Tell me. Are you afraid?

“Well?” Ronald quipped, adjusting his dirty glasses as the torchlight swung across the decrepit basement. “You scared or sommat? You afraid?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” William snorted haughtily, trudging along closely behind the bulkier boy as the darkness seemed to hungrily creep along behind them. “Were that the case, then I wouldn’t have bothered at all.”

Despite his strong words, William’s voice grew weaker the further they traversed into the boiler room. Every slow, creaky step down the worn wooden stairs seemed to cut them off from the outside world a little more, each breath grew a little harder to draw. It was almost as if some unseen presence were slowly trying to strangle them a little at a time, squeezing tighter and tighter the deeper they went. A dusty cobweb dangling from a single strand on the stairwell gleamed momentarily in the light; and as the dead spider at the end lifelessly wriggled in the slight breeze brought by their passing, he was strongly reminded of a dirty, unwashed gallows, each imagined twitch making the illusion all the more powerful.

The space between William and Ronald was swiftly closed.

“This is stupid,” William muttered after a moment, not daring to slip too far away from his friend. Ronald’s flashlight twirled in his fingers, casting impossible shadows over the walls until it landed on the bulbous blackened body of the ancient boiler. “There’s no such thing as ghosts, and the basement isn’t haunted, we came and oh look there’s nothing here let’s leave now-”

“Eh, I dunno…” Ronald fought back a snigger, clearly straining to hide his delight at the boy’s discomfort. “I heard Sister Frankie sayin’ somebody straight up died down here…”

A creak of the rafters sent another shudder up William’s already strangely sweaty and chilled spine, which he attributed to the dank of the basement.

“Even were that the case – which it is clearly not, don’t even bother disputing it – we aren’t going to find anything interesting,” William argued, desperately inching back toward the stairs.

Do you feel that sinking in the recesses of your heart?

“I knew it , you’re chicken!” Ronald crowed victoriously, grinning from ear to ear.

“I’m not afraid of anything,” he was quick to argue. “It’s just that this place is absolutely disgusting, I mean just look at all this dust-”

“Chicken!” Ronald guffawed. “Chicken, chicken, buck-awk, buck buck buck!”

A loud CLANG! of metal against stone sent a screaming bolt of electricity up their spines, and it wasn’t even a bare moment before the two were scrambling in terror for the stairs. William felt himself pushed further up despite tripping and scraping his hands to the point of drawing blood, but they did not stop; the fearful beating of his heart gave him no reason to. It was at that point that Ronald yanked him back roughly by the ankle in a mad, thoughtless effort to plow ahead of him regardless of the fate it would leave William to.

Still he did not stop his wild fight up the stairs to escape, clawing just as hard at the wooden steps as he lost his foothold as Ronald was…

William awoke with a mild jolt as the train gave a particularly loud rattle.

His head bumped a little against the glass, and he wordlessly scolded himself for nodding off. His hands remained folded neatly in his lap, firmly keeping the precious black book in place. Whirring images of the countryside flew past him out the window, sinking into the distance just as a new sight came into view. He watched through the cold window for quite a while, simply listening to the rumble of the train clatter through the empty compartment.

A sliver of loneliness tugged at him in conjunction with the lingering sense of betrayal and fear, of the overwhelming despair gnawing at his belly. He brushed away the emotions quickly, forcing his gaze back down to the book in his lap. Even if it was only something to draw his attention away, at least it was something.

Something to bury it, deep in the darkness where the shadows stirred.

And closer he was led, further and further down the tracks.

Author's Notes:

Right-o, really sorry about the lack of updates everypbody.
I've been in a really deep funk lately, and I'm only just now starting to break out of it. I just wanted to let all the amazingly patient people that have been waiting on me to get off my rear know that I really am still writing, and that updates for the unfinished stories (including this one) are in transit, as well as the Journals finale.
Thanks for waiting on me, readers. I'm glad to be writing again.