How it started… [PROLOGUE]
As he’s lost in thought, he looks at the bottom of his drink, unlike his friends, who continue to talk about anything on their minds or anything they see. He’s been tuning them out and attempting to focus on the music playing in the background.
“Hey, how about tomorrow we go to the movies? I heard a new one’s coming out and it’s gonna be in the theater nearby,” one of his friends asks.
“Nah, that’s boring, Zayn. We’ve been watching too many movies lately anyway, think of something else,” his other friend responds.
"Fine, if you don’t wanna do that, you think of something, AJ!” Zayn sighs before taking another gulp of his drink.
“Why don’t we just go skating or something like that? That would be fun, plus we’ll be able to get food if we go to the rink at the plaza.” AJ suggests.
“We went there last week, try again! Besides that, we almost got banned because someone thought it would be a good idea to use the practice handles to move faster and crash into someone’s kid.” Zayn rolls his eyes before looking over at Iro.
“Oh come on, I paid the kid’s mom so she wouldn’t press charges against me, I even apologized instead of booking it, if I didn’t do that—not only would I be in the wrong—but we would’ve gotten banned.” Iro slams his balled hands onto the table.
“Anyways, you have an idea, Penny?” he leans back against the booth seat that everyone’s sitting in.
She looks up for a moment to respond, “We could do a movie marathon? I got a DVD player the other day and bought horror movies!”
“I love horror movies, that sounds fun. I can’t remember the last time I did a movie marathon, so that’s even better.” Soren says as he eats some of the fries in the basket on the table.
“That sounds kind of outdated, not gonna lie.” Marshall pipes up before taking a bite of his burger.
“What would you know about that, you haven’t even seen any horror movies!” Cherry calls him out.
“I’ve told you this, I just don’t see the point in them!” Marshall retaliates.
“Oh, please, when we watched Halloween, you screamed like a girl!” Sunday chimes in.
“Ugh, that jump scare caught me off guard, I told you that!”
As they continue to bicker, Jett looks over at the one guy staring intensely into his drink. He can see Jett staring at him from the corner of his eye, so he turns to look at him.
“You alright, Callum? You’re unusually quiet,” he asks.
“I’m thinking about what we could do!” Callum replies as he puts his straw in his mouth to drink the iced tea. He pauses for a moment before finally having an idea. “Wait, guys, I got an idea of what we could do!” Callum announces to his friends. The others stop talking and listen in. “We could go explore abandoned places. It doesn’t sound smart when you think about squatters, but if we plan it out, we might be okay! I was watching videos of people exploring abandoned places, and it seems fun!” he explains.
“That sounds scary, I’m in! That’ll be cool, imagine all the cool stuff we could find to bring back,” Iro responds.
“Does anyone know any abandoned places nearby? We could go to one tonight!”
Marshall scoffs at Iro’s question. “That’s the dumbest idea you’ve had, do you not know what happens in horror movies when they decide to explore abandoned buildings?” he sighs, running a hand through his hair, visibly stressed.
“Have you? You don’t even like horror movies.” Zayn chuckles.
“I have, I’ll have you know! You guys keep making it seem like I can’t stand scary stuff and that I’m a baby about everything!” he furrows his eyebrows angrily.
“Well!…” Jett starts but decides not to finish his sentence. Marshall frowns before he starts to eat the rest of his food.
Callum starts to laugh. “It’ll be fine. We can explore that abandoned lab behind the hospital. It’s in the woods, but you can see it if you pass by,” he says.
“Oh, that one? I’ve heard rumors about that place. Like how it’s still active, people who go in don’t come out, and so on. It’ll be interesting to see what’s in there.” Juniper adds.
“Ugh, stop talking about it until tomorrow! It’s creepy!” Marshall cries as he shuts his eyes and covers his ears.
“See what we mean? A baby…” AJ mutters.
“I’m going to ignore that for now, but just know, I’ll get you later,” Marshall says as he flips off AJ.
“Sure you will,” AJ replies.
“Anyway, yeah, that seems like a fun idea!” Cherry speaks up.
“Same here.” Everyone else agrees, except for one. They all turn to look at Marshall, who crosses his arms and shakes his head.
“Nope, you can’t make me!” he breaks the silence.
Callum shrugs. “Okay, that’s fine, maybe next time?”
Marshall waits for a moment before sighing and giving in. “…Fine, we can go, just don’t say I didn’t tell you so if something happens.”
