The Den of Souls

The Den of Souls - Chapter One

"I cannot believe that I'm about to do this," I muttered out loud.

Before me stood the giant black archway to one of the scariest haunted houses in America – The Den of Souls. A big blood-red sign sat atop the archway with the title on it written in scribbly letters and fake blood. I stared at the path ahead of me, seeing only the darkness of the entryway and the heads of excited teenagers about to head inside the solemn cement building. A small crowd of people in front of me were chattering excitedly about how they were going to get the scare of their lives here.

"Oh, calm down Eve," my best friend, Lily, said as she grinned widely at me. She put a hand on my shoulder and gave it a small squeeze. "This'll be fun. You know I love this kind of stuff."

"I know you do, but I don't," I replied dryly. In fact, I hated things like this, scary things. This fear of mine stemmed from my superstitious grandmother who liked to talk about spirits and dead people as if it were a completely normal discussion topic. I'd hear about the "boy" walking in our hallway at home or the "nice old lady" standing in my bathroom on rainy days. Thinking about that, I shivered.

My grandmother would always tell me: "Most spirits are good people, my sweet Evelyn. But some are not. Those are the ones you need to be careful of. Those are the scary ones. The ones that hide in the dark." I shivered again and shook my head.

"Come on, Eve, it'll be fine. This is just a haunted house. It's fake. Don't worry," Lily said as she looked into my eyes. "If anything happens, I'll protect you from the spirits. Besides, it's my birthday!"

I was about to reply sarcastically when the line moved forward and Lily grabbed my arm as she pulled me with her.

"Oh my god! We're almost there!" she squealed. She was practically jumping up and down.

"Oh my god," I whispered as I realized she was right.

There would only be approximately fifteen more steps until we reached the entry – an open door leading into the cement building where we would have to wait again to enter the actual Den of Souls.

Speaking of the Den of Souls, this haunted house was supposedly modelled very differently from other haunted houses, as Lily had told me on the bus ride here. The Den of Souls was more of an escape room-type house with scary themes in each setting. Apparently, we would be ushered into a waiting room and put into small teams. We would then be allowed to enter the Den thirty minutes after the team before us. The main objective of this haunted house was to try and escape it, but depending on how we solved things inside and what routes we were made to take, Lily told me that we could be spending hours in the Den of Souls. I did not want to spend hours here. I didn't even want to be here.

"Lily, are you sure you want to do this?" I asked. There was a slight shake in my voice. "Couldn't we have just hung out at your place or celebrated your birthday at the park or something?"

"That wouldn't be as fun, E," she said. Her blonde-dyed hair was tied up in a pony tail and it whipped around her face as she shook her head at me. "You know I've wanted to do this since forever, right? And Josh told me they came here last weekend and that it was so cool! And so scary! He told me they were stuck inside for almost three hours."

I sighed and swallowed hard as we took another five steps towards the entryway. Only ten more steps.

"So, please, please, please stay with me," Lily continued. "You're my best friend and it's my birthday. I want to spend it with you and doing something that I love."

Five more steps forward. Five steps left.

Lily looked at me with her big brown doe eyes and pouted her lips like she always did when she wanted something from me. "Please," she mouthed. I smiled lightly at her even though my gut was twisting from nervousness at entering the Den of Souls.

"Fine," I said, trying to ignore the pounding of my heart.

Five last steps.