The Murder Manor

05 - butterfly chomping and creepy stalkings

All around me was dust and cobwebs. I started coughing and my eyes started to water. Where am I? I looked around me and quickly found where Tristan was.

He ran over to me and immediately and wrapped his arm around my side. Spencer used to do that.. He asked me if I was okay, and I responded with a nod. We both looked around.

It was a small room. The walls were slathered with words written in red. It wouldn't surprise me if it were blood. Random sayings scattered across the walls of the tiny room.

It looked like something out of a horror movie. This whole night felt like a cliche horror movie. Maybe it was. Maybe this whole thing was just a big elaborate prank. I prayed silently to myself, although I didn't even know if I believe in God at this point.

There was no way to get out. I circled around the room looking at the walls.

I stopped in my tracks. Swinging around to face Tristan again, I asked,

"Where's Cherry?"

He looked confused for a second, and I remembered that Cherry wasn't her name, just a nickname I had given her in my mind. He quickly came to that conclusion a few seconds after and looked around the room again, mumbling a quiet 'I'm not sure'.

I groaned, again, probably for the millionth time tonight.

I let my hands wander around the walls secretly hoping that it would be like a cheesy horror movie. Where the protagonist finds a secret door in the wall.

That never happened. I looked up at the ceiling, well, the ceiling that was now laying on the floor of this room in crumbs. There was no way we could get up there. It looks like there's no way to get out. But how did Cherry disappear? We were in the same room as her when the floor caved in. She must've been down here for about 30 seconds before we fell.

"I don't understand how Cherry dissap-"

I didn't even get to finish my statement before I realized the one thing I didn't check.

"The floor.."

We both looked at each other and then the floor. We both dropped down to our knees and started to investigate. After a couple minutes I sighed and sat down on my knees. He made his way over to where I was sitting and did the same. We sat there like that for a while, lost in our own thoughts.

I had so many unanswered questions. When I first got here, who shut the door? Or maybe.. what shut the door? Who was at the bottom of that staircase right before I passed out? Did Cherry and Tristan bring me into that room or did they find me there? Where is Cherry? How did she get away so fast? Why was there half of a dead animal in the house. Why were those doors boarded up? Who was in here that wrote all these things on the walls? How did they get out of this room? Did they make it out of this room? What's the point of this room if the floor hadn't caved in before? Where did Spencer and the rest of my friends go? Were they worried? Where are Tristan's friends?

I still had so many questions but hardly any answers. I forgot that if I did get out of here alive, I would want proof. I spotted my backpack on the other of the room and stood up to go get it.

I grab my sisters Polaroid out of my backpack and take a few photos of the walls around me. I walk up to where Tristan is and kneel down. He smiles and I snap a picture. The picture develops and I hold it in my hand. I smile but it doesn't last long. Behind him in the picture is a long shadowy figure. The more the picture develops, the more clear I can see the person right behind him. The face looks so familiar, but I can't quite remember.

"Jade, I found our way out." He says excitedly, and taps on the floor. I try not to let the way my name sounds when he says it affect me, instead I walk over to where he is and look down at the floor.

"What? I don't see anything."

"Look closer."

I crouch down right next to him this time and let my fingers slide across the floor and I stop my hand when it touches his. We both look up at each other and once again I get an odd feeling in my stomach.

He grabs hold of a little latch that I didn't notice before and pulls it open. Inside is a ladder that leads down to God knows what.

"I want you to know, whether this is real or a prank, that after this is over I don't want us to stop talking. I know we don't know each other much, but I want to get to know you better."

His voice is barely above a whisper, and although his words were friendly and innocent, I felt as if there was a deeper meaning.

He takes his hand and pushes back a piece of hair that was falling in my face behind my ear. My breath stops short, and I look into his eyes. His light grey eyes. I look down to his lips. He's biting them. I wonder what his lips feel like, or what they taste like. My eyes wander back up to his eyes and it seems as if he was doing the same to me. His eyes slowly travel up from my lips and stare intently into mine.

I don't know why I'm feeling this way. I hardly even know this guy. I just broke up with my boyfriend, I shouldn't be thinking like this. I shouldn't be wanting his lips on mine. But I can't help it. And I couldn't help it when I leaned forward and pressed my lips against his.

That weird feeling in my stomach grew stronger. He cups my face with his hands and pulls me closer to him. My hands roam up into his dirty blonde hair and lightly pull on it. The feeling in my stomach doubles. Maybe it's butterflies.

I pull away from the kiss and look into his eyes. He stares into mine, only for a couple seconds before they wander past me. I look back and smile. A small blue butterfly is in the room. I look back and him and smile, again. He smiles back, but that smile soon drops when his eyes once again wander behind me and widen.

I look back once more and I drop my smile. Across the small room is a man. A man who has the beautiful blue butterfly crushed in his hands. He slowly brings it up to his lips and I watch in horror of what happens next. Tristan grabs my hand and looks at me. I look back at the man in horror as he slowly bites into the dead butterfly. The room is completely silent, accept for the small crunching noise of the man chewing. His lips are large, kind of like a clown. They turn into a sadistic smirk when he looks up from his feast. Into my eyes.

By the time he takes a step towards me, Tristan and I are already climbing down the ladder into the darkness of Murder Manor.