Behind the Gate

Chapter 14

We hung out in the deep end for a bit, then moved to the shallow to play games like Marco-Polo, and other pool games. Celina brought her volleyball so we played some volleyball for a bit. It was pretty fun, until something weird happened.

"Hey, I have to go to the bathroom real quick," Rozan said.

"Go ahead, we'll wait here," Celina responded.

So she got out of the pool and walked towards the bathroom. There was this one girl in the bathroom that was around our age and she asked Rozan something. She was a midget, but had a weird tone of voice. It was deep, but at the same time it was high pitched.

"Hey you, can you do me a huge favor?" The girl asked Rozan.

"Do I know you?"

"Maybe, maybe not, now listen..."

"Um, I'm pretty sure I don't know you, ask someone else to do you this favor," She said confidently. But the midget pulled out some device that looked like a phone, but it wasn't. It was a hypnotizing device that she used on her. The bathroom was empty, so no one knew that this was happening. And this whole time, Celina, Tia, and I didn't know that she was in trouble. Or if someone else was.

"Now listen to me, you are going to dare your little friends to go on the diving board. Predictably, Celine is going to go up. Tell her to put this magnetic brace on her ankle before she goes up. Got it?" The girl asked.

"Yes ma'am," Rozan said in a robotic tone. She headed out of the bathroom, still hypnotized. She had a straight face on, like nothing happened. Rozan hopped back into the pool and did what she was forced to do.

"I dare one of you guys to go to the diving board," she said intensely.

"Oh, I'll go up!" I said excitingly, not knowing what would happen. I got up on the ledge and out of the pool.

"Wait, can you put this on your ankle, too?" Rozan asked.

"Why?" I asked her back.

"So it can videotape your jump," she replied, with a weary tone.

"Ok, whatever."

I opened the brace and put it around my ankle and realized it was a bit tight.

"It's tight. Is there a way to loosen it up?" I said, fidgeting with this weird looking hook at the back of it. It looked like one of those key-chain hooks, but it locks. I locked it by accident, but I found a button that unlocks it.

"It's supposed to be tight, so it can record your jump better." She said.

"Ok then, either way, I won't have it on for long."

I got up on the ledge and got out of the pool. The diving board area was only a couple feet from where we were, so they were able to see me from where they were. I climbed up the ladder and got on top of the diving board. But as I got to the top, I felt there was some pressure on my ankle. I thought it was probably from the tightness, but I ignored it. Once I jumped, I felt something hit my ankle. I dived in head first, but saw that something else was beating me to the bottom. It was a block of weight with a chain attached. But I got pulled by the chain and found out that the end of the chain was attached to the weird hook and it locked. I tried unlocking it, but I couldn't see where the button was that I pressed a couple minutes ago. I struggled, but I knew that it was finally the end of me. I ran out of breath and just decided to give up.

Out of the water, some boy around my age noticed the whole thing happen. He was running on the pavement, but no lifeguard would pay attention to him. Tia and Celina noticed him running to my area.

"Wait, where's Celine? And why is that boy running towards her area?" Celina questioned.

"I wish I knew, Celina," Rozan replied.

He dived into the area where I was laying there, me probably already done. The boy unlocked the hook and pushed me up to the surface of the water. He plopped me gently onto the edge of the pool and got out himself. Still, no one but my friends realized that this whole situation was happening. My friends got out of the water, but they had an urge to stay back. The boy started doing mouth-to-mouth CPR on me and eventually I got my breath back. He leaned back a bit and I opened my eyes to see something shocking.