Young Writers Society

“Right,” said Harry.

“Okay, so we know the wisdom that we’re going to need to get but then what’s this past, or whatever that’s going to be telling it to us,” said Rose.

“Past, among the last, demise,” muttered Terry, scratching his chin, “I think those are connected somehow. They all seem to be fancy ways of talking about one specific thing.”

“Death?” suggested Rose.

“Ohh, that's funny, so if we are indeed at a tomb of some sort,” said Harry, “we’ll have to…”

“…talk to some ghosts. That does kinda make sense,” finished Rose. 

“Well if that's correct, this promises to be interesting,” said Terry, “I’ve personally never gotten the chance to meet a ghost. Necromancy is nowhere near my strongest suit.”

“Likewise,” said Rose, nodding and turning pointedly to Harry.

“Ghost are…complicated,” said Harry, “all you need to know is that you want to always keep them happy and you can learn plenty. Make them not so happy, and you can still learn plenty...about being dead.”

“Great sales pitch,” said Terry,"I'm sold. Let's go."

“Tone it down on the sarcasm, there is actually something to worry about,” said Harry, looking at the riddle again on his communicator, “the lines 'perhaps lead to their freedom’ and ‘never forget to stay sharp’. Those two things in relation to ghosts worry me. It looks like these particular ghosties are not going to be particularly friendly.”

“I can stay sharp,” said Terry. He looked to be steeling himself for something. “Shall we go then?”

“Yes,” said Harry, “and I guess I better take the lead this time if you aren’t the best at necromancy.”

“Unfortunately I'm not,” said Terry.

“Okay,” said Harry, clearly not thrilled with the reply. “Rose, you take the rear. Clarke stay in the middle and both of you follow me.”

Harry moved towards the only thing resembling a gate in the broken fence, quickly hopping over it instead of trying to figure out a way to get it open. Terry followed suit. Rose took a last look around where they’d landed. At least the hole that they’d jumped through was still open. She turned and hopped over the fence.

In front of them the dark structure quickly revealed itself to be a massive stone wall. Harry headed right for it, breaking into a quick jog, Terry right on his heels. Rose stood for a moment to look at the wall, looking for anything that looked suspicious. It was an exceptionally solid looking wall for something that could have been used to hide things over a century ago. A place of demise. Let’s hope we don’t meet our own demise. Finding nothing, she took off after them, running a few feet to catch up before falling into a jog.

Harry stopped in front of the wall and put a hand on it.

“Take a couple of steps back,” he said, turning towards them, “and it might get just a tad bit chilly.”

He turned back towards the wall and began to murmur, leaning in close almost like he was telling the wall a secret. He tossed the penlight over his back and Terry caught it defly, pointng it towards the wall. 

The chanting intensified, going from a slow whisper to something that almost resembled a constant hissing. The temperature began to drop alarmingly. Rose hugged herself, rubbing her palms together as the temperature seemed to approach freezing.

Despite being sleeveless, Harry didn’t seem to even notice the cold. His chanting took on an eerily high pitch. The light then began to dim, the penlight’s brightness changing slowly until it might as well have been the light from a firefly.

Sudden tendrils of black light began to grow on the wall. It looked like a mold of some kind, growing at lightning speeds as it spread towards Harry. Rose was taken aback. That’s not supposed to happen is it? She almost took a step forward to intervene but held herself back. Harry knew how to handle himself and this was an area that he was good at. There’d be no point in her jumping in there. I’ll probably only make it worse.