"In every sound, the hidden silence sleeps."
― Dejan Stojanovic
- Jacob's P.O.V -
I guide them down to the training room, which is located in the basements. As soon as the dark and the cold staircase has ended it open up to a big room full of every equipment and weapon you can think of.
Alice stands with one of her feet on a bench. She is trying to secure her shoelaces with a double knot, the one I used to do for her when we where little. She wears a fully black training suit that nicely hugs her figure. I can feel how my cheeks turn a color redder and I quickly look away in embarrassment. Lucky for me Alice is still trying to tie her shoes while Chloé and Nate are busy looking at all the mesmerizing weapons.
"What is this place?" Cholé asks as she looks at her surroundings in wonder. "This is a old training center. When this house first was built in 1809 it was used as a training station for the guards. They had to learn all thoughts of things, archery, fencing, combat battles, knife throwing, melee fighting just to name a few. Here they trained to perfect their skills or to helped training the new recruits. When my parents took over this house from my grandparents they thought it needed some refreshment to match the new age. We still have some old weapons but most of them are new ones. We also installed some new lights", Alice explains as she points up at the ceiling where the bright cold light come from.
"Wow.." is the only thing that slips out of Chloé and Nate's mouths as they walk around the room. "So what do you want me to demonstrate before we eat some delicious dinner?", Alice asks us. "Can you really use all of these equipment?", Nate asks as he points at the wall full of stuff. "Yeah most of them, or at least a little of everything" she answers back.
I have already seen Alice use almost everything in this room at least once, so I let the other ones answer the question. A long time ago we used to train here together every summer . My favorite was fencing, especially fencing with Alice. We had always been equally skilled so she was a worthy opponent.
I look at Nate and Chloé as I wonder what they will pick. After they had looked at all the weapons multiple times Chloé finally answered "I would like you to bring out your inner Katniss". "Oh, excellent choice my tribute", Alice says as she heads over to the bows and arrows.
She puts on the armguard on her left arm, picks up some arrows and puts them in her holder. But before picking up the bow she starts to braid her brown flowy ponytail, "I need to get into character if I want to succeed", she says to us.
When she's done with the hair her beautiful brown eyes glow golden as she carefully picks out a suitable bow. At last she goes for a brown one. Its abrasions and scratches tell me that it clearly has been well used, even though it looks modern. "We could go out to the bigger archery course, but it seems to have become quite windy.", Alice says while exposing her beautiful teeth and walks over to the very end of the not small, but smaller archery course then the one down the hill.
She takes out one arrow as she concentrates on the board. The string goes back and she lets the end of the arrow rest on her right cheek. The four of us are more concentrated on Alice than if we would have a Harry Potter marathon. I watch as Alice inhales and exhales deeply before, finally, releasing the arrow. She doesn't put one, nor two, nor three but four arrows in the bullseye, one after the other. In between the arrows, no one dare to even breath.
- After the demonstration -
- Alice's P.O.V -
"How did you learn how to use all those equipment, Alice?", Chloé asks me. After the short demonstration I started to feel like my arms were burning. I guess I'm not in such a good form, which isn't weird considering the fact that I haven't trained archery in almost one year. Therefore the others head up to the kitchen to heated up some delicious frozen pizza and I took a well needed shower. With pizza in one hand and Cola in the other the four of us headed to my room.
"One summer when I was 7, I played alone in the garden with my old dog Jack. When all of a sudden a man appeared out of nowhere, he tried to kidnap me, and he would have succeeded if it wasn't for Jack. After that incident my father began to teach me how to take care of myself, starting with self defense. He also installed a high security system with cameras all around this place. Everyday before dinner in the summers we would train together, except for the weekends when I often sat down to read. Oh how I loved how the books took me away to my own little land. When I was 10 I could use bow and arrows, throw knifes and I knew a little about fencing. My training continued every summer until I at least knew how to use and deal with all of our weapons." I stopped in my story and looked at my friends' sad faces.
"No it's okay I barely remember the accident and I actually liked the training, even if I once in a while would do my best to skip it", I let out a laugh when I remember all my fake illnesses and hiding places. But I was telling the truth, I liked the workout and I know my dad only made me do it because he loves me so much, maybe a little too much.
"Why haven't you told us this before?" Chloé asks, still looking sad. "You haven't asked.", I hear myself utter as I give it a try to make the other ones a little happy again. "No but seriously Alice, we have known each other since we were like 12, that's almost 4 and a half years" she pauses in her sentence when Nate intervenes with "4,5 long years!". Jacob throws his blue pillow at Nate and his complaints, whereupon he groans loudly. As if it were a signal we all start laughing hysterically until we're unable to breathe.
"Wait", Jacob says nervously, "Did you guys hear that..?". "Oh stop it Jacob", Chloé tries to say as she still gasps for air. "No seriously, did you hear that?", we all become quiet as we look at Jacobs' scared face. "You must have heard the wind or something...", Nate begins but isn't able to finish before a loud, creaking sound appears.
It sounded like a big old rusty gate swung open, a loud sound that made all of my hair stand up straight. "What the..?!" Nate whispers as he tries to say calm but I can clearly see how frightened he is, just like the rest of us who jumped together.
The three of us are holding onto each other as if we were about to meet death himself. Staring into each others eyes, Chloé mumbles almost silently "Didn't you say this place has high security..?".
As fast and quietly as I can I stand up and walk over from my bed to the other side of my room. I turned off the lights with the old switch that still has traces of blue paint on it from last time we repainted my room. I continued walking and head over to my white wardrobe. I quickly take out the black tablet laying in my second drawer and head over back to my bed where everything feels safe.
"Why did you turn off the lights ?" Nate whispers to me not far from my left ear. I guess he joined us in this scary-pit after I turned off the lights. I turn on my tablet and press security as I answer "If there's anyone here we don't want to draw any attention to us".
I can feel my heart racing as I swipe through all the monitors, the hallway, windows, doors... The others look over my shoulders as I swipe. If our voices didn't reveal our position in this house our drumming hearts must have because then another sound appears. The great rusty gate creaked as if it swung shut again.
We are unable to breath, all four of us, for what seems like forever. If someone drops a needle right now I can swear you would hear it, I think to myself. When no more weird and scary sounds are appearing, I look at the others and manage to say almost without breaking my vice "It must have been the vind who created a draft, and made a door open and close. I watched the security and nothing seems alarming".
- Jacob's P.O.V -
Alice looks over at me and Nate and says "Do you want to sleep here for tonight in case...", "Oh c'mon, as if that scared us", Nate lies as he stands up and walks over to the door. I reluctantly follow him out of Alice's room, even if I would much rather stay.
The sound seemed to come from a very heavy door, too heavy to open with the wind. And I know this house almost better than Alice, I have seen and opened all the doors in this place multiple times. No doors have sounded like that and no doors have been that heavy.
The old, worn floorboards creak when Nate and I walk down the pitch black hallway to our room. For some reason I stop in the middle of the hallway and turn to my right. I stare into the darkness and can for some reason feel like the empty wall is drawing me in. As if we're two magnets attracting each other.
I can hear Nate's voice reaching out to me far away. As a hypnosis I snap out of the feeling and force myself to walk over to Nate again. "What was that?", he says concerned. "Nothing", I reply back but can't get the feeling out of me. Something is wrong.
- Words from the author -
I hope you liked it:)
In the next chapter we will find out what the noise came from...
Take care!