I turned my head to Flaming Star and shined my light at him. “This is bone!”

“What? But how is that...I mean, that doesn’t make sense!”

“No, it doesn’t! But it feels like real bone! It’s not plastic or anything. It’s real organic bone.”

“I’m having a weird feeling about this.”

“I think that’s the general idea.”

He turned around and gazed into the darkness. “So what do we do now?”

It was then that the candles lit by themselves and shined some light in the darkness. I was about to turn off my flashlight app when I sensed something moving around in the shadows, something small. I shone the light across the room but I couldn’t make out what it was.

Then I noticed that the candles were arranged in a rough circle on the floor, and in the center of the circle was an envelope.

“What is that?” I asked while I had my light on it.

“Don’t know, but I doubt it’s the menu!”

He then walked forward and picked it up. I got closer to see it better. It had the same skull seal on it as the invitation that Prof. Skull Mustache gave us. Flaming Star opened the envelope and read the letter out loud.

We were both staring at each other, silent.

“So what should we do now?” Flaming Star asked.

“I don’t know. Let’s look around to see if we can find anything.”

“Look around for what?”

“I don’t know! The light switch, maybe.”

“Good idea! Just give me a minute.” I shined my light on him, as he tried to reach under the chain mail armor.

“What are you doing?”

“Trying to reach my phone!” he was struggling to bring his hand under the armor.

“Good thing knights never had to use cell phones in the Middle Ages.”

He let that slide. Finally he managed to get through his costume and after a while his hand came out with the phone. “There we go. Now, let’s search.”

We kept looking at the wall in the room. It was wood paneling, brown oak as it seemed but I was not sure. The walls were covered with different wall hangings. There were several paintings that were too dark to see clearly. And there were skulls, mostly the skulls of animals.

“I wish Fluttershy was here.”

“Wait. Isn’t she the one who’s so timid she’s not good for much of anything?”

“She’s also planning to study veterinary medicine when she goes off to college. Maybe she could give us a hand with these.”

I looked closer to the skulls, then I started feeling creepy again so I stepped back.

“Whoa!”

“What is it?”

“These skulls! Individually they were just creepy; they still are. But maybe …”

“Maybe what?”

“Maybe there’s a reason why they’re arranged this way.”

“Well, we’d better figure it out fast. Like the letter said, ‘Time is precious’.”

I looked again at the skulls on the wall. I recognized one to be a moose, there was a skull of a bird with a quite long beak which I figured might be a stork or something. Another one was for a predator; I wasn’t sure which but it had sharp teeth like a large feline.

But there was another one, a black skull right after that which was quite hard to make out what it was with the lack of light. I stepped closer and closer. But I stopped when I realized what I was looking at. It was a human skull!

I stepped backward, tried nor to look at them and went back to searching for the light switch. After a while I found it but when I flicked it, nothing happened.

“Hey! Did you find anything?” Flaming Star shouted in the darkness.

“Good news: I found the switch. Bad news: it doesn’t work.”

“Maybe it’s not the light swi..” he went silence before he finished that sentence. Then he continued: “You’d better come over here.”

I followed the voice in the darkness and reached out to him. He was staring to something, I shined my light at it and I saw it, another way blocked off by tall bones.

“Another one?”

“There’s another one there, too!” He pointed his fingers to the left. I shined my light in that direction and another entrance was blocked off by bones. “Something isn’t right!”

He was right, I was now certain that this is not a dinner party. Whatever this is, I had a bad feeling about it.

“Let’s keep looking,” I said.

“For what?”

“I don’t know, a door or some-“

My hand was shaking as I tried scanning the room by the light of my phone. Then I saw a door a few steps away. It was a dark wooden door but its color didn’t quite blend in with the color of the wood paneling. We walked to it and I tried to open it, but it was locked.

“What’s that?” Flaming Star said.

“What?”

“On the floor!”

Right in front of the door, there was another envelope. I opened and read what was inside.

Find the remains of the ones who stepped here before us

Or it shall be summoned to take your lives.

Find it before darkness overtakes the ten burning lights

Only then you may see the next part of this night!

I read it out loud like Flaming Star did last time. Yet we were still clueless of what it all meant. But it was then that Flaming Star realized something.

“Hey, weren’t there more candles before?” he shined his light on the candles. Only two were burning and the rest have gone out!

“Yeah, there was ten burning but now there is only t-“ Suddenly one of the two candles got extinguished. “Make that one!”

I read the last letter for myself again, because I thought I was onto something. “’Find the remains of the ones who stepped here before us Or IT shall be summoned to take your lives. Find it before darkness overtakes the ten burning lights’. The “ten burning lights...’ the candles!” I said as the last candle got put out.

“What?” Flaming Star asked, confused. Before I could answer him our attention got caught to something else. A dark shadow was forming where we had found the first letter. We had out our lights on it when suddenly a hand came out! A skeleton hand!

Even in the dim light of our phones, it was the first time I had ever seen Flaming Star frightened. The hand clawed the wooden floor and dragged itself out. The skull of the skeleton then surfaced from the darkness. From deep in the eye sockets a dim light seemed to be staring at us. Its other hand came out too and kept on dragging itself out of whatever he was in like an undead thing coming out of its grave.

We were both terrified and frozen in place, staring at the skeleton that was almost out. But then I shook myself up and reread the last letter in my head.

“’Find the remains of those who stepped here before us’.” The remains; I started to wonder what it could it mean. “Remains … Corpse … Bones ... Bone ... THE BLACK SKULL!”

The skeleton was out! All of his bones were attached, held together somehow, and it started moving towards us. I shook Flaming Star out of his fear because there was no time.

“Flame! Flame! Distract that thing however you can! I think I know how to get us out of here!”

He nodded, then he withdrew his sabre! I didn’t even notice that he had one this whole time!

The skeleton was charging at us. I managed to circle around it, but it was onto me. But Flaming Star diverted its attention by shouting and thrusting his sabre through the space between its ribs. It turned back and let out a terrifying and loud scream into Flaming Star’s face. The skeleton jumped on Flaming Star and they started brawling with one another. I ran up to the skull and grabbed it from the wall!

The effect was like pulling a plug from a wall socket. A chilling silence filled the room. I shined my light at Flaming Star but I saw no skeleton. It was gone. I had the black skull in my hand and I was still feeling the adrenaline in my blood.

I couldn’t believe that it was over, or was it?