Them

Chapter 1 - Bruno

Bruno Marshall.

116-114 is what the score board reads with only 7 seconds left on the clock. This is it. We're gonna lose. Our school's first ever State finals and we're gonna lose it. Well at least we made it this far.

"Guy's stop looking so sad as if you've lost. The game's not over until the clock hits zero." Coach Freddy encouragingly tries to get us back into the game.

The buzzer rings for our last timeout to be done. I get off the bench and go to my spot to start our last 7 seconds.

Chris goes to inbound the ball to me since I was our starting Point Guard. I get the ball and the time begins to diminish somehow slower than ever. I start running shaking left doing a spin around the defender. I pass the ball the Chris who managed to get in front of me. I begin to cut to the basket and Chris passes it over his defender to me.

This is do or die. If I don't catch the ball then it's game over.

I catch it and immediately throw it into the basket.

the scoreboard now read 116-116.

A tie.

We are surely gonna go into a five minute overtime with only three seconds left in the game.

The opposing team, the Barons, begin to inbound the ball. All of a sudden Chris out of nowhere steals the ball and passes the ball to me behind the 3-point line. I line up the shot and take it.

The ball bounces on the rime twice then reluctantly falls through the white net. The buzzer sounds signaling the ending of the game.

We came out victorious... I didn't think it was possible as the Barons had an undefeated season. That had now came to an end from the mighty Titans.

There was no way that this was real life. My team had three injured people including me with two dislocated fingers, the pain had magically vanished for the game. All of the stakes were in favor of the Barons but somehow we pulled a win from all of our self doubt.

The crowed roared to life with screams. My team all ran onto the court and began to hug me and hoist me onto their shoulders. The only thing I could do was cry and smile at the same time. 

This bittersweet moment has been building up for the last 4 years when the team was formed my Freshman year of school. Now, senior year, everything was coming to an end and to put the cherry on top we came out with a state championship.

Everyone cheered and laughed all happy to have gotten the victory.

~~~~~

Now back home from the championship dinner I ran up to my room. I opened the wooden door with a creak being heard. A mess. Like always.

I began to strip off my clothes until I was left in my boxers and grabbed a towel off of my bed and  headed to the bathroom across the hall.

Victory shower time.

Everything that was done after the win was a victory. I was just so elated that we scraped together a win.

I unwrapped my fingers and hoped into the warm shower. I let the shower divulge upon me. The bathroom began to fog up to the point that I could only see what was within a foot of me. 

Once I'm done I turn off the shower and grab my towel that was hanging on the shower curtain. I step into the mist and fightingly joined by a black figure standing in the large bathroom with me.

I jump back almost falling into the shower.

"What the-"

I was cut off my the figure moving towards me. That is what made this all too real for me. Someone was in my shower with me.

I throw my hands up in guard hoping to stop them in their tracks but what happened instead was even more frightening.

The figure had vanished but all that was left in its place was a gigantic rock.