CHAPTER EIGHT
A Creepy Castle
Our next calamity occurred soon after the big-mouthed rooster in my barn crowed well before dawn—around four A.M. I rolled over and peered into the darkness. I was tired and annoyed with the fowl fittingly named Mr. Cock-A-Doodle-A-Lots. On top of that, I still felt a little uneasy after last night’s troll crone catastrophe. Why, then, did I also feel so . . . hopeful? An idea started to tug at me—a tiny glimmer of the sun’s pale yellow rays painting the apples tress with the soft flush of first light and possibility. It wasn’t just the prospect that we might find a way to spoil the goblins evil plans. Mason’s Plan A kept playing in my mind: Shadow Mountain should be easy to find we just need to look for
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No! We’ll head through those,” Mason pointed to a stand of trees on the other side of the meadow, “and find the walkway that leads to Shadow Mountain.” I considered my alternatives. My way, one of us would probably end up a monsters super, or we could take our chances in a forest free of seething beasts. After less than a second, we were searching for path. Instead, the trees parted like a drapes and there, half-drowned in silver mist, stood a creepy castle—a labyrinth of torrents, towers, and twinkling lights with ivy creeping unchecked over its crumbling face. “The remains of a palace?” Mason said, trying to vanish in the gloom. “Let’s get this over with. We can find out if whoever is in there knows where Shadow Mountain is then be on our way.” “Agreed,” he whispered. We tiptoed sideways through the waist-high weeds toward the fortress. The closer we got, the more the air smelled like a troll with intestinal issues and something worse. Very, very carefully we peered into one of its rectangular windows. It was like the throne room in Count Dracula’s castle, with cobwebbed candles mounted in rusty wall sconces, statues draped in mail, and a million screeching bats suspended upside down from the rafters. Then I saw humpbacked figures lumbering toward a hearth that burned
Hocking Hills It was a cloudy fall day, a cold feeling, and everything seemed calm. We were at hocking hills camping in cabins. The cabins were two stories with one room on the second story and two rooms on the first story. The cabin was built with brown wood with a tint of orange.
Seth and Twist trotted behind me. We drifted up the trail past mountain laurel, sagebrush, and small pines for almost half an hour then finally made it to the top of the ridge. I could see into the wide rift below. It was craggy, thick, and wild. The ground was littered with fallen twigs, decaying maple leaves, and brambly, green shrubs.
We sat down on the trunks’ roots and threw rocks at the base of an oak right in the middle of the large path. We then sat for a while, then walked up the at least seventy degree path, using all our energy to push ourselves up the path. Halfway the ground leveled up for a small sitting space. I looked across the miniature valley where the camp was located.
When he arrived, it was louder than he expected. The machines clanked so loud that he got a headache in minutes. The sound of screaming and crying filled the room and the air tasted like thick chalk. Dust particles were everywhere as if there was a light fog. It smelt stale.
“Chase?” A shaky voice echoed from the foyer. I bolted through the doors. A familiar cloud of golden hair stood encircled by a ring of shattered glass, cerulean irises pulsing with masked tension. My eyes quickly caught the hole in the window above the liquor counter and the misshapen rock resting beneath the bar stools.
She checked the shoebox beneath her bed every night, just to make sure her hidden world was still thriving. And it always was the same as she left it night before, as if time stopped without her presence. Miniscule vines crawled up the cardboard insides of the box, searching for the sky. Trees, the largest ones as thick as her thumb, rooted in the thin bottom of the box. She had created the forest, and as a god wanted something to rule.
The grass was so sharply cut you could cut yourself with it. The bushes by the french doors had patches of different types of flowers. There was a patch of lilies by the marble steps that gave off a tropical feeling. The house had an old spooky look but yet a homey look. When the group of 10th grader thought it would be funny to spend the night and prove everyone wrong that is was just an abandoned house nothing more.
I awake to my mother, the queen, screaming at me. She yells constantly and it drives minsane. I decide that I should at least try and reason with her today. So I crawl out of my uncomfortable bed to deal with her. When I walk in she’s giving me an evil glare, but still giving a nasty grin.
So far, the anxiety was starting to dwindle, but this wouldn’t get Smitty’s hopes down. He flicked his flashlight on and approached a few larger cypress trees. A splintered sign read “Beware” