Dark Nights

Part 3

Everybody split up. Emma went East, Lisa went south, Mackenzie went North, and Laney went West. With their flashlights shining bright, they all went into their side of the house. Every now and again someone found an artifact and hollered, they all looked at it for a minute, then went back to searching. At one point Laney found a glowing stone, that had a green aura around it. It had a swirl on the top of it, with dots around the swirl. Nobody touched it, afraid that it was radioactive. Once again, they went back to searching.

"Hey guys, come here!" Emma yelled after a while. Everybody rushed to her location, to find Emma standing by a table with a box of some sort. It had a green aura like the stone, but much lighter. The box itself looked plain and normal, if you took away the green aura. It had a lock on it, but Emma was holding the key.

"I'm about to open this box. Who knows what could be in it?" Emma said with a smile. Then she turned around and opened the box. She threw the lid up. Next thing any of them knew ghost-like figures flew out of the box. They grabbed Emma and took her back into the box with them.

"Help! Guys! They're taking me!" She screamed  as the figures took her into the box. The box shut and locked itself.

Everyone was baffled. They didn't know what just happened. One second, everything was fine. The next second, Emma was trapped in a box with what they assumed were ghosts. It seemed too odd to be true.

They didn't do anything else but talk about that for the rest of the night. They didn't sleep. They couldn't. What had happened was far too upsetting and freaky to let them sleep. The next morning they decided to have someone open the box, get captured, and hopefully get both themselves and Emma out of the box. Laney automatically volunteered herself. If they couldn't get out by 4 PM, then they would have to tell their parents what happened, and maybe deal with some lawsuits if Emma and Laney's parents sued.

Right now out was 6 a.m. They had 10 hours to get Emma.  Everyone said their final goodbyes while they walked down the long hallway to the room Emma was in.

They hadn't noticed before that the door had a large keyhole-like engraving right in the middle of the door. It took over the whole middle of the door, just barely making it a door. It seemed suspicious. They tried to open the door, but it was locked. Then all of a sudden Laney ran back and slammed into the door. In an instant it fling open, revealing all it had inside. Mackenzie slowly pulled the key out of her pocket, then gave it to Laney.

Laney seemed like a slug, dragging her feet as she walked towards the box. She put the key in the keyhole and turned it to the right. She popped the lid open, and just like the night before the ghosts flew out of the box and took Laney. She didn't say anything. Nobody did. The only thing that happened was the tears falling down their faces as Laney was taken.

Laney landed in the box with a thud. The inside of it was completely green, the same shade as the odd aura that emitted from the box. "Emma! Are you here?! Answer me!" Laney screamed. No response. She kept screaming. Nobody answered. Emma was too far away to hear her. She walked forwards for about an hour. Then she reached what seemed to be the middle of the box. Laney stopped walking for a second. Something huge was in front of her. It seemed like the stone she had found earlier. It looked like it was mounted to the box. She couldn't do anything about it right now. She knew she had to look at it later, but now was not the best time to investigate.

She walked for another hour, until she finally found Emma. She was curled up in a corner. It didn't seem like she heard Laney approach her. "E-Emma?" Laney said nervously. She was unresponsive for a second, but then with a quick jolt she stood up and turned around. She looked extremely pale and thin, which surprised Laney because she had only been in there a few hours.

"Oh... Hi Laney. You finally came." Emma sounded weak, and unusually calm.
"What do you mean? Of course I would come!" Laney was starting to get worried about Emma.
"Oh, that's right. Time differences."
"Emma... Just tell me why you're acting like this."
"It's only been like, 6 hours for you. In here, time flows much faster. It's been 3 months since I got captured.