Chapter Twenty-Seven
It Isn't Real


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Laura continued falling downwards for a great distance until she landed hard on a concrete floor. She sat there, shaking because she thought that she would have died from falling from a distance like that.

“Ok, now where am I?” she said aloud.

Laura started to look around until she realized how stupid she was being because she couldn’t see anything. The room was totally dark.

Laura started to stand up, scared of what horrible thing could be waiting for her in the room, when she heard the sound of something creaking coming from the right. Laura spun around towards it, fearful. Then she started to back up. Another creak came from behind her and then towards the front and back of the room.

The creaking stopped and Laura listened, holding her breath. A weird hissing noise was heard and the sound of things running across the floor could also be heard. Laura felt something run across the top of her foot and she screamed and kicked it off.

“Oh God, what is going on? What is in this room?” she thought anxiously.

Just then a burst of light came from a single torch nailed into a holder on the wall. Laura nearly fainted when she saw what was in the room.

Snakes and insects covered the floor, all scurrying in around as if looking for something. Snakes were Laura’s worst fear and she was now even more scared about being in the same room as them.

Laura looked at the walls and noticed four small, squared shaped holes at the bottom of each wall. That was were the snakes and insects were coming from. She stared at them fearful as they started to come towards her. Before she knew it, she was surrounded by them.

“Ohh, what am I going to do?” she thought.

Laura then noticed a metal door on the one side of the room. She began to kick the insects out of the way to make over to it. The masses of them only seemed to grow though. Blood started to seep into the room also, coming from the openings.

Laura slipped on the blood and landed on the floor. When she looked up, staring her in the face was a large cobra. She shrieked back against the wall and tears started to well in her eyes.

That’s when she remembered something. What Ms. Calhoun’s diary had said.

The only way to defeat “The Game” is to conquer fear itself.

That’s when Laura realized that she had to not fear what was in the room with her though it was hard to believe that. She stared at the bugs and the blood rising in the room.

“It isn’t real, it isn’t real....” Laura started to chant it over and over under her breath. She couldn’t convince herself of it though and that was how you truly could defeat “The Game.” You had to convince yourself it wasn’t real and not to fear it.

Laura stood up and the bugs and snakes started to swarm around her again. Remarkably, they weren’t drowning in the blood like normal insects would. Laura began to talk louder and kept saying, “It’s not real, it’s not real....”

Laura closed her eyes and imagined she was somewhere else, far, far away from the horrible mansion. As she imagined a better place she started shouting, “It isn’t real! It isn’t real! It isn’t real!....”

A weird noise started to come from somewhere so she yelled louder, “IT ISN’T REAL!!!”

An echoing scream sounded through the room. The scream grew louder and a rumbling noise shook the room. Laura opened her eyes to find the blood disappearing back into the openings and the snakes and insects faded into nothing but dust.

The horrible screamed began to fade away, as did the concrete walls. They whole room disappeared and a totally different looking one came in it’s place. A fireplace was on the wall across from her with a blazing fire in it. Many chairs surrounded the fire and also were scattered around the room. It looked like a regular sitting room. Laura breathed a sigh of relief and started to walk towards the door to her left which had changed into a wooden door.

“Well, you defeated ‘The Game,’” a voice said suddenly behind her.

Laura spun around to see Ms. Calhoun sitting in a chair across the room. She slowly stood up and began to walk towards Laura. Laura began to back up to the door.

“There’s no need for you to be afraid of me now,” Ms. Calhoun said with a laugh.

Laura looked at her warily. “Why? You’re the one who got us into this.”

“Yeah, but you already defeated ‘The Game.’ I can’t do anything to you now. That is an unfortunate rule,” Ms. Calhoun sighed, “Once a person defeats their part of ‘The Game’ there’s not a thing I can do to them.”

Ms. Calhoun paused and Laura stared at her uncertainly, thinking she would probably break that rule.

Ms. Calhoun finally looked up with a weird smile on her face. “There is something I can do. Make sure you don’t go and tell your friends how you can defeat ‘The Game.’

The door that had just been behind Laura disappeared, the fire went out, and all but one chair remained, making the room feel cold and empty.

“Have fun down here! I’d like to see you try and get out,” Ms. Calhoun said with a sneer, “being how smart you are and all.”

With that, Ms. Calhoun disappeared and Laura shivered from a cold breeze that filled the room. She knew her friends knew how to defeat ‘The Game’ but she wanted to give them a better understanding of it all. Now she was stuck in a room that was somewhere in the mansion.

“Damn that woman, she wants us to lose this thing!” Laura thought.

Laura sat down on the chair and began to think of a way out of there. Though it seemed like all hope had left her. Her friends were on there own.


Chapter Twenty-Eight - The Staircase To Nowhere

Go back to 'The Game'