𝐂𝐑𝐔𝐄𝐋 𝐒𝐔𝐌𝐌𝐄𝐑 - kiara carrera¹

𝒙𝒍𝒊𝒊. 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒑𝒊𝒕 𝒐𝒇 𝒅𝒂𝒓𝒌𝒏𝒆𝒔𝒔

"ARE YOU SURE YOU DON'T WANT THOMAS OR ME TO DO THIS?"

Tatum looked at John B one last time as the four of them stood around the well, preparing to find the gold. Once Sarah and Kie shut all the power off, they were able to return back to the basement the twins knew too well. She knew why JB was so eager to get down there, but the things he would see would haunt him until the day he died. She knew that better than anyone.

But John B shook his head, holding onto her shoulders with a brotherly look in his eye. "You are never going down there again, Tate," he told her calmly. "You shouldn't even know what it looks like in the first place. Your dad is sick for putting you through that; I'm not letting you do it again for me. Or Thomas."

"I wasn't gonna do it anyway," the boy grunted from the side, on the verge of murdering JJ because he wouldn't stop swinging the stupid rope in his face.

Tatum rolled her eyes at her moody brother and turned back to John B, patting him on the arm. "K, well don't scream when you see all the bodies - the screaming is what'll give me a panic attack." She giggled like it was a joke, but the boy frowned. He was so blind not to see what was happening to his best friend - his sister - right under his nose.

Everyone went back to work, setting everything up to make sure John B could get back out. However, JJ and Tatum didn't get much work done, considering they were both telling Pope they were gonna throw him in, and then laughing like it was the funniest thing in the world. Thomas tried his hardest to ignore them, he really did, but it was only a matter of time until he finally snapped and pointed a gun at the two immature teens, telling them to shut up before he shot them. Which only made them giggle more.

"Holy crap, you know what this is?" said JJ, wrapping the rope around Tatum's neck and pretending to choke her. She giggled and jokingly rolled her eyes to the back of her head. "It just hit me." Nobody was listening to them, because the other three boys were actually trying to get on with the task. "Pope, look," he said, handing a headlight and unwrapping the rope from Tate's neck before she actually stopped breathing. "This is C.H.U.D. Full C.H.U.D."

Tatum's eyes widened, and a  giggle echoed through the basement. She smacked JJ on the chest. "Oh, my God, it totally is!" she squealed.

John B turned to the other two boys. "What are they talking about?"

"Cannibalistic humanoid underground dwellers," Thomas answered with a short nod. At Pope and John B's confused looks, he sighed. "It was Joe's favourite movie. He used to put it on for me, Tate and JJ to try and scare us when we were kids."

Pope frowned.

Thomas rolled his eyes. "It's just a fucking movie - it's got nothing on the other shit the family's pulled on us."

Tatum nodded, her arms around JJ. "Yeah, and it was actually a really good movie," she stated with a smile. Her older brother scaring her with a film was probably one of the nicest memories she had of her childhood.

The blonde boy nodded in agreement. "It's about cannibals that live in sewers under New York City, and it's like -"

"Shut up! Shut up!" John B hissed in a whisper.

"Pussy," muttered Thomas.

The Routledge boy rolled his eyes and looked down into the well. They couldn't see the bottom of it. After a few feet, the mossy, misplaced bricks morphed into a pit of darkness. Only the Quinn family knew the real horrors that rested down there. All the bodies, all the victims... "All right. How deep do you think it is, Pope?"

He sighed. "I don't know."

Everyone turned to look at him with wide eyes. Pope Heyward answered a lot of questions, but never had he replied without knowing the answer.

"Could you two guess?" John B asked instead, looking at the twins.

"Deep?" suggested Tatum with a shrug unhelpfully.

Thomas rolled his eyes once again. He was definitely going to end up with a headache from the amount of times his eyes went up there. "We were kids, how the fuck were we supposed to calculate that shit?"

"I could've done it," shrugged Pope, looking down at the well rather than facing the angry eyes Thomas Quinn was giving him.

"I'm just gonna have to go down, and hope for the best," John B decided, staring down the pit of darkness, threatening it. He was reluctant to get that gold.