“Yay! We’re going exploring!” Zayn cheers.
“What time should we show up?” Juniper asks.
“Hm, how about around 6 or 7 AM? That way, when we’re done, we can get food from places nearby!” Callum offers.
“Also, before we even get to the place, can we make groups of who we’re staying with so we’re not confused, in uneven numbers, or on our own?” Soren asks.
“That’s the only thing I can agree on so far,” Marshall grumbles.
“Sure, I don’t see why not!” Callum replies.
“Oh, can I group with Jett?” Zayn asks. “He’s probably gonna have that cool flashlight with the good battery!”
“Mind if I join you guys? I kinda want to explore that empty shed next to the hospital, it’s pretty big.” Juniper requests.
“Sure, that sounds cool!” Jett chimes in.
“Okay, that leaves eight people. Hey, Soren, mind if I tag along with you?” Cherry asks.
“Sure,” he answers.
AJ looks over at Sunday and opens his mouth to ask her, but she cuts him off before he can speak. “AJ, you don’t have to ask. Yes, we can pair up,” she states.
“AJ and Sunny are the main duo once again!” he cheers to himself.
“Alright, only four people left!” Juniper alerts Callum, Marshall, Iro, and Penny.
Iro notices his options are limited, and no offense, but he does not want to get left with Marshall. He’s a scaredy cat.
“Wanna group with me, Penny?” Iro asks, his voice urgent. She nods as she takes a sip of her drink.
“Guess that leaves me and you, Marshall!” Callum beams. Marshall looks miserable at this outcome. “Oh, come on, I’m not that bad…”
“Yes, yes, you are, Callum. You have zero survival instincts! If you were being followed in the streets, you’d probably go into an alleyway,” he describes as he glares at Callum.
“Shit, you’re right…” Callum mumbles. “Regardless, we’ll be fine, especially since you like to analyze every room you walk into for escapes!”
Marshall sighs with disappointment. “This is going to be the death of one of us, most likely me, from a heart attack from you.”
“Alright, now that we all have our groups, we can keep eating! My food is getting cold.” Jett says before going to town on his wings.
“Dude, don’t choke on them, they’re not going anywhere. The chicken is already dead.” Soren tries to get Jett to stop eating so fast.
Callum walks to the hospital and onto a trail, leading behind the building. After walking past a nearby graveyard, there’s nothing but trees before reaching the lab, where he sees AJ.
“Guys, Callum is here!” AJ points out. The rest of the friend group looks toward Callum as he joins them outside the abandoned place.
“Took you long enough, you know—for someone who makes plans—you’re always the last to arrive.” Juniper greets him.
“Sorry, I stayed up late and overslept…” he acknowledges.
“It’s fine, but now that everyone’s here, we can start exploring!” Cherry exclaims.
“Since the lab is pretty big, why don’t we take turns exploring different parts?” Penny offers. “Like how Juniper wants to explore the shed, your group can do that first if you want!”
“Okay, let’s go then.” Juniper accepts and is the first to leave with Zayn and Jett.
“I want to stay closer to the exit, so let’s explore the first floor,” AJ suggests to Sunday. “Fine by me, let’s start.” The two walk into the building.
“Ooh, ooh, I want to explore the fifth floor, but then I want to explore the second floor… I’m not sure what to do first.” Cherry exclaims.
“How about we explore the second floor first, then afterward, the fifth floor?” Soren suggests.
“Mkay, the last one to the door has to pay for the other’s lunch!” Cherry takes off running, with Soren running behind. However, Cherry beats him.
“Ah, dang it. I already know you’re gonna drain my wallet…” he mopes as he walks inside with her.
“Marshall and I can explore the third floor then. Is that alright with you, Marshall?” Callum asks.
Marshall is silent for a few seconds before replying. “Yeah, that’s alright, I guess.” Callum scoffs.
“Dude, like I said yesterday, we’ll be fine. Don’t be such a Debby-downer, come on!” Callum grabs Marshall by his hood and drags him along.
They get inside the abandoned lab and turn on their flashlights. The place is overgrown and extremely dusty. Callum looks around and walks for a bit. The reception dust is littered with cobwebs, leaves, dust, you name it. He walks past it and finds the stairs.
“Marshall, I found the stairs!” Callum announces. Marshall is skeptical about being away from the doors, but has no choice when Iro and Penny walk in. They walk upstairs using the staircase on the other side of their.
