House Of Echoed Screams (Completed)

Chapter 5: Blood Sacrifices

     Immediately after hearing the scream, Becker began walking down the hallway, a determined look on his face. Ryan took a step forward, and shouted, "Where do you think you're going?" Becker stopped walking, slowly turned around, and said, "I'm going to save Sean from whatever's making him scream. That was him screaming, wasn't it?" Now, Ryan had a puzzled look on his face, and Becker couldn't understand why. "What's the point," Ryan said. "He's probably dead now. If he was still alive, then we'd have probably heard more screaming by now. Our best option is to forget about him, and focus on finding a way out."
     Becker couldn't believe what he's just heard. "Are you kidding me? You're just gonna leave your best friend to die now, after all you've been through? Just because he hasn't screamed again, doesn't mean that he's definitely dead. As for trying to escape," Becker paused to pull out his phone and check the time, which read 1:45. "We've been looking for a way out for almost four hours, so if we haven't found a way out yet, we probably won't anytime soon. I don't know about you, but I'm going to go help him. Now who's with me?"
     The whole room fell silent from the tension between Ryan and Becker, until Nikki slowly stepped forward until she was standing next to Becker. After about another minute, Lauren quickly walked over to join her. Now, only Addie was left to decide who she's going with. For a moment, Becker thought that Addie would actually side with Ryan and leave Sean to die, but after a moment's hesitation, she walked over and stood next to Becker as well. "Fine," Ryan spat. "You all go on your stupid rescue mission, and meanwhile, I'll find a way outta here, and keep alive!"
     Becker had nothing to say to this. Ryan's gone mad, Becker thought, and silently turned around and began walking down the corridor, followed by everyone except for Ryan. The group went down the long hallway until they came across a door at the very end that was wide open. "This must be the way he went." Becker stepped into the room, and immediately noticed that part of the carpet was colored differently than the rest. "Hey, come check this out," Becker called, waving everyone over. Nikki strolled over, and noticed the strange carpeting. She looked closer at it, and began pulling on it. "What're you doing," Becker asked, but just then, she gave a particularly strong tug, and the miscolored carpet came off the floor, revealing a small, dark hole with a ladder protruding from it.
     "Whoa," Addie gasped. "It's a secret passage into the basement!" "Hey, it looks dark down there; turn your lights on, everybody." Becker said, and after everyone got out their lights, began climbing down the ladder into the dark, musty basement, followed closely by Nikki, then Addie, and lastly, Lauren. After about five minutes of climbing, Becker reached the ground, and shone his flashlight around the room, revealing a large living room filled with a large couch, some tables, and a lot of splintered wood pieces lying throughout the room. Becker heard a rustling sound behind him, spun around, and found that it was just Nikki stepping off the ladder.
     Once everyone had climbed down the ladder, they decided to split up and look around the room. Becker couldn't find anything interesting inside this room, but did jump when he heard someone scream, "Ouch!" "Hey," Becker called. "What was that?" For a second, Becker could only hear the sound of everyone searching the room, until he heard Addie's voice. "That was me. I just stepped on some of the broken wood. Why is there wood all over the floor anyway?" Becker had only one logical answer for this, but he didn't want to say it. "Something's been living down here for a while, something angry." Everyone fell silent at this, until Lauren quietly said, "Hey everybody, I found another hallway." Becker followed the sound of her voice until he could see the hall, too, and found that everyone was already there, waiting for Becker to lead them down it.
     Becker and the rest of the group walked down the hall, and found nothing except for a single, upturned table throughout the entire walk. Finally, the group reached another room. Once again, Becker had everyone split up to cover more ground. At first glance, the room seemed to be someone's bedroom, because there was a bed and nightstand in a corner. Becker decided to search the bed. He found nothing in the pillowcases, nor between the mattresses, but when he pulled down the bedsheets, he found a cell phone that he recognized as Sean's. He was about to call everyone over, when Lauren let out a loud scream. Becker decided to just put the phone in his pocket, and rushed over to where he heard her scream.
     Upon reaching Lauren, he found her kneeling over something, surrounded by everyone else. Becker took a step forward to get a better look at what Lauren was crying about. He took one look, and gasped. He was quite sure that he was looking at the blood stained, lifeless body of Sean. "W-what happened here?" Becker struggled to get the words out. He had seen many terrible things throughout his life so far, by to see his friend, who he had spent so much time with, in this horrible state, it was just too much. Becker turned around and began running toward the hallway, when he saw something that made him stop dead in his tracks. "Hey guys, you might want to see this."
     Everyone slowly got up from Sean's dead body, and walked over to what Becker was looking at. On the wall were the words, "You're next" written in blood that was connected by a line on the wall to Sean's body. "Guys, things have changed. This isn't a joke that someone's playing on us, this is real. If we're not careful from here on out, we could die," Becker said solemnly.