Legends Below (Discontinued!)

Stories to tell in the dark

Kacey

Legends. Mystery unless you have got the guts to find it out for yourself.

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Andrea sat cross-legged on the hard tent floor and stared at us with her deep dark eyes. She shined a flashlight under her chin, marking her prominent cheekbones and eye bags. She honestly looked like Jack from 'The Shining' but a girl with a brown hair version.

We were in the middle of the school parade square, all huddled up in our group tent. The tent was way too small to fit 8 people.

"So there is this legend that in this school, there was once a girl, small, naive, and petite. She was picked on because of what was underneath her eyepatch-- an empty eye socket." Andrea murmured in an eerie tone.

"Can we talk about Lady Dimitrescu?" Sarah interrupted.

Andrea rolled her eyes so far back it looked like she was fainting.

"Her eye was ripped away from her face because of her abusive Dad. One day, she was walking down staircase 5 when suddenly," Andrea's eyes widened and she leaned in closer toward us, "she felt two hands push her from her right, the side where she had trouble seeing because of her missing eye. She lost her balance and slipped past the railings. She fell for meters. Her head cracked when she slammed against the concrete floor, and blood was rapidly pooling around her head."

Some gasped in shock, some muttered a "damn" and some giggled out a "lol"

It was no news to me. I told Andrea the story during lunch today and she was instantly keen on finding more about this tragic story. An avid horror fan.

"Legend has it, that if you visit the toilet by staircase 5, level 4, at 12 am and chant 'I have your eye' 3 times, she'll appear out of the dark and she would stare right at you."

That part, I hadn't told her. She probably had done some research.

Andrea pulls the flashlight from her chin and lays it on the tent floor. The tent sways as the wind from the icy night take storm. Andrea's lips curl into a smile and she just stares at us with intense dark eyes.

We all eye her back in confusion. Is she possessed?

"I say..." Andrea hesitantly drags her words, "we go to the toilet and look for her."

"What?" Felicia shouts. We all immediately shush her. It's 11 pm and our other classmates are in their group tents sound asleep while our group's haunting each other with ghost stories.

"Look, pussies aren't allowed in this class, so if we go, we can find out if this legend is a lie," Andrea says as she crouches down so her head doesn't hit the roof of the tent. "Legends are pending mysteries waiting to be solved."

"I'm going, I'm no pussy," Sarah says, crouching and waddling to where Andrea was.

"I'm going too then," Safiyyah shrugs.

"If y'all going, I'm going too but I need to be protected," Felicia sternly states.

"Now?" Julie's voice whispers.

"Yeah, we can walk around the school for a while. I can't stand being squished in that tent," Bernadette says.

I stand up, only for my head to get caught in the fabric of the tent's roof and wobble the whole tent.

"Oi! Oi! Oi! Chill," Andrea whisper-shouts.

Bernadette stands up, her head inches away from the tent roof but not caught in it. She's short.

Itzel nervously giggles. "Uh.. I'll stay."

"Okay, let's go then. Stay safe Itzel," Andrea waves a goodbye.

Andrea zips the tent zipper open and cranks her neck left and right, looking for anybody nearby. When a clear coast was confirmed, Andrea cautiously stepped outside, her dark hair flapping in the cold breeze as the winds pick up. Safiyyah steps out of the tent after Andrea, her hair dancing gracefully in the wind. I take a small step forward and out of the warm shelter. The ice-cold wind pierces through my skin and bones, my hands unconsciously hugging my already freezing arms. I felt like I was in Antarctica.

We all step out of the fabric house except Sarah who yanks Itzel by the arm. Itzel stumbles out of the tent and laughs nervously. "Fine, I'll go too."

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We went to the science garden, the track field where the teachers were sleeping, and eventually came across the school pictures of teachers hanging on the wall near the lockers.

"Shiny egg-" Andrea chortles, pointing at our bald PE teacher.

"Oh my God Ms. Ng!" I cry a burst of laughter. A framed photograph of a woman with a wrinkled smile smiled at us.

"Saf, the IT room is there, wanna go say 'Hi' to IT guy?" I teased.

"No!" Safiyyah immediately denied. Safiyyah has this thing for the new Chinese intern who does technical fixing and who she thinks is 'super hot'. His code name: IT guy.

"Wait what's the time?" Bernadette questions out of the blue.

"11:55 pm," Safiyyah says instantly. She wears this glow-in-the-dark watch 24/7.

"We should go to the toilet now," Andrea walks away before we could answer.

The moment we entered the toilet, this cold, uncanny feeling wavered over me. I knew I wasn't the only one feeling this because I noticed everyone staring at the dark vacant cubicles in trepidation like someone was going to jump out of one of the stalls and eat us up.

"Time, Safiyyah?" Andrea leans over the sink and stares at Saffiyah through the mirror.

"12:00 in 57 seconds."

"Tell me when it's showtime."

And so we waited for Safiyyah to say the words we were fearing to hear. Sarah shook her nervousness away by singing 'WAP'.

"3." Safiyyah's counting cut Sarah's off-tune singing.

"2." I suck my breath in.

"1." My heart bangs against my chest.

"Showtime."

"I have your eye." Andrea hollers with confidence.

"I have your eye." She says again, softer. The tension builds. This nervous tingling feeling tickled my insides.

"I-I have your eye" Andrea stammers out the last sentence, and possibly the last sentence I'd ever hear. Why did I ever agree to this Bloody Mary shit? What are we going to do if the legend really was real? We didn't have her eye.

My breath hitches. The air freezes. It was so quiet, I could hear my heart palpitating. The tension was so thick, the feeling we had when we first entered the toilet grew. It was petrifying.

My sweat goes cold and my limbs go tense. I stayed solid like a statue, not moving a single muscle. I look at the shadows in the corners of the toilet. Things that shouldn't be there could be lurking. There were silhouettes of branch-like figures creeping left and right in the frosted window at the end of the toilet, like a sly fox ready to jump at its prey.

"It's fake," The tension finally tore thanks to Julie.

"Wow, a waste of time," Bernadette sighs.

"At least we got to know if the legend is real," Andrea inhales sharply and rubs her forehead with her palms in disappointment.

"Let's leave y'all," A relieved Felicia pointed to the bathroom doorway.

It was when we all stepped out of the toilet door, we heard an eldritch giggle reverberate around the walls of the staircase near us. Staircase 5.