Welcome back
Four kids laugh hidden throughout the dark floor. An old woman smiles with a single lamp on knitting a piece of fabric in a rocking chair. A child with dark brown hair counts down from fifteen before he jumps from a darkened corner running into the kitchen.
“Ready or not! Here I am!” he shouts. He shifts a chair out of the way then checks in the pantry. The boy leaves the room walking upstairs. He opens the bathroom door and pulls the shower curtain back. A small scream from a girl makes the boy smile.
“I found you Liz!”
“No fair!” Liz whines.
The boy helps Liz out of the tub and they walk into the next room. The boy looks under the bedsheets and Liz opens the closet. The boy opens the wooden hutch, no one. He shuts the storage cabinet and moves to the next room. He looks in the toy chest and smiles.
“Found you!” The boy shouts.
The other glares at him. “Not cool, why am I found first?” The other refuses help and climbs out the chest slamming the top shut.
“Be careful,” the older woman shouts from downstairs.
“We are,” All three children call out.
“Liz?” the other child says. “You found her? That means I'm not first!”
Liz walks into the room. “Happy now Max?” She said with crossed arms and a smile, her head tilted to the side.
“Yup, now let’s get Terry!” Max says.
Liz groans, “He’s a try hard. He’s not going to leave his hiding spot for nothing!”
“Don’t worry, my grandma’s house is only but so big. He’ll turn out.” The boy says leading the group down the hall to the next room. Terry is waiting by the door.
“Found you,” Max says.
Terry’s eyes narrow. “Very funny. But I want to show you guys something!” Terry motions for the group to follow. Terry opens the door leading them into another room.
“Why are we in my grandma’s room? This was off limits.” The boy says crossing his arms.
Max punches him in the arm, “Where’s your sense of adventure?”
The boy rubs his shoulder glaring at Max. “Yeah but that’s grandma.”
Max scoffs, “So?”
“So, she raised me from the ground up. I’m not going back to my parents.”
“It’s only a few seconds, I promise.”
“Okay,” the boy says.
Terry smiles pulling open the closet doors. A white light shines illuminating the room. “Come on,” Terry waves walking through the light.
The three children remain still, glancing amongst each other.
Terry’s head poke through causing Liz to scream and the two boys to flinch. “Well? Come on! It’s so cool in here! It looks like an ice cream! Like an ice cream dimension!” Terry once again disappears into the light.
The group walks one by one into the light. There’s two distant hills, one purple the other is a light greenish blue mint with brown boulders. The colors swirl near a white stained glass building with a red plus sign.
The boy gasps bending down grabbing a tuff of grass and pops it in his mouth. Seconds later he spits it out.
“Ew what the heck is that? It tastes like dirt.” The boy wipes his tongue with his sleeve.
“That’s because it is!” Liz shouts.
“No, I mean, that’s not how grass taste. It tastes bitter like lemons.” He responds.
“Then don’t eat grass dummy!” Max says walking to the building.
“It was a bet!” The boy retorts. “Now I owe myself money!”
“Where are the trees?” Liz asks.
The boy shrugs and the three follow Max to the structure where multiple figures stand huddled together.
The boy stops, “we shouldn’t go in there.” He whispers.
Liz falls back to his side. “They might be friendly, you don’t know.”
The boy looks to the others snooping in the glass structure. “They look dead! It’s like they’re a goth emperor death band or something!” The boy says.
“But isn’t that how you were treated?” Liz says drawing the boy’s attention. “Why not find out who they are?” Liz smiles reaching towards his hand. The boy takes it and they walk in with their friends.
The ghouls watch over one drilling into a dead corpse. The boy pulls away to the door, but Liz’s grip tightens. She presses a finger to her lips and leads him near the others. Max is crying in the corner as Terry motions them over with widened eyes. Liz drags the protesting boy to their friends.
“What the hell happened?” She whispers.
“The portal is gone. We tried talking to them but—“ His gaze turns to the ghouls silently watching them.
The boy huffs. “This is why I said this might be a bad idea! Where do you think they get those corpses from?!” The boy whispers harshly.
“And we are in a hospital full of empty beds.” Liz adds her voice wavering.
“Max tried to leave but one grabbed and tossed him over here.” Terry says.
“And now they’re gonna to kill us!” Max cries while hiding behind Terry.
The boy looks at the approaching ghouls and picks up a nearby book tossing it at them. “I’m not going down like a pussy!” The children gasp looking at him.
“You cursed!” Liz says.
“That’s the least of our worries!” The boy tosses a drill at the fast-approaching ghouls. “Come on guys we got to break their ankles! Our only option is to juke them!” The boy says pulling Liz down to his height.
“Crawl under the beds!” The boy shouts.
The others do as he says under the piercing gaze of the ghouls. The boy is the first to stand and snatches Liz running out of the building. Terry books it out the door behind Max who’s screaming. The boy shakily let go of Liz.
“Keep going! I’m going to buy us some time!” The boy says.
“Don’t be stupid!” Liz grips his hand and continues to run with him behind her till a scream from Terry forces the boy to rip his hand away and go back for his friend.
A ghoul stabs through his leg with their sharpened fingers dragging Terry back to the hospital. The boy picks up a few rocks and lunges at the ghoul letting go of the injured child. The boy stands over Terry with two rocks ready to be thrown.
“You guys find a portal, imma figure another way out.” The boy says throwing another rock at the ghouls and runs opposite of his friends. The ghouls look at Terry and the boy before they race after him as one stays to watch Terry.
“Let me go! I would be a terrible experiment! I’m already injured!” He shouts. The ghoul leans down and yanks Terry by the hair dragging him to the building kicking and screaming.
