A Gothic Horror

3

"Oh come on, that's so unrealistic! Not even Sherlock could have seen that coming!" Ashley shook her head in disbelieve. They were all sitting around the TV in the entertainment room rewatching Sherlock on Netflix.

"Unrealistic?" Josh protested, "No! That was—" "Shh! This part is important!"

Right as Sherlock opened his mouth, the image turned black.

"Connection lost? Bloody internet!" Sarah jumped up and went to her laptop that was hooked up to the TV.

"Try reloading!" Chris suggested. "What do you think I'm doing here? ... Oh... That explains it! I have no wifi connection! Is it just my laptop or..."

Everyone checked their phones. "Nope, there really is no connection," Josh said, sighing. "Well, we should try rebooting the router, then!"

"We can't," Chris said, "We've only got a repeater up here! The actual router is in Mr Schwartz's apartment."

Josh frowned, "That doesn't make any sense!" — "And yet that's how he set it up! Don't ask me why. It's just the way it is!"

"But that means he also has no internet connection and he'll probably do something about it soon, right?" Sarah said.

Josh nodded, "Yeah... Let's just give him some time! Say... half an hour! He'll probably have it fixed by then!"

#

He hadn't.

"Okay," Josh said, "Time's up! I'm gonna check!" — "Please hurry!" Ashley said with a pleading look on her face, "I fear I'm already starting to forget what just happened!"

Josh laughed. "Will do!" With that, he went off. Everyone cringed at the sound as he left through the door.

"Another game?" Chris asked, pointing at the playing cards in his hand. The girls shook their heads. "Nah," Ashley said, yawning, "No more cards." — "What should we do, then?"

"What is your darkest secret?" Ashley looked at him challengingly.

"Oh, you wanna play that kind of game?" Chris asked and grinned like that brought up some childhood memories. 

"We might as well," Ashley said as she played with her hair, "The connection will be up again any moment so starting a new game wouldn't really be worth it. So... talking is our best way to pass the time, right? Might as well use that time to learn some interesting about each other! So? What is your darkest secret?"

Chris leant back and put his hands together. "Hm... My darkest... secret..." He just sat there thinking for a couple of minutes. 

"Doesn't really have to be the darkest," Ashley offered, "Just... Anything interesting will do!"

"I... Can't really think of any dark secrets of my own right now but... in high school, I discovered a really disturbing secret about one of my classmates..." — "Ooh!" Sarah exclaimed, "I'm intrigued!"

"So there was this kid in my class," Chris began, "Always was one of the smartest and he always got good grades... So one day we had to work on a science project... Can't really remember what it was about but... anyway, so I was told to partner up with him and I thought I was really lucky. You know, working with the genius... Had to be a good thing, right? Well, we met at his place and we were working with a bunch of chemicals when suddenly... he became unconscious.

"Took me completely by surprise! So I panicked and rocked him back and forth trying to wake him up. Then, suddenly, he opened his eyes. 'Is everything alright?' I asked him but he just shrugged it off and said that he sometimes had slight attacks like that and I shouldn't worry about it. ... Oh god... And then he said 'That isn't interesting, Chris. Wanna see something interesting?' and then, he led me into the basement and... pointed at a box. 'Why don't you take a look inside?' he said. I did."

"What, did he have, like, a dead body in there?" Ashley smiled. Chris didn't.

"Actually, he had several in there. Dead cats, that is. Some were half burnt with fire, some stabbed, some burnt with some kind of chemical... It was just... God! Later, I found out that he had some kind of split personality disorder that was apparently occasionally triggered by his epileptic attacks. But his mom refused to send him to therapy! Because... she was afraid his extraordinary intelligence could get impaired!"

"You're kidding, right?" Sarah looked at him in terror. He shook his head and swallowed, "Unfortunately not!" — "That must have been traumatising!" — "Yeah, it was but... After some time, I got over it and... Yeah... What is your darkest secret, Ashley? This was your idea so you must have something interesting, right?"

Ashley smiled awkwardly. "Well... Not that dark, obviously! When I was younger... I was into... Wicca aaand... Well... I tried to make it so that a photo of mine that I took would become uglier with every day as I would become prettier and prettier!" — "That's it? Did it work?" — "Obviously not! It was just an ordinary photo!"

Sarah laughed. "What about you, then?" Ashley asked, "You got any dark secrets?"

The British girl shook her head. "No... I am literally the most boring girl you've ever met!" — "Oh, I wouldn't say that! You're... Oh my god, the connection's up again!"

They all looked at the laptop.

"Thanks, Josh! And thanks, Mr Schwartz, even though it did take some pushing for you to do something! Alright, Sarah, turn Sherlock on again!" — "Hey, we should wait until Josh returns!" — "Oh... Yeah, right... Sorry!"

#

"What is taking him so long? It's been like half an hour!" — "No, it's actually been an hour!" Chris said, pointing at his phone.

"We should go check on him!" Sarah said in a worried tone, "Maybe something happened to him!"

"You mean, like, an epileptic attack?" — "Or that weird man from the other night came back! We should really go see if everything is okay!"

Ashley sighed, "Okay, fine! We'll go check on your crush. Let's just hope he's not running around killing cats in the basement!"

#

"What's the matter with you guys?" Mr Schwartz gave them puzzled looks, "I thought you were watching Sherlock?"

"No," Sarah replied, "Our friend Josh hasn't returned yet! He is not with you?"

The house-owner shook his head, "No! He left like an hour ago! Hey, are you really not pullin' some prank on me? 'cause you're scaring me a little there!" — "No, definitely not!" Ashley said, "This is really worrying us! First, we were afraid that he had some kind of breakdown on his way up, but since he wasn't lying anywhere on the stairs we thought he was still with you!"

"I can assure you, he is not!" — "But he didn't say that, like, he wanted to go somewhere or something?" — "No! Actually, he said that he wanted to go straight back up as fast as possible!"

"Huh... That's odd," Sarah muttered. "It certainly is," the old man agreed.

"Are you sure he's not still in your apartment? Maybe he was using your bathroom and you just..." — "Forgot? I may not be the youngest fellow living in this house but I'm certainly not some Alzheimer's case! But if you wanna take a look at my apartment, be my guest!"

"That won't be necessary!" Sarah said before Ashley could do anything stupid, "But thanks! I think we'll check our apartment again! Maybe he... I don't know... Maybe we walked past him in the dark and we didn't notice?" — "Doesn't sound very convincing!" Ashley said crossing her arms. 

"You got any better ideas?"

Ashley shook her head.

"See? So let's just get back up! He couldn't have just disappeared, could he?"

"Maybe he really does have some kind of split personality?" Chris suggested. "Oh, come on!" Ashley cried, "What are the chances? No, Sarah is right! We should check our apartment!"

"I hope you find him," Mr Schwartz said, "He seemed nice!"