Young Writers Society

Raiden grinned at Taber's introduction of himself.
"My name's Raiden. Last name...uhh...I'll take Kobayashi, if that's free?"

Bo was running on autopilot.

“My name’s Andrei Petrov. But I guess... at some point I start intoducing myself to everyone as Bo... so I guess you can call me that.... which is fine.”

He wondered if he should address the second question, even though many had skipped it. Something about himself. Think. Think.

“I uh... like dogs.”

"Dogs are great!" said Taber. "One of my best friends is one!"

Looking around at the gathering of people, who had all gone silent, Taber smiled. "That's everyone?" he said. "Nice to meet you! So, what're we going to do now?"

Taber obviously had something had to hide from his last name, but who was Gabriel to judge? His own name was an alias. Gabriel Eberhardt was nothing more than a name attached to a handful of false documents; it was amazing how many things this society needed you to have to call you one of their own. Issac Drake was also an alias, but that was born out of a different kind of necessity than his own. Either way, aliases and secrets were nothing new to him, and he couldn't judge someone for using one themselves.

Especially when that guy didn't happen to be a run-of-the-mill human.

Satisfied with what he had seen in the room, he exited it and went to the room across the hallway. The smell inside was odd. Almost like something decomposing, but in a pleasant sort of way. He stood there for a moment. Checked the planes. Nothing stuck out to him, but that didn't mean anything. Threats didn't have to be supernatural.

"Yo! Sebastian! Issac! You guys should come in here." The others could come too, but it was those two that he needed the most. After all, they were the one who had roped him into this mess in the first place.

(Even though it had been just as much of his fault, something that Sebastian's prosthetics would always be a painful reminder of.)

Watching as Gabriel's two friends walked to the strange room and looked inside, curiosity welled up in Taber. He bounded over, skipping along. Taber then froze a few feet from the door. A noxious odor lingered in the air. It smelled sickly sweet, like someone had poured sugar over a dead body. And yes, he was familiar with both. Combined with the scent of wood and mold, it made his stomach churn. Clamping his hands over his nose, Taber gagged. His eyes watered and his tongue stuck out. The others looked unbothered, but that made sense - Taber had a vastly better sense of smell than any of them.

"What's that?" said Taber.

Clarice followed Taber, Sebastian, and Issac as they walked to the room. She wrinkled her nose at the smell. It was strange, like decay and something sweet, but she didn't see a dead body, so she didn't think much of it until Taber reacted so strongly.

Knowing that werewolves and their counterparts had heightened senses of smell, she turned to face Taber. "What's it smell like?" She asked.

Raiden followed, wrinkled his nose at the smell and turned to Taber as Clarice asked her question.
"Good lord, it kind of smells like a sewer but outside a candy factory," Raiden mumbled to himself.

Bo followed behind Raiden, flaring his nostrils as the smell entered in. It wasn’t the strongest smell, but he recognized it immediately. The smell of death, even if it was oddly... sweet.

"It's gross," Taber said, pushing his way into the room. "Like someone threw sugar on a battlefield." He looked around at the floorboards, wall, and ceiling. Nothing that he hadn't already seen before. Keeping one hand over his nose, he approached one of the walls and tapped it. The smell was a bit worse here. "Maybe it's in here?" Taber pulled a fist back and punched the wall.

His fist embedded in the plaster. Yelping, Taber tried to remove his fist, but it wouldn't budge.

"What is it with you two and punching things?" Clarice gave a pointed look to Taber and Isaac. She waited a moment for Taber to pull his hand out of the wall, and it was then she realized that he couldn't move it. "You're stuck now, aren't you? Hold on, I'll get you out."

Clarice placed her backpack on the floor and unzipped it. After rummaging around for a moment, she pulled out a small hammer. It didn't look very useful, but the walls were so thin that when Clarice carefully hammered at the wall next to Taber's fist, it opened up a hole that was probably big enough for him slide out of.

Sure enough, Taber could easily free his fist. "Thanks!" he said, rubbing his wrist and smiling weakly. It was bad enough that he'd gotten stuck in something for the second time today. Doing what Sebastian had done to startle him in the first place added to Taber's embarrassment. At least everyone could look inside the wall now.

He stepped back to let the others take a look. Staring down at his hand, he realized it was covered with plaster from the wall, mixed with blood from a few cuts. That explained why he felt so strange. Since it didn't bother him, he decided to ignore it.

Issac peered inside the hole in the wall, Sebastian and Gabriel trying to look in over his shoulder as he did so. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary when he ran through the planes. The lack of a response from Gabriel meant he had seen the same thing. But that didn't explain the smell; something had to have caused it.

The three took a collective step back and almost tripped over each other's legs in the process.

"There's nothing there," Issac informed the others, gesturing for them to take a look into the small hole. "It just looks like it goes through to another room-"

"We're at the end of the hallway," Sebastian interrupted, eyes widening. "This is the last door - there shouldn't be a room there!"

"A secret room?" said Taber. "Awesome! Let's go see what's inside!" He began to widen the hole he'd made, pulling out chunks of plaster and throwing them aside. A cloud of dust rose into the air, but he waved it away. He wanted to know who'd be clever enough to hide a room in the building, and if they were still around. The idea that he and the rest of his group weren't alone was comforting, especially if that other person happened to know plenty about this place.

Clarice took one look at the secret hallway and sighed. She'd had enough experience with secret rooms to last her a lifetime, and she hadn't intended to run into one so soon after her escape. Still, she knew that she had to go inside. As stupid as it'd be to enter, it'd be even stupider to leave it alone.

Ugh. She couldn't go in armed with just a shard of glass—who knew what threats awaited her. Tossing the glass aside with a sneer, Clarice knelt down next to her backpack and put her hammer back inside. She reached in and retrieved something wrapped in gauze and carefully unwrapped it, revealing a sickle covered in ceremonial runes and markings.

Clarice zipped up and shouldered her backpack. "We should check it out."

Bo looked into the room that defied logic and shouldn’t be there.

“I mean... should we though? I feel like this is the point in the horror movie where if the characters were smart, they’d turn back and just keep going down the road and NOT go in the freaky supernatural room.”