Living a Nightmare

GETTING OUT

Just as Cedric is about to make the first hole in the wall of the house, Jay stops him. "Hang on just a sec," he calls.

"What?" Cedric looks annoyed, but is immediately stopped by Jay, who shushes him.

I am as confused as Cedric is about what Jay is trying to tell us. But I decide to concentrate on my surroundings and listen.

Nothing... nothing but silence... in the whole house. It is so quiet that you can almost hear a speck of dust hitting the floor somewhere.

"Hear that?" Jay asks us. "It is quiet right?" Cedric and I nod. "And do you know what that means?" Jay continues. Both of us look at each other and then at Jay, but before either of us can answer, Jay finishes, "This means that our ghost is clearly gone for now. Which means that we might be lucky and the basement door isn't locked anymore."

On that note, we all rush up the stairs and to our surprise, Jay is right and the basement door swings open.

The three of us cautiously step out, not sure if the ghost is still around somewhere and will start throwing objects at us again, but nothing happens.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

We slowly make our way into the living room. In here it looks like a big bomb explosion. Everything is scattered all over the place.

I look down at the floor in horror. All my belongings are shattered into a thousand pieces on the floor. All my beautiful paintings that I have worked so hard on over the last few of weeks... all destroyed...

"Sorry about all of this," Cedric looks at me apologetically, when he sees my horrified eyes at the sight of the living room.

But Jay cuts in, before I can say anything. "Okay guys, we have no time to lose right now. As long as the ghost is gone, we have a chance to find out who we are dealing with and what kind of ghost it is."

"But how are we going to figure that out?" I look at him, clearly confused.

"First of all, we have to go through the rest of the boxes downstair," he replies as he makes his way back to the door that leads to the basement. But before I know what I am doing, I block his way just as he reaches the door, which is still wide open as no one had the urge to close it when we all rushed up the stairs to get out.

"You are kidding, aren't you? Please tell me he is joking," I turn to Cedric, already dreading the answer.

"We have to, Riley. Right now, it is our only chance to find out who this woman is and why exactly she is after you," Jay puts his hand on my shoulder again. "How about you wait up here while Cedric and I quickly fetch the boxes from downstairs. Then we can all go through them up here. How does that sound?" Jay smiles warmly at me as he waits for my answer.

But all I can do is nod and smile at him as they both disappear into the basement, only to reappear seconds later, each carrying a box.