Marshall and Callum get to walking and eventually make it to the third floor. “See, we’ve already made it to the third floor, and it’s not so bad!” Callum attempts to reassure him.
“That’s because we just got here, who knows what will— are you walking off?!” Marshall loudly whispers as Callum starts walking down the hallway.
“Uh, yeah—you’re panicking right in my ear, you’re not being very helpful right now!” Callum replies. Marshall catches up with him, and the two begin checking out different rooms they stumble upon.
The first room they find is a record room. There are old computers and knocked-over shelves. Anything that used to be on the shelves is either on the floor, scattered around, or missing.
Marshall shines his light on some pieces of paper on the floor and hesitantly picks them up to read them.
“Hey, it looks like some patient record or something.” Callum walks over to him and takes a peek at the paper. “If that’s the case, shouldn’t it be in the hospital if it’s for a patient?” Callum questions.
“Your guess is as good as mine. The writing on the paper is smudged, so I can’t read anything else.” He drops the paper back on the floor, and the two leave the room. As they keep walking, the hallway has a weird, unbearable smell.
“What the fuck is that smell?” Callum clasps a hand over his nose to block the smell.
“I don’t know,” Marshall replies. He’s about to speak again, but begins to gag when they stop walking in front of a specific room. “Never mind, I think it’s in here…”
The door to the room is slightly cracked open, so Callum pushes it open himself. The sight they see is horrifying.
“Was this a collecting room or something?” Callum guesses. There are knocked-over glass bottles and vials with weird substances in them that splashed onto the floor and ceiling. They walk into the room and notice that the substance is even on the back of the door.
“We have to hurry up and look in here so we can leave! This smell might kill us if we don’t.” Callum states before gagging as well from the worsening smell. Marshall points his flashlight at the biggest puddle in the room. That probably explains the smell. It’s a dark red color and is eerily placed in the room. It scares Marshall the most, so he backs away to the door before Callum does.
“No, no, no! I knew coming here was a bad idea, but I let you and everyone else fucking talk me into this!” Marshall yells as he leaves the room in a hurry. Callum goes with him and shuts the door all the way this time, causing the hallway to smell slightly better.
“Wait, don’t panic, Marshall!” Callum stammers. “It’s just this one room!… Hopefully. Anyway, let’s calm down, and we can keep going.”
“Are you trying to convince yourself or me?!” Marshall questions harshly. Marshall shakily sighs to calm himself. “This better be the only room, we’ve only been in two rooms so far!” Marshall states.
“Agreed, now come on, we still have rooms to explore—and I said this would be fun, right?” Callum says. “We still have things to collect in here, and even if we don’t, at least you can say you’ve explored an abandoned building!”
Marshall is silent for a moment.
“If you don’t wanna go on, I can walk you back to the front doors so you can wait for either Jett or AJ’s groups to come back, alright?” Callum offers. Marshall thinks about it before responding. He takes a couple of breaths before standing up straight.
“Okay… we… we can keep going.” Marshall stutters.
“That’s the spirit! Now, let’s keep going!”
They’ve been walking for what feels like hours. Callum didn’t expect the third floor to be this big—it’s on the third floor! The two have taken multiple turns— left or right—and even accidentally circled the same area!
As Callum told Marshall, the other rooms weren’t so bad! They look like they’ve been ransacked or frozen in time, which is better than looking at a crime scene. After the second door, they encountered, which was a lot farther from the stairs now that Callum thinks about it, the two take note of what rooms they’ve entered, and the ways they turned, so they don’t get lost.
Callum is glad they decided to do that because Callum has no clue where they are. He assumes Marshall does since he’s writing all of the turns they took down on his phone—but he can’t blame him if he loses track either.
“Room 386, I remember when we were at 304!” Callum jokes tiredly. He opens the door, and wouldn’t you know it, another crime scene-ass room fucks up their lucky streak—and it’s so much worse than the second room they saw. How fun!
That’s either a squatter or a corpse in the corner of the room, but by the blood surrounding it, it’s a corpse. Another dead body in the room is bent over a desk with multiple wounds, and another corpse is hanging from the ceiling. The hanging body must be the oldest since the rope is old and brittle, like that guy on the desk.
This is Marshall’s last straw, and Callum doesn’t blame him because he starts tugging on his hair.
“Oh gosh, I think I’m gonna be sick…!” Marshall mumbles before he rushes out of the room, falling to his knees once he’s in the hallway. Callum goes after him and closes the door behind him.
Callum sits next to Marshall on the ground as Marshall rocks back and forth to attempt to gather his thoughts. Callum doesn’t know what to think himself. This trip has been an awakening experience and not fun. You would think there would be graffiti that drew funny stuff on the wall, but nope!
Marshall looks at Callum with a crazed look in his eyes. “Well, are you not gonna say anything positive to alleviate this situation like you always do?! Or have you run out of stuff to say?” Marshall shouts at Callum.
“The second option, this isn’t as fun as I thought it’d be…” Callum sighs as he hugs his knees to his chest. “However, I’m too far in to give up now, so I won’t stop going until I’ve explored this entire floor. I want to keep going until I get to the fourth floor. You coming with me though?” Callum questions as he looks over at Marshall.
“Not in a million fucking years and not over my dead body.” Marshall stands up and starts walking away.
“Where are you going?” Cal asks as he stands up off the floor.
“I’m going back to the first floor, see you when you’re done exploring, because I’m out of here!” Marshall starts running before turning a corner, causing Callum to lose sight of him.
“But you’re the one with all the directions…” Callum shouts, but eventually quiets down. “Isn’t this just great…” Callum breathes in and out before continuing forward. Sometimes, Callum thinks his mom is right. Once he has his mind set on something, he’s stupidly dedicated to completing it even when everyone else quits.
It’s fine, though—maybe when he’s done and makes it to the fourth floor, he and his friends will get good food to make up for all the shit he saw in this place. Callum smiles to himself and keeps walking.
“What the fuck is wrong with me?! I should’ve just stopped when I found the stairs to the fourth floor!” Callum angrily thinks to himself. Maybe he’s starting to lose his mind in here. He’s hungry because he didn’t eat breakfast since he overslept, his legs hurt from walking for too long, and there’s poor service in here, so he can’t text Zayn or anyone for that matter!
The reason Callum feels as if he’s starting to go crazy is that he can sense someone following him, looking at him, no—watching him. He can hear footsteps other than his own behind him. They’re too delayed for it to be echoes. Callum thinks he’s in the middle of the fourth floor when the footsteps get more noticeable.
Callum is about to enter a room when he manages to brush off his worrying feelings, but the footsteps take another step before stopping. Callum looks around, but no one is there. He looks at the dusty floorboards and sees his footprints and more that are bigger than his.
Callum lifts an eyebrow and sees something flying towards him. It hits his cheeks, and Callum raises his hands to feel his face, and it’s bleeding—no gushing.
“What the fuck?!” Callum yells as he runs away from whoever threw that thing at him. The footsteps realize they missed and chase after him, throwing even more stuff at him. “Gosh, are all the rumors about this place true? About people entering and not leaving?” Callum mopes silently to himself.
It would make a lot of sense, though, when he saw all those bodies. Whoever threw that thing near his face threw something close to his right arm, cutting his jacket. He keeps running before he gets to the fifth floor, and books it up the stairs.
They follow him up the stairs and throw something even bigger, and it’s a knife that thankfully got stuck and lodged into the floor. Callum keeps running until he finds the nearest room and locks himself inside.
He uses the shelves in the room to barricade the door to find a way out of this weird building. He goes to the window, but it’s too high to jump down and be all right. There are larger objects in the room that he can hide in, so he takes that option. Who knows if he’ll probably get tetanus from this, but he’d rather take that than lose his life.
The banging on the door begins to crescendo, and Callum knows the door won’t hold on forever, so he quickly gets into the biggest machine in the room. It’s covered in some dusty blanket, but Callum leaves it anyway.
A piece of the door breaks off, and the door handle jiggles. Callum is about to close his eyes, but the machine grabs him. These weird metal pieces hold him in place as the machine turns on.
The front of the machine starts to lock, so even if Callum gets out of the restraints, he still can’t get in or out of the machine, but at least he’s safe. The person chasing him pulls the cover off the machine, and the restraints release Callum. The person chasing him is unsightly, and it startles when the cover is pulled off, so he backs away, but that attempt is fruitless. Suddenly, the floor of the machine he’s in opens up, and he falls through. Everything gets bright and dizzy for Callum.
It feels like he’s falling through a tube, but from the sky. Like those weird dreams you get from time to time.
Callum tries to focus on what he’s looking at, the thing he’s in looks like a portal you might see in movies. “What the fuck, is that the earth?!” Callum questions loudly. “…Holy shit, am I moving away from the planet?” Callum asks himself. “What the hell is going on?!”
He tries to stop falling by reaching out around him, but freezes one of his hands doing so, so now one of his hands has hypothermia, how fantastic.
Callum closes his eyes and hopes for the best because this situation is too scary for him to comprehend where he’s going.
Heaven knows how much time has passed, but when Callum opens his eyes, he sees the outside of another planet. It’s way bigger than Earth, and pretty, he will admit. As Callum gets closer to the planet, the clouds surround him. At least when he lands, it’ll be habitable since it’s got green and blue on it, so it’s somewhat close to home. See, look at Callum being positive in a bad situation! Marshall should try it sometime.
Callum descends lower and notices more clouds, but they look like land. How long has he been falling through these clouds? How thick are they? It’s been minutes, jeez.
After finally getting past the clouds, he sees brown and purple colored grass, like it’s dying or something. There are trees, but they’re all dead, so if he hits them, Callum will be dead too.
Callum braces for impact as he observes the land around him. This place looks creepy as fuck.
As Callum is deep in thought, he doesn’t realize he hits a tree—a very tall tree at that. However, this one has leaves on it, so hopefully it’s not too painful! He falls through the branches before hitting the ground.
“Ow…” Callum groans as he shakily gets up. His arms and legs sting from cuts he got from falling, and his side aches from hitting one of the bigger branches. His frozen hand is numb and aching from when he landed on it. Speaking of which, he should try to move it. He carefully tries to bend any of his fingers, but that’s excruciating, so he stops. Callum stands up, brushing himself off, and looks around some more. The tree he hit is tall, eerie, old, and looks like it’s infecting the land.
Callum shrugs it off and wanders around. He finds a path and follows it, but it leads him nowhere. There’s a bunch of fog, weird-sounding birds, and dead plants. Callum sighs and keeps walking.
He keeps walking until he finds a tall building—this is the only landmark he’s seen since he got here, so maybe there are people inside that’ll be nice enough to give him directions!
There’s no one outside the building, so he goes straight to the doors. Now that he’s inside, he sees two people who appear to be on guard. “If they’re supposed to guard the entrance, shouldn’t they be outside…? Weirdos.” Callum wonders to himself.
They looked at him with surprise and drew their weapons. Callum shoots his hands up so they don’t shoot. “๓ɭєש ยץค รคє?! ɭเ๓ Շเץ รคє ๓คг ๏ร?”
“What?” Callum blurts out. “Of course, if I’m on another planet, they’re not going to speak English, you fucking idiot.” Callum reprimands himself internally. One of the guards puts their gun away, pulling out these futuristic-looking handcuffs, and detains Callum before dragging him to a room. He winces from their rough grip on him
They’re saying whatever to some powerful-looking guy, maybe he’s their leader or something, and now they’re dragging Callum to this dungeon place. It reminds him of those prisoner housing units from Scared Straight. This is looking bad for Callum right now… Why didn’t he decide to do a movie marathon, better yet, why didn’t he leave with Marshall?!
The two guards bring Callum to this elevator pad-thingy before walking him to an empty cell. One guard undoes his cuffs but pushes him into the cell after.
“Rude, I could’ve walked in myself…” Cal grumbles. Instead, they replace his handcuffs with heavier ones and chain his feet to the floor. Then, they exit the cell and don’t leave until they finish typing some information on whatever is outside the door.
Callum’s hand hurts, and the pain is getting worse—he’s getting hungrier by the second, and his cheek still hurts from getting cut.
“At least I’m somewhere new…?” Callum mumbles. “Who am I kidding? This is the worst place to be. I don’t know if I can text anyone, but I can’t even reach my phone.” Callum sighs.
He barely manages to lift his hand high enough to tug on his hair to relieve some stress. This was a horrible idea.
“I wonder if Marshall made it back to the front without being chased, lucky him if he didn’t.” Cal huffs.
As if things couldn’t get any worse, he remembers it’s Friday. He’s supposed to visit his mom and little sister this weekend since they haven’t seen one another. He remembers his mom telling him how Pandora drew a picture she was excited to show him when he visited.
Callum even bought her a gift when he and his friends visited this amusement park. What was it again? Callum forgot where he put the damn gift. Oh yes, it’s a coin purse! It’s a bit simple, but he drew a cat and some flowers to decorate it.
Ugh, Callum makes the worst decisions.
