Our Caretaker

The Key

As I lie on the floor, I think about the trap door. About whats down there. "What if there is more faces..", "What if there was faceless corpses", "What if-", I got cut off by the sound of metal clanking against metal. I flinched from it.

I found the cause of it. My jacket zipper hit a pole. I was relieved because I thought it was from the trap door.
I was paranoid.

Our Caretaker came home early than usual, we heard the car though and ran up to our room. I got into our room and ran across the floor reaching for my coloring book.

I grabbed it, and started to finish the drawing I did yesterday. I heard keys jingle in the door. I fan myself off and plastered a fake smile on my face incase our Caretaker came in.

Thats exactly what she did. "I hope she doesn't find out what I saw.. or that we went out and about in the house."

She left shortly after whilst saying, "My children are so obedient and quiet!", "I think because of that, we should have some family time together tonight."

I gasped.

I didn't know where this was going.

And I didn't want to know.

After dinner, we all gathered in the living room and was concerned at what we were going to do. I didn't think much of it until our Caretaker eyeballed one of us. It was a girl. Our Caretaker then said, "You. You are it. Tag the other players by throwing these at them."

I was shocked-

It was throwing knives.

Our Caretaker gave us a 5 second head start. I immediately went down to the basement to hide. Everyone else ran. I didn't go to my usual place though. I hide under the staircase and put some boxes in front of me.

I heard a lot of screaming and running upstairs. My eyes were watering. I had goosebumps. In one instance everything went quiet. I was worried that she had killed everyone. It lasted for a good 10 seconds. But then everything just started back screaming, running, and gasping.

I didn't know what happened. I think everyone hid from her whilst she tried to look for them. Maybe she found them. Who knows? I shook my head trying to get rid of the thought. I then heard footsteps from the basement stairs.

I held my breath and ducked down. In between the spaces of the boxes, I saw it was her. The tagger. My eyes wided bigger than they were already. I breathed out slowly and tried to stay quiet.

She turned around and looked at the staircase I almost bit my tongue until she went upstairs. I breathed heavily afterwards.

Our Caretaker then said, "30 more seconds!" very loudly. The tagger then yelled, as she wanted our Caretaker to praise her for tagging everybody. I knew she was looking for me. Our Caretaker then said, "20 more seconds!"

I decided to come out. I ran upstairs and ran around. The tagger saw me a threw a knife. It barely missed me. I didn't see it coming either. "Ten seconds left!", our Caretaker said. I went into the living room and ducked as a knife almost hit me in the head.

Our Caretaker then said, "Congratulations, you have won!" to me. She praised me as the others grumbled and groaned in pain. They all looked at me and looked at our Caretaker. Our Caretaker then said, "As for you, Phoniex, for surviving, I will give you a surprise."

"And as for the rest,  you will be punished. Punished for letting me down. I thought you were fast, and had good reflexes." They all hated me now. Our Caretaker said she will bring me whatever I like back home from town on Friday. I thought about it.

I decided that I wanted a white mask. I wanted to not look as scary to my siblings. I wanted to connect to them.

Our Caretaker ordered us to go to our rooms. Up the stairs we went as the bell rung behind us. I jumped onto my bed and layed down. I thought about the trap door. I thought about what was down there. I wanted to go down there, see if there was a chance to escape.

I decided that when everyone went to sleep, I'd look for the key.

Our Caretaker only sleeps for 2 hours, our Caretaker has to make sure we were sleeping for multiple times at night.

I went to our Caretakers room when she was sleeping. Our Caretakers snoaring made it easy for me to creep around without being heard. I looked in her wardrobe, her closet, and purse.

I couldn't find it, until I saw it. It was hanging on her door. It was silly of me to not see it at first. I grabbed it, and tip toed out into the basement. I got behind the boxes and began to move them.

I unlocked the lock on the trap door, and opened it. I coughed lightly because of the dust. I looked inside and to my surprise, saw darkness. I went in search of a flashlight in the basement. I found one, but it was flickering.

I shined it into the darkness and saw..
a faceless corpse. I was right. The face I saw was from someone, someone dead. I got down to my stomach and saw bats, flies, spider, cobwebs, and more disgusting things.

I saw a door though. A door that was pink..  Strange. I closed the trapdoor, locked it up and put the key back where it was. I went upstairs to our Caretakers room to an empty bed. I gasped of shock.

I turned around to our Caretaker at the bottom of the stairs. My eyes watered for the second time today.

Our Caretaker then said, "My precious, what are you doing out of bed?". "I think you deserve a punishment." Our Caretaker walked upstairs with an angry expression on oir Caretakers face. I prayed that it wouldn't be bad. Our Caretaker got to me and dragged me by my collar, choking me.

Our Caretaker brought me downstairs and turned me around. Our Caretaker  said to bend over. I was worried and afraid. Our Caretaker was heating up something. It was an iron imprint. Our Caretaker brought it over to me and said, "This is what happens to naughty  children."

She pressed the imprint onto my bottom and I hissed in pain. It was sizzling as she kept in on there for a long time. I screamed and gasped for a hot minute. I cried afterwards. I couldn't sit down that night. I had to sleep on my side.