Don't Look in the Basement

Prologue

Well this is my first story haha :) hope ya enjoy!! Title might change eventually. :P

Prologue

  My parents have always had strange habits. Sure they were like normal parents. They showed those embarrassing baby photos to your friends. You know the ones where you’re in the bathtub surrounded by your kingdom of bubbles or that one where you have that bowl of spaghetti on your head? Sure they forced you to do all those family activities you considered stupid while you just rolled your eyes thinking to yourself, "I am way too old for this...”. Yeah those are my parents.

   Lately, they've been acting very odd though. Not only odd, but distant too. I didn't notice it too much at first, but after a few weeks I started to miss those family activities I once considered stupid and lame. They just didn't seem interested anymore to go to a movie, or dinner, or even the worst thing of all...bowling. My dad had just claimed that he and my mom were too busy at work. They both were biochemists which all my friends thought was a pretty sweet job.  I, personally, didn't care too much for science and always spaced out in 11th grade chemistry. More strange things started to occur. They had blocked off the basement downstairs, saying they were remodeling. Which I considered strange, because there was never anyone else there to remodel. I had asked a few times to have my friends over and their immediate response was no and they wouldn't say any more about it.

  Then there were the screams at night. I always was awakened by them at least once or twice, but once I was completely awake they were gone. I asked my mom and dad at breakfast one day after I had first heard them the night before. They gave each other odd looks before my dad went back to reading his paper and my mom simply brushed it off, by saying I had probably dreamed it. Three words for you. Typical. Parent. Response. I knew immediately that they were lying and something was up. Of course I went downstairs after they both had left for work, only to find the basement door handle locked. Not just locked, but wrapped up in a link or two of a heavy duty chain that had a padlock attached to it.  Now my curiosity was fueled even more.

   I never heard the screams during the day and for a while, after I first started to hear them at night, they didn't occur for a week or two. Lately I had started to hear them again. They were quiet screams and you really had to focus to hear them, but they were definitely there. I didn't mention them to my parents ever again after the first time, but I started to observe their habits. They went to work at 8 a.m. and were back by exactly 7 p.m. every night. We ate dinner together, my dad would go to his office upstairs afterwards, and my mom would go to her room without hardly a word to me, and by 10,I was in bed, contemplating about what they were up to. I thought about leaving my room when I heard the screams, but the farthest I ever got was to the staircase, then like a coward I would run back to my room and jump in bed too freaked out to go further than I had. My parents weren't in their room at this time, of course I had checked.

   My parents, Dan and Jenna Hadley, were experimenting on something down there. As their daughter, Alice Hadley, my new goal in life was to figure out what it was. Sure I was scared to even figure out if I wanted to know what it was, but somehow I needed to find out. Even better, I was going to make sure I found out. I wanted the secrets and the lies to stop. I was a part of a family that didn't feel whole anymore and I needed to find out what was pulling my parents away from me. Even if there was going to be a price to pay.