Safe at Home (or not...)

The First Trap

Harper is extremely excited that he's gonna be roommates with his best friend. But right now, he just needs to rest. It is 11PM, after all.

He walks up to his old room. It's filled with all his former interests: bottle cap collections, pictures of 12-year-old Mindy, a guitar. But he continued to eye the pictures of Mindy on the shelf. Obviously his parents had known about the crush, but they never knew he actually dated her for five years.

He looked at one center picture. It was of him and Mindy in a yearbook picture. They were smiling and looking cute. Harper began to wonder if there was love before the maze? Well, maybe he'll find out. Right now, he was on the computer looking at bunk beds.

He heard a strange noise in another room. So he got up and looked. He walked around the computer room and found nothing. He left the room and looked around the whole downstairs. The living room; nothing. The dining room; nothing. The kitchen; something. He heard the noise get louder in the kitchen. He opened every cabinet and container in the kitchen. As he looked in the dishwasher, his back was jumped on.

Harper fell on his stomach. He turned around quickly. Nothing was there.

At first he thought something had fallen on him from above, but he had seen nothing when he opened the cabinets above the dishwasher.

He continued to look in the dishwasher when it fell on him again. This time he turned around quickly enough to barely see it. He recognized it.

It was the weird thing that ripped off his shirt in the maze.

He chased after it, not wanting to let it leave. But it was insanely fast.

He chased it around the house, tiring himself out after not too long.

He finally made the diving play of the year, barely grabbing its tail and pulling it towards him, taking control of it and finally throwing it into the toilet and flushing it. It made him extremely happy; he had finally done it after about 7 minutes of following.

He called up Darren to tell him about the creature he was attacked by.

"Hey, Darren? Something weird just happened."

"What's up?"

"Well, you remember that creature that ripped my shirt off in the maze?"

"Yeah..."

"Well, it-"

Harper was interrupted by a knock on the front door.

"Whoop. Hold on, the door is being knocked on."

"Take your time."

Harper walked over to the door and opened it. It was Sharon.

"Hey, Harper."

"Hi, Sharon. What's up?"

"Is Darren here? I heard you guys were bunking together."

"Yeah, I have him on the phone right now."

"Ok. Well, see you later."

Harper looked behind Sharon and saw Darren behind her with a ring box.

Harper's eyes raised up to his forehead. It was obvious.

Darren was going to propose marriage to Sharon, right here on Harper's front steps.