skylor
The first thing she noticed was that it smelt damp. Somehow. A chill quickly overtook her body and she shivered involuntarily as she less-than gracefully clambered into the other room and shone her torch around it. Her first thought was that it was absolutely huge. From one wall to the opposite it was easily twenty, maybe more steps and was a perfect square. Right now, that was the only admirable quality it possessed. She wrinkled her nose as something scuttled around in a dark corner and Cole shrieked, spraying the nozzle of his Bug-Away until they were all choking on the toxic fumes.
"Put it away before we all choke and die horrible, bug spray induced deaths," Kai ordered, trying to shelter his hair as if the spray would wilt it from it's stuck up fashion.
Cole huffed and put the bottle away.
With the two other torches and the help of phone flashlights, they managed to light up most of the room, discovering the insanely high ceiling with an old wooden trapdoor.
"What's above us?" she wondered upload, spinning around the room.
"That empty room, with the tiny window," Lloyd realised. "The one that everyone thought the janitor was hiding dead bodies in."
"What if he is actually hiding bodies there and he lures students in here and then whack!" Jay whispered hurriedly in a hushed voice, his eyes wide. "What if we're next?"
"Oh shut up," Nya said playfully, though her hand circled around the nervous boy's wrist comfortingly.
"I think we can do this," she said suddenly in their silence. "We'll just have to figure out excuses as to why we're all disappearing into my locker." the others nodded in agreement.
"My uncle," Lloyd pointedly avoided the fact he was the principal, "Was planning on throwing out some of the old beanbags from the library but they're perfectly fine, so I'll just steal them over the next few days."
Jay was peering around the room and fiddling with an extremely old power outlet. "I can probably fix this up. Zane, come take a look at this..."
She didn't catch the rest of what Jay was saying, because Cole whooped loudly and his bug spray clattered to the ground, "Yes! Mini fridge time!"
She rolled her eyes with a light laugh and found Kai staring at her. Their eyes met for a brief second, and then he cleared his throat and clapped Jay on the back.
"You reckon there's enough power for a TV and a mini-fridge?"
Skylor wanted to object and ask them again how exactly they were planning to shove a fridge and TV through her narrow locker but decided to let them continue. For the next ten minutes, the eight of them jumped in and out of conversation on how they'd convert this mysterious room into a hangout, adding different ideas that increasingly got madder and madder.
"Alright, I gotta go. Clouse will be here in five minutes." Skylor remembered, checking her phone for the time.
The seven others popped out the other side of her locker, and she fastened the lock securely, patting it just to reassure herself. It's our secret, she replayed Jay's earlier words. With a funny feeling in her stomach, she walked to the entrance and waited for Clouse. Friends, she thought firmly to herself. But as she got into the limo, she was wondering if they were only friends because of the secret locker room.
kai
He wasn't sure what to do. He'd been standing in the shower nearly forty-five minutes now and his fingers resembled prunes, but where else was he supposed to figure the mystery of Skylor Chen? He let the hot water continue to run down his back in warm rivulets as he sighed in exasperation. The girl just showed up to the detention like it was nothing, he hadn't even seen her all of the first week and he made a point to know every student in the school. And the way she carried herself-confident, but like she was prepared to fight her way out of any situation or sink into the ground plain confused him.
And what was even more confusing was the fact that he didn't know where she fit. There were the girls he didn't really talk to, the girls which he had to talk to, the girls he flirted with (well, he flirted with anyone or anything, really), and the girls he ignored like the horse girls 'cause they creeped him out. The problem was, Skylor didn't fit in any of those. That was what Kai was troubled by, and his brain was getting pretty tired already from racking all of his thoughts and reasonings. Conclusion: Skylor Chen was different. And not, his sister Nya, different who fit in with every crowd, but different, different.
It also didn't help that she seemed content with ignoring him, it didn't help that he'd accidentally shoved her into her locker, and it didn't help that his brain turned into mush whenever he was around her. Frowning, he got out of the shower and wrapped a towel over his waist, leaving a trail of water Nya would be sure to chastise him about on the way to his room. After changing and getting ready to procrastinate homework, he decided the best way to avoid studying would be to find his own contribution for the secret room.
Their basement was huge and full of useless junk their dad either built or bought, and some boxes from their old house. He approached the door to the basement and paused, his hand on the doorknob.
It was very dark down there.
No, Kai wasn't afraid. He just...wished the light switch had been installed at the top of the stairs instead of the bottom. It was either Maths or this. So, he gathered up his courage, chickened out three times and then opened the door with one hand over his eyes.
Peeking between his fingers, all he could see were the concrete steps going down, a wooden railing on the left and complete and utter darkness below. You got this Kai, he said, hyping himself up, Just go down there in the complete dark with no idea what things live in there because you're too scared- he walked forwards before his brain could give him any more self-deprecating comments and prayed to the basement gods.
Pleasepleasepleasepleasepleasedon'tkillmebasementanimals.
He managed to get halfway down on shaky feet and wobbly knees, god, if his friends saw him like that he would never live it down.
Hisss.
He jerked his head up and span around wildly on the step. What. Was. That?
Hissssssssssss.
"NYA WHAT THE FUCK IS HISSING?"
Hissssssssssssssssss. It seemed to be coming from all around when suddenly it got louder and slower, accompanied by a steady rattling.
"FUCK." he leapt down the remaining stairs, tripped over nothing and then proceeded to somersault down fifteen steps into complete darkness, crashed into the cold, hard concrete floor while screaming and cussing at the top of his lungs. When he finally got to the bottom, he laid there in a frozen, shocked heap for a second and then slapped his hands blindly on the wall until he hit the light switch. He collapsed with a sigh on the bottom step when he heard Nya's voice echo down.
"I was making popcorn and the microwave went all weird. Are you...okay?"
"Fine." he yelled back, gazing at the messy contents of the basement. "Just fine."
Groaning and wincing at his soon to be blooming bruises, he gingerly peeled himself off the step and began prowling around the rows of shelves piled to the ceiling with random junk. He found their own blow up bouncy castle waiting to burst out the packaging (he swears the companies used magic to get it in there in the first place), a very rusty, antique sword in a glass case, a set of golf clubs gathering dust, and a full sized Santa in the corner which he nearly impaled with the sword.
"C'mon, there's got to be something cool in here." he complained to himself, wading through a sea of black garbage bags holding childhood plushies and soft toys. In the back corner, he could just make out the faint outline of some blocky shape. He crept closer, to find the bulky object was covered in a white, now fading to a yucky yellow sheet. In a dramatic gesture, he leapt forwards and yanked the sheet off, stirring years off dust to bloom into a gigantic cloud. He choked and waved the sheet around to disperse the dust, still hacking out the dust when the rest finally settled on the floor.
And as he looked up, his green eyes widened.
"No. Fucking. Way."