The haunted house

At some point of time in the recent past, I ceased to live a life of my own. I was rather directed by my own past. The daily chores hardly changed with every passing day. My movements became robotic and lifeless. A change was necessary. Something terrific and exciting had to take place to make this journey more lively and interesting. And so was a round table conference summoned by me to which my friends were the attendees.



Biscuits, chocolates and soft drinks were spread on the centre table to serve as an incentive for my friends to think over the matter. An hour or two passed by but there was no response from any one of them except the sounds of munching and chewing. Losing my patience, I raised my voice and shouted,’ What shall I do?’ there was a least stir in the air. At that point of time, I felt happy that I could at last find someone even more robotic than me.

Finally, I myself had to propose the idea of the visit to a haunted house located at one far end of the locality in which we stay. Every one of them, who in fact were too timid to be called as brave were astonished at the proposal. The sound of the word haunted did set images of ghosts moving in their minds. But all of the six of them had to nod their heads for it was my delicacies that they were feasting on for the past three or four hours.

We had chosen the 23rd of December, night 11:00 as the start of our exciting and fiery adventure. My sharp mind had to accompany me to deal with any critical events that might get triggered at that haunted house.
We managed to get a plan of that house spread over a large area from the watchman claiming it to be useful for our scientific studies of ghosts and spirits. No one would prohibit us from entering that house as the watchman was too scared of guarding that house at night. At 10:30, each one of us slipped out of our houses along with our bags packed to the fullest with torches, iron rods, knives and every other helpful thing. The path leading to that house consumed 30 minutes of our time and we reached our destination at the correct tick of the clock. The silence prevailing at that time sent a shiver down our spines.

The main gate hasn’t been locked thanks to the carelessness of the watchman. There wasn’t a need to go through the ordeal of jumping over the walls. I had to lead our group of seven friends named ‘Super 7’ for that journey as none of them dared to be the first one to get caught by the evil spirit that haunted the house. I wondered why I hadn’t chosen some other name fit for our gang.

As soon as I put my hand over the gate, the e sky that seemed to be angry on us set thunder and lightning into action accompanied by a heavy downpour. I had a two fold task at hand: to unearth the secret of that house and to keep the fears of my little friends away so that they wouldn’t run away leaving me alone. I had to set my witty mind into action to make them believe that it wasn’t the ghosts who had set the rain into action. The weather had been unpredictable over the past seven days but this affirmative of mine wouldn’t clear the doubts clogging their heads. I had to bring in the westerlies and the easterlies to cook a story believable enough for my friends, each one of whom had a scanned copy of our geography textbook stored in their grey cells.

We walked over the path that led to the doorway of that house. In order to boost up my friends, I without even a though blabbered, ‘Look at those footsteps behind us. They would remind the world every morning that seven brave men entered the house at some point of time.’ Within no time, one of those seven warriors raised a serious doubt, ’What if the ghosts follow these footsteps and devour us to the last morsel.’ I did not have a satisfactory answer then and had to set my fiery tongue into action to use all the cuss words that I knew to keep them silent but those words couldn’t go much beyond ‘stupid’ and ‘fool’. My friends had a hearty laugh at my inability to scold them and the we proceeded to open the door.

Trying to open the lock with the 347 keys that we possessed would have taken a great deal of time if we had not been so lucky to have hit it right with the first key itself. This initial victory of ours infused in us a lot of confidence to tackle the forthcoming ordeals.

The house was filled with spiders web and we had to go through our way with the aid of those rods we had bought assuming them to be swords cutting through anything that interferes with their path lest we mistaken ourselves to be servants cleaning the house. Added to this self insulting task were the thunder bolts that kept warning us and the window doors that kept banging against the framework. Seven torches seemed to be too less to illuminate our path but there was hardly anything we could do.

The house did really look like a haunted one. It was dark all around us. The paint was pulling off. The floor was wet with water leaking through the cracks of the roof. But still, the house had a hidden charm of its won that cannot be explained ion words.

Each one of us expected some valuable treasure to be hidden in that house. ‘I wished that it contained the rarest of the rare coins’, said Ram who wasn’t satisfied with all the coins that filled his house. ‘I wish that the house contains I pods and tablets’, said Ravi, forgetting the fact that the house has been locked for more than 100 tears. ‘Have you come here a previous time to fill every corner of this room with those gadgets?’ asked Shankar to which all of us had a hearty laugh.

But it had to be interrupted all of a sudden. We could find moving shadows on the wall in front of us. We looked back and realised that we had fallen in trouble. Three big fat men stood behind us looking down upon us as if we were their prey. ‘What are you’ll doing here?’ shouted one of them. ‘Coping….’ Said Rahul followed by ‘I pods….’ And each one of us blabbered something 9out of fear, listening to which those three men got even more anger. We thought that it was our last day, or in fact night.

Within no time, we all were tied to the chairs scattered on the floor and they were engaged in their task of searching for something. We were lucky enough that they did not think of interfering with the free speech of our mouths.

Now, all of us had a reason to come to a conclusion that the haunted house did really host some valuable treasure. Each one of us proposed their own plans to escape from the situation but finally we all had to accept to the best of those plans which was none other than mine. The sharp mind is always the one that comes to one’s rescue.

It was the time to use all of our unique talents to escape from that situation. One of us had to use their power of convincing to make those men believe in the story that would be cooked up by us. We would make them believe that we had seen an earthen pot full of diamonds in one of the rooms. Since we had actually studied the plan of that house in detail, we knew every inch of it. In the process, we would either slide away one by one or lock them in any of the rooms, if possible. Everything went fine and I was indulged in the process of leading them to the treasure.

But all of a sudden, I was pushed into a dark room and the door was locked. I cried desperately for help but I could hear none responding to me exact the reflection of my own shouts and cries. I fainted in a few minutes.
When I regained my senses, I could hear the sound of ‘Happy Birthday’ being sung in that same room. I realised how sharp the brains of my friends were and how lucky I was to have such good friends!

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