Power Cut - #JustWriteIt Wattys2015

Seven

Did the power just cut out for a second? Maybe I just blinked. Not that that matters, there are bigger issues at hand. I looked at the two people sitting at my feet. Jayden and Amelia, my two best friends. We always went out on adventures together, so when Jayden suggested we investigate why so many houses around town were abandoned, Amelia and I agreed to come along. We broke into one of the houses, it wasn't illegal if nobody lived there, and after looking around for almost an hour we finally found something. In the library was a map and a journal, that had belonged to a man named Jonathan Wentworth. And within it he wrote about how in his time, he had also noticed abandoned houses around town. He mentioned how he had investigated, and found a set of coordinates, the coordinates that he marked out on his map. They marked out a place in the middle of nowhere, but Jayden said we might as well check it out. I was more than happy to come along, but Amelia seemed quite worried. If you ask me, she only ended up coming because she didn't want to disappoint Jayden. He seemed so excited for an adventure, she didn't seem to want to spoil that.

When we followed the coordinates we found a creepy, wooden house, built on a lake in a cave that had formed in the cliff face. Amelia, who was usually the happy, optimistic one of us, became quiet and fearful. She didn't like situations that could put any of us in danger. We decided to search the library first, seems as that was where we found our clues last time. We discovered a moving shelf that hid a secret passage, and after finding out that the rails where stuck, Jayden had gotten out his pocketknife and taken part of the rails apart, making it easier to slide the shelf back into the wall and earning an him an awful lot of praise from Amelia. Behind the secret door was a set of stairs, and up those stairs was a room filled with boxes of assorted junk. Jayden had left us to look through the boxes while he searched for other passageways. While he was gone, Amelia noticed a hole in the ceiling.

"What do you think is up there?" she inquired.

"I don't know." I replied, "Should we get Jayden to come and investigate?"

"No, no I can do it. Let him finish doing whatever he was doing." She replied.

"Are you sure? How are you going to get up there?"

Rather than answer me, she began piling up some boxes beneath the hole. Before I realized what she was doing, she had already begun climbing the unstable pile. Right as she got to the top, the pile collapsed and she fell, twisting her ankle as she landed. Upon hearing her cry of pain, Jayden sprinted back to the room at light speed.

"What happened?" He asked with a voice of urgent worry. He saw Amelia clutching her ankle and rushed towards her. "Are you okay, what happened?" I had never seen him worry like this before, usually he was the strong, leading type, but with Amelia he seemed to make exceptions.

"I'm okay, I just twisted my ankle. I tried to climb those boxes to see what was through that hole and they collapsed." she replied, still clutching onto her ankle and occasionally wincing.

"Why didn't you call for me?" Jayden replied, "I could have given you a boost."

She didn't answer him, instead she just looked up at him, and blushed as she looked into his eyes. I gently cleared my throat.

"Here," Jayden began after the short pause, "Take my hand, I'll help you get up."

"Why?" Amelia inquired.

"Well we have to go get this ankle fixed up." He stated a-matter-of-factly.

"I can stay here, you two can keep looking around. Don't stop your adventure because of me." She protested. "Besides, how am I going to get back down those stairs?"

"You don't have to." he replied, "There's a ramp leading down from the balcony over that way. We just have to climb through the window."

It was funny, usually Amelia was the cautious, caring one and Jayden was the one who insisted we continue on with our adventures. Last time we went hiking, I had twisted my ankle and I just stayed at camp for a while as it healed. Clearly he was giving Amelia special attention, which I didn't mind. As he lifted her to her feet, the lights began to flicker.

"Don't worry about the lights," Jayden said, "It's just because it's an old house." He gave Amelia a comforting look, she had been worried about the lights earlier, she was scared that the place could have been haunted, the way that they flickered on and off. Flicker, Flicker, Flicker. He wrapped his arms around her waist and gazed into her eyes. Having already used the clear-your-throat trick, I walked towards the door and opened it fully, motioning for them to go through. Amelia leant into Jayden, and began to hobble along. As we slowly made our way down the hallway, I noticed that the lights were still flashing on and off. Flicker, Flicker, Flicker. Jayden and Amelia whispered to each other as we slowly moved along, Jayden constantly asking if she was okay. We got to the end of the hallway and Jayden sat Amelia down on a chair by the window. I looked out and saw that there was a fairly large drop between the window and the balcony below.

"How is Amelia going to get down?" I asked him.

"I can lift her." he said with an assuring tone of voice.

He lifted the window open and we heard it lock into place. Then he climbed through to the other side and balanced on the small ledge beneath the windowsill. Behind me I could see the lights begin to flash even faster. Flicker, Flicker, Flicker, Flicker. He reached out his hand towards me and pulled me through, I jumped down and landed safely on the outside balcony below. "Your turn." he turned and said to Amelia, but as he reached towards her, the window slammed shut. I could see Amelia's shocked face, and the lights behind her flashed on and off at an alarming rate. Jayden tried desperately to open the window, but it wouldn't budge. Amelia turned around and screamed.

"SOMETHING'S HERE!"

"What!? What is it?" Jayden replied in a terrified voice.

"I-I don't know." she cried out in fear.

"It's okay I'm coming." he called out to her. As he urgently tried to force the window open I saw, in the brief snatches of light, Amelia's silhouette, and then another behind her. As it grew ever closer, Jayden and Amelia shared a panicked look. From the balcony below, I could not see inside the house. I did however see Amelia growing ever more afraid.

Flicker, Flicker, Flicker, Flicker. The lights flickered ever faster now. In the brief snatches of light, I could see the shadow grow closer.

"JAYDEN!" Amelia cried out as the shadowed figure grew close and closer, now right behind her.

"AMELIA!!" he replied in a panicked voice, still trying with all his might to get the window to open.

The shadowed figure grabbed on to Amelia's shoulders as she banged her fists against the window. She struggled for a moment, while Jayden stood dumfounded, a horrified expression on his face.

"Jayden," she whispered, now in tears, "I love you."

As the shadowed figure pulled her away from the window, Jayden called out in reply, "I lov-"

He was cut off by the sounds of a light bulb bursting, and the house turned to darkness.