Crossing the Line

Chapter Three

That weekend, everyone was too busy to do anything about the assignment - Asiyah had to babysit her siblings, while her father and stepfather were away, much to her disdain; Miki had unfortunately caught a cold, and had been forced by both her father and friends to stay in bed, lest she over-exhaust herself, and get even more sick; As per usual, Bonibell's parents wouldn't let her out of the house, so she had to plan out a lie to get out the next weekend, and Nikolai had to take on a few shifts at his family's restaurant, on top of his own job.

Richard hadn't told the others that he'd gone up to Queensland for the weekend, and hadn't even thought of any more ideas while he was there. Needless to say, on Monday he was met by a very angry Asiyah, and hell hath no fury like Asiyah when she's mad. The others couldn't help giggling as she lectured him for almost a whole double period of English, as their teacher also watched on in amusement.

The following weekend, however, everyone had managed to clear their schedules, and were staying at Nikolai's house for the weekend,  as he had plenty of space and it was a close distance to their filming location. As the due date was coming up, they'd spent the week at school planning their film (sometimes getting yelled at by teachers for working on English during other subjects) so now, it was finally time to actually get a camera out and shoot it.

Asiyah was very proud of the story they'd been able to come up with, especially since they'd only planned it out on the Thursday. In their film, a group of people had been invited to a creepy old house for a party, which had been going well (although a bit dreary) until someone was found dead. As the hours passed, more and more people disappeared, and suspicions were high - was it a person, or the house's paranormal activity that was causing it? The film started with the group being the last five guests left, and them explaining the backstory. The last scene was both looked forward to and dreaded - it ended with Asiyah, the last survivor, confronting the murderer, who turned out to be Bonibell's character, while she laughed maniacally. Asiyah was then to be dragged off screen when the living corpses of the other victims were summoned.

"There better not be any splinters on the floor or anything," she had said, slightly worried. Miki couldn't help thinking 'Like that's the least of our worries,' even though the others had assured her there were no ghosts in there.

Someone - they'd forgotten who - had suggested Asiyah and Richard to be lovers, making it more tragic when his character died; although they'd strongly disagreed with it, their teacher overheard, and loved the idea. So, the two accepted their fate, with little grace.

Someone had also suggested, when they were first assigning the characters, that Nikolai should be the murderer. When that was said, he slapped the desk and replied with a very forceful "No." He was then told to leave the classroom by their Maths teacher, not getting to say that the bad guy was almost always his role in Drama class plays.

"It would be too predictable, anyway,"Bonibell whispered, once everything had calmed down. "Movies almost always have a Russian villain - no one would suspect the short girl in glasses," she hinted, with a wink.

"Bonbon's the villain, then," Asiyah noted, since she'd been given the task of scribing their ideas. She'd also written down 'Asiyah and Richard - Lovers' with so much force and hate that she had accidentally torn a hole through the page.

And now, the first day of filming had finally come. Nikolai was as excited as a child about to go to the zoo, bouncing on his heels and grinning brightly; whereas Richard and Miki were the complete opposite. They hated acting - and that was about the one thing they had in common. Miki also still had reservations about entering the house, despite the promise of delicious Belgian chocolate... She had spent the previous few nights laying awake for hours, unable to sleep. Her logical side said it was stress; the superstitious side of her said it was a sign.

With their costumes in plastic bags, the five students marched from Nikolai's house, through the park across the road, and came to a stop outside the old house. It was a little less foreboding at noon than it had been in the early morning, but it still sent a shiver down everyone's spines. Miki fought the urge to turn back, but Asiyah's reassurance kept up her resolve.

"Well, time's running out!" Nikolai said cheerily, breaking their reverie after a few seconds. He was the first to step out onto the road, leading the way to the house with camera in hand. Richard, carrying the tripod in a duffel bag, followed behind. Asiyah placed a hand on Miki's shoulder as comfort, before the girls followed.

To their surprise, the front door was unlocked. Nikolai and most of the others hadn't even thought of the possibility that it might be, and that they wouldn't be able to get in, but the old brass doorknob turned (quite smoothly, too, for a house this old) and he swung the door open, allowing everyone to enter. Miki was the first to go in this time, and she nearly had a heart attack when she felt something grab her as soon as she crossed the threshold, and try and pull her back outside. Richard moved to go inside, so she kept walking forward, pretending nothing had happened. No one seemed to notice, until the same thing happened to Nikolai, anyway. 

"I- I can't move!" he shouted, trying to step inside. The others watched in horror as he struggled for a minute to break free of whatever force was holding him there, when he was pulled backwards, all of a sudden, choking on the neck of his T-shirt in the process. "What the hell?!" he shouted, looking behind him as soon as he had been let go. 

"Maybe we should go...?" Miki suggested, from her hiding place behind Asiyah. 

"Yeah," Richard replied. "Something clearly doesn't want us here." Despite his efforts at trying to put on a brave face, the others could tell that he, too, was shaken.

"No, the thing's due this week!" Nikolai shouted, running inside. "Come on, we have to get it done." The sooner we get buried in our work, the sooner I can forget about that, he thought, rubbing the front of his neck. 

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I had planned for this to be a bit longer, but it's already longer than I hoped it would be, so~ (and one day I'll come back and edit this whole story, so it will hopefully eventually be longer...)

We're finally at the part where the plot kicks in, at least a little! :D Please let me know if I made any mistakes, or if anything doesn't make sense... I made the bad choice of editing and uploading this at 1am, so I may not be thinking too straight...