Young Writers Society

For as long as I can remember, I have been terrified of my basement. Something about it just gives me the heebie-jeebies. Most of the time, when I have to go down there, I make sure all of the lights are on, and I leave the door open so that the light from the dining room shines down the stairs as well. But this time, that wasn’t the case.

Mom needed a towel from the laundry downstairs so I was nice and offered to get one for her, unaware of the events that were to come. It was around 8 pm, so the basement was a dark abyss. The lights from the reptiles had all turned off, leaving only one half of the basement lit up. The chipped wooden stairs looked like something you would see in a horror movie. ‘Great, this is where I die,’ I was thinking to myself.

Each step down the stairs creaked, making me cringe. I reached the bottom and realized that it was too late to turn back. Clutching onto my phone in my pants pocket, I quickly headed towards the laundry. The clean clothes smelt nice, kind of like fresh flowers, helping me to forget how scary the basement really was. But then, reality hit me.

The concrete floor was cold on my sockless feet, causing goose bumps on my arms and legs. Usually, this would be the part where I completely chickened out and quickly ran up the stairs where it was safe, but not this time. This time, I kept trekking on. I reached the basket where the towels were put and searched for the specific towel that Mom wanted. A thick, long burgundy towel, the one with the spot of bleach right in the center.

After searching for what felt like hours, I finally found the towel at the bottom of the basket. I yanked it out and turned around to go back upstairs, knocking over a pile of containers. Although I just wanted to get back upstairs, I knew that my parents would be mad if I just left the containers all over the floor, so I had to pick them all up and stack them neatly where someone else couldn’t knock them over.

At this point, Mom was probably wondering what was taking me so long. All I had to do was go to the basement and grab a towel. But this had turned into a whole scary adventure that I definitely did not want to be experiencing.

While re-stacking the containers, it felt like something was watching me. All I could think was, ‘Get me out of here!’ My heart was racing and my hands started to tremble slightly. Putting the last container where it needed to go was relieving. It slowly sank down into another bin creating a smooth sound like a piece of paper sliding across a table. I hurried up the stairs and a feeling of relief hit me as I reached the top and swung open the door.

Although, this feeling was short lived when I closed the door. All I could hear was the noise of something running up the stairs after me. I jumped in fear and landed on the couch, which, from where I was standing, was a far leap, to say the least. When my body hit the smooth leather, tears began flowing from my eyes like raindrops from a cloud during a storm. An intense feeling of fear came over me as I was certain that someone or something was about to open that door.

Mom, knowing me as being overdramatic, got up from her seat to figure out what made the noise. As she got closer to the basement door, my heart beat faster and faster with every step she took. As her hand reached out to grab the knob, I could barely breathe in anticipation for what I thought would come lunging out towards her.

She slowly opened the door and motioned me to follow her. Hesitantly, and very slowly, I got up from the couch, still shaking, and tiptoed towards her. When she got about halfway down the stairs, mom let out a laugh, as she had just been told a really funny joke. I ask her what it is, and she told me to look for myself.

I made my way to the bottom of the stairs, looked down, and saw a single slipper lying there on the floor.

“Was it seriously just a slipper?”

Embarrassment immediately came over me.

“It was, it was Hopey Hope.” Mom laughed while saying this, making my face go beet red.

We walked back upstairs and sat back down. As I expected, mom began to tell my sister and my dad exactly what had happened. My brothers could hear my sister laughing so they came downstairs to see what was going on.

“Is Alayna okay?” Nathan asked.

Alayna kept laughing while Mom tried to explain what happened. I hid my face in embarrassment while she talked.

“I had asked your sister to go downstairs and grab me a towel,” she explained, “and as she ran up the stairs and swung the door closed behind her, she thought she heard something running up after her and jumped from the basement door all of the way to the couch and started bawling her eyes out.”

Aryn chimed in wondering if there was a point to the story that my mom was telling. “Okay, and?”

Mom continued. “I went to the top of the stairs to see if anything was there, and when I looked at the bottom, there was a slipper lying on the floor. Turns out, she knocked a slipper down the stairs and thought that something was running up trying to get her.”

Before I knew it, the entire house was laughing at me and, to this day, my parents make sure to remind me of the night that a single slipper made me bawl my eyes out. But, I guess that’s what happens when I jump to conclusions, (literally).