The Ghosts of Melbrew [1/12]

Chapter 6) Whispering Winds

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I was so incredibly excited the morning of Friday, September 30th, we all were. It would be my first exploration, which was something that I've always wanted to do! And, I'd be doing it with my new friends, my friends who actually liked this stuff just as much as I did, maybe even more so! It was a dream come true for me.

The plan was to all meet up at the apartments after school, then we would set out to where Kimi and Kai found that hole in the ground. Afterwards, we wanted to go out and do a bit more exploring, and investigate the surroundings. This group seemed to have done this sort of thing many times before, so that made me feel a bit at ease.

Dominik told us all to dress casually and wear clothes that we wouldn't care about getting dirty, and to just wear them to school. I wore jeans, tennis shoes, and a purple hoodie. Everyone else dressed in a similar fashion, except for Kai. He looked how he always looked, all of his clothes were stained dirty. He wore a backwards baseball cap, jeans, a black t-shirt over a long sleeve shirt, and an old, brown, sleeveless jacket. After school we walked to the apartments together and got all of our stuff ready to go out.

"Okay my dudes, so I got this sick ass bag here." Cameron said, holding up a black bag with a white Ouija board design on it, "Inside this sick ass bag I got flashlights in case it gets dark, water bottles for each of us incase we be thirsty bitches, and a strong MF rope."

"Do you all have your phones?" Dominik asked. Cameron and I nodded, "Okay then, I think we're ready! Cameron and I have waterproof, night vision cameras just in case we find anything interesting. They're pretty cheap so I'm not sure how good the quality is going to be, but it's at least good enough for a decently solid image I would hope."

"How dare you insult my perfect camera!" Cameron said, putting a hand over his chest in offense. "Yes, we have two shitty ass cameras, but never insult my beautiful baby!"

"Oh yeah, that camera." Dominik said, sarcasm in his voice as he looked like he wanted to roll his eyes.

"You aren't going to get much cell service out there, especially since it's barely even good right here," Kai said, "as sketchy as it sounds I think it's best to leave our phones here. We could fall in the river or drop and damage them. It's going to be kinda long and I don't want anyone's phones to get damaged. I speak from experience. As Dominik said, he has some cameras so we could use those for any pictures or videos. Just tell your parents you won't be able to answer your phones so if they call or text you they won't panic... it wouldn't be any different if you actually brought them, trust me."

"That's more words at once then I've ever heard you say in the past two years combined." Cameron said.

Dominik argued about the proposal, but both Kai and Kimi insisted that it would be useless to bring them. We all laid our phones down in a drawer in Cameron's desk.

We set out at 3 o'clock, said goodbye to Mrs. Johnson, and made our way out of the building. We walked down the road a little bit until we made it to the entrance to the trail. That entire stretch of road had trees covering it on both sides, even looming over us to a certain extent. I was so ready to go into those woods... Not as excited as Cameron, though, that's impossible. I, however, was a pretty close second!

"This place is hella abandoned." Cameron said, "I ain't seen people go down there in years, trail prolly doesn't even exist anymore. Jus' dirt."

We started walking down the path, and it was actually pretty closed off. There wasn't really a path anymore, grass grew overtop it and nature took over, reclaiming it as its own. This caused it to be rather difficult to walk down. There was a little river or stream on the trail and we'd have to cross the bridge to get to where the spot is. Once we got over there we had to do a bit of climbing and hiking, then we would be going off the trail. Ironically, it was easier to walk off the trail than on it.

When we got to that old rickety bridge, it looked as if it were almost about to crumble. Dominik was so afraid it would end up breaking underneath us that we had to argue with him for five minutes until he made us walk over it one person at a time.

Cameron was on main camera duties for this trip, which I thought was a bad idea, but sure. Apparently it was his thing. Dominik scolded him for filming a squirrel and slowing us down. He did keep us entertained and did some cool photoshoots with us, though. Dominik eventually gave up on getting him to stop fooling around. Character trait learned: Dominik is impatient and hates fun! Fun hater!

As we went further and further into the woods, Dominik got more and more paranoid. He worried about getting lost but Kai assured him he knew where he was going... something that he had to assure Dominik of multiple times a minute. Kimi looked more and more ready to punch him every time he asked, and it almost made me laugh.

"It's right over here, you can stop freaking out now." Kai said at last, walking past a few more trees and around a few more small hills and curves. Once we jumped down a steep little mountain of rocks, we saw it. Laying in the middle of what already looked like a pit on it's own, was a big wooden cover.