A Deadly Decision

“You know, son it’s the choices you make that determine your future, don’t make the same mistake I did, the guilt eats you up” that was the first and last sentence my father had said to me before he died a few months after my mother. It’s always been stuck in my head. My mother deceased also. She died in a fire, that’s all I was told. I live with my spiteful stepmother, who treats me like trash.

I drag my feet along the streets trailing behind my so-called friends as they chatter endlessly to the ‘new girl’ as she has been labelled. When I see her my heart leaps, my breathing staggers, her beauty no less than a goddess. I don’t exist in her eyes; I am a poor boy, a nobody. Wandering, I reach a lake with clear crystal blue water and a fresh scent; I spot my friends and walk towards them.

“Arnold! Truth or dare?” asks my friend excitedly

“Dare, of course” I answer courageously, hoping to impress a certain person. She gives me a glance through her striking grey orbs as they meet with my boring hazel ones. I am entranced by her features, her exquisite beauty. Nothing could bring me down as I dream of what we could be together. I look at the group squabbling like ducks yelling over each other deciding my dare.

“ I dare you to go to the house of mysteries” as the new girl says nonchalantly.

The noise level stops sharply, so silently you can hear the non-existent winds. Nobody moves, nobody speaks, I am too shocked by her suggestion; everybody knows what lies within that house.

I hear my mum’s voice telling me to refuse, to cower from the dare, although my fear of rejection gets the better of me. “O...O…O…kay” I stutter nervously, breaking the thick tension. As they decide when I should perform my dare, I have a perturbed feeling swallowing me as if I made the worst mistake. Shaken, I try to maintain a calm façade. I try not to think of the outcome, I try not to think of those that barely escaped, I try not to think of those that never returned. Desperately replacing my thoughts, I think of how the new girl will notice me, how I can have a family and lead a meaningful life, how finally I can be loved like never before. I faintly hear the words tonight tonight tonight ringing in my head, as my fate awaits me.

Help! Help me! Gasping, I uncurl my shaking, sweaty body; sweat beads rolling down my back reminding myself it was just a nightmare. An alarm going inside my head, on instinct I check the time. CRAP!

“Your Late” said the girl sharply.

I apologise as I look at the stony dark sky with shining stars, the crescent moon looming over me. Quickly, I notice a stranger emerging from the distance, scurrying by gaping at me like a fish as if trying to tell me something. Before long, we arrive at the daunting mansion overshadowing me. Voices in my head telling me what I should and shouldn’t do, like a conscience only louder, more convincing. A cyclone of thoughts and feelings, predictions, theories, swirling around in my mind attacking and debating to have the last word. The fast wind breezing past, chilling my entire body as I shuffle in a procrastinating manner to the front of the footpath.

Hearing my mum’s voice again, begging me to turn back. Spinning around quickly, thinking she was there, but only to find her looking at me expectantly, prompting me. Turning the knob, the door creaking from the rustiness I enter, dank and nearly impossible to see, trying to walk somewhere without crashing. Hoping my sense of direction and instinct could guide my way through the creaking, broken, wooden floorboards.

Flashing, blinding my eyes, which had adjusted to the darkness were tiny luminescent lights hanging by thread lighting up the octagonal shaped room. How did I get there? Where did the door go? “It’s haunted” my internal mind was telling me, repeating itself like an unstoppable metronome. “It cant be, it’s not” I retorted, hoping to manipulate my mind into thinking so. Overwhelmed by disbelief, I stopped pondering on how I got there but rather focusing on the fact that I’m standing by 2 metal cages on either side of the minute room. Im not talking thick metal cages here, nicely padlocked, hinged, all nailed up either. Rather the opposite infact. Try envisioning a small room with “cages” that have thin metal barred across horizontally and vertically surrounding you, so massive they take up the whole room. Im positioned right in the middle, unable to believe this is happening to me. I still haven’t moved, right in front of me is a sand timer, where sand is seeping through the diminutive gap at an almost agonisingly slow pace. On my left, is my mother burning in huge crimson fires surrounding her...she is dying. On my right, is the girl and I, it is our marriage day and she is just about to kiss me, as I look down from the altar I see my baby girl.

I have the choice of making one decision, to die and save my mother or to be with whom I love. Time is ticking away torturously and suddenly, I remember my father’s words as if though told me this morning, loud and clear I understand which choice I am to make.