Everlasting Nightmare

Chapter 1 - Deep Secrets and Fears

I was told never to go to the bridge in the woods as there is a tunnel underneath it that would lead you to be hunted in the worst way possible.

Everyone's worst nightmare is said to be met in this tunnel, no one knows exactly what the tunnel holds. The people who come back to tell, say it holds a monster, a ghost, a huge animal, heartbreak, clowns, anything, and everything. People have gone down there and have seen to never return, and the few people that do return tell their story just be found dead a few weeks later.

Some people say that the people who kill these survivors are the Civilized. We call these people this is because they don't believe in the stories about the tunnel full of secrets, and despise the people who come back and tell their nightmares. But the people who tell, believe, whisper; these people are told to be the Crazies.

Most people thought that the stories were made up and the people who told them were crazy and keen for the attention they got after returning from the 'dead'. Hints the name, the few people that thought the stories were real but never dared investigated, were too named as such.

My best friend; Eric Wilson, sixteen years old, male, he has dirty blonde hair, icy blue eyes, and freckles that you sometimes really have to urge to play dot to dot with but it's merely impossible to do. Really the perfect human thought to be. He has been my friend since we were only five. We know everything about each other. Well, nearly everything.

Eric thinks that the Crazies disserve the name for even going down to the tunnel of nightmares in the first place, that's if the stories were true anyway. I agree with him too, people aren't very smart, but I guess it's human nature to be curious. "But if this tunnel was real, and the stories about it were true, then why wouldn't people be searching through it?"

"Because they don't want to be named Crazies either?"

"Well, maybe they are Mateo!" that's what Eric's imagination told him, and me. "I think the people who go down to the bridge are drugged then murdered. And the people who come back were just able to escape." I guess he just lives up to being human as well.

I don't know what to believe. Some people come back so out of their minds that it's impossible to believe what they are saying, and you just think that they're mentally unstable, as every Civilized thinks. But others make it sound so real, you can't help but wonder what is actually down there, in the darkness of the tunnel.

Whatever I think about the tunnel, I can't tell anyone. Not my family, friends, Eric, even the Crazies themselves. If I do, I may be outcasted for believing in the lies. Stories. I will be named crazy as well. My family cannot afford to live up to that name again. To add another crazy to our family. No matter what I think or tell I cannot ruin my family anymore than it already is.

I do errands here and there to earn a bit of money, but being a 16-year-old male doesn't help much as most of the boys my age are too immature to do anything with their lives. Eric often asks to help out, he shouldn't be in this mess but he always feels guilty for what my family and I have to go through. None of it is his fault, but he still feels bad for what I and my family are wrapped up in. 

I am a boy at the age of sixteen. My name is Mateo Adams, I live in a small town in England. I have brown hair, black eyes and a couple of freckles that would be very easy to play dot to dot with, and my skin is quite tan. I live with my mother, Aria who was widowed about three years ago. And my sister, Lyra who is eighteen. She had a chance to move out with her fiancé, Peter but decided to stay and help my mother and I. My mother and sister are both working to earn money to get us out of debt so that we don't lose our home and can still afford to eat, and have a life.

Peter doesn't care much for my sister and the money we are trying to earn, he doesn't care much for anyone but himself. "We can just leave, then you wouldn't have to worry about this mess your family call living."

"Peter! They are my family, I can't just leave them like this!" That was usually the basic conversation between them.

My father kept our money up and the boys away from Lyra, which is why we are now having so many problems. See, my father died when I was 13 years old. I guess this is also what Eric feels bad about. My father worked hard to get the money we had to keep the house, to be able to go to school, live I guess.

He was a Crazy himself, he heard and believed that the tunnel that held his deepest fear also held valuable tressures that would equal as much as three life times maybe more, which would keep us going for generations and add to anything he desired. But he was one of the people that never returned after sticking their noses into their own little nightmares.

I didn't hate the man he was my father after all, but I never liked him either, let alone I didn't understand him. He always kept to himself, and when he didn't, he drank. And when he did, he hurt people, he was a sick man. He liked to watch people in pain, he liked to be the cause of it, which was the most terrible thing out of all. He deserved to die. He still loved us, most of the time and in his own way. It still makes me sick thinking about him and what he did to other people. He corrupted our family. My trust for anyone. The trust to love anyone.

As my father kept to himself he also kept secrets, I learned too just as well as he did. "They're just kids,", "They're too young to understand yet,", "Wait till they are older," and plenty more excuses. Adults just wish that we didn't know what they were talking about. Which is often why I don't talk to them, so that they don't have an opinion on what I say. But sometimes it's good to hear people's opinions. Even if we don't like what we hear.

I don't talk much, to anyone. Not even my family. Except for Eric of course, he's my friend he knows everything. Except what I think about the tunnel and him. Those are my deepest, darkest secrets. But I still don't talk to him much either. He talks too much for me to butt in. He always has so much to say, I usually only get a couple of words in whenever he takes a breath. If I remind him to take one.

My mother often asks me to talk to her, she talks quite a lot too, not as much as Eric though he is very hard to beat in that department.

My mother sings while she cooks, she has an amazing voice. Lyra tries to join in but she's tone-deaf. It often gives me a headache when she sings, which I find funny. But it means she's happy which is quite rare with Peter and everything else that she has to deal with. So knowing that my mother and Lyra are quite happy makes me feel reasonably thrilled as well.

But I've now got to worry about taking care of my family and myself. Even if I did think that what my father believed was true, about the tressure. I don't think I have the guts to even look at what I internally, truly fear in the face. I don't know what I truly fear, but then again... who does? That's your deepest secret of all.