about the voices he heard last night. The more he thought about it, the more his curiosity was getting to him.

Should he go down and set them free? They didn’t really seem that bad, just creepy as hell. They said they were friends, and Sonic was always willing to make new ones, no matter how different they were.

At last, the blue hedgehog couldn’t take his curiosity anymore and grabbed his bag, emptying it of his school supplies so that he could fill it with the tools he’ll need to open the grate to the ashpit. The real challenge, however, would be sneaking past Tom and Maddie to get down to the basement. The first thing he’ll have to do is get the tools needed from Tom’s study.