Moonstone Warren and The Lost Legend (Book 1)

The Haunted House (Moonstone)

We heard a car drive into Nick's driveway. It was my father coming to take Chrissie home. We bid Chrissie goodbye and headed to The Haunted House with Pepper right behind our heels.

Pepper is Nick's pet dog. She is German Shepard who is currently three years old. I always had a feeling she was concealing something. One day (I don't know if I was seeing things) I saw her surrounded by fire but it didn't hurt her one single bit. I even saw her jump into the fire, and then the fire vanished! Fire can't just vanish, can it? This happened nine months ago, when a fire broke out in the park. So, I kept watch on Pepper ever since. But nothing unusual happened after that one day.

I looked at my watch. 'It's five o'clock. We have till seven to explore.'

'Okay,' Nick said. 'That's two hours and that's more than enough. How hard can it be to explore one house?'

'Harder than you expect. It's one big mansion and it's haunted.'

'We're not exactly sure if it's haunted.'

'-Yet,' I finished.

After about five minutes we reached the abandoned mansion beside our school. The mansion was abandoned two years ago, but it didn't look like it. The big Iron Gate was not rusting, the walls of the mansion were not broken and windows weren't shattered and no creepers were crawling up the wall. It looked like it was just abandoned yesterday.

'I don't see the 'haunted' part at all,' I whispered to Nick.

'Maybe it's inside.'

'Uh-huh.'

I tried to push open the gate but it was heavy, so Nick helped. After a bunch of tries, we finally got it to open. The gate opened noiselessly. We both scurried in quickly and pushed the gate close. After walking a few paces, we reached the main door. But the door wasn't anything like the gate. It opened with the slightest touch. Sunlight poured in the house, and we could see the dust fly. I and Nick coughed, so did Pepper, kinda. Once we entered the house and I closed the door, we found ourselves in complete darkness.

One moment later, light started flickering around. There were many candle stands with candles attached to the wall. All the candles lit up on their own, one after the other. Maybe this house is haunted, I thought. Once my eyes adjusted to the dim light, I saw what was dead ahead.

In the middle was a stairway leading upstairs, a door at the end of it. The staircase divided the left and right side. On the right was a long staircase leading downstairs, and on the left was what looked like an endless hallway.

'Wow, this place sure has an eerie vibe,' I said.

'Aren't you afraid?' Nick asked.

'What's there to be afraid about?' I asked with a smile. 'It's not even scary.'

'I forgot you were very different.'

'Of course you did. So which will it be?' I asked pointing at the three divisions.

'It's like we are in a video game,' he said. 'I don't like the idea of going down to the basement or getting stuck in an endless hallway.'

'So up the stairs it is,' I said.

We ascended up the stairway, Pepper following closely. With every step we took, the stairs creaked loudly. Now I've got to admit. It is a little scary, more suspenseful though. It may be a normal creak, but in an old and huge abandoned mansion it sounded creepy. Only a few more steps and we would reach the top.

That's when the floor gave away. 'What the-,' I muttered. We fell for what seemed like ten seconds until we hit the hard stone floor. My everything hurt. I felt dazed. It took a few minutes to gain full consciousness. I looked around but it was completely pitch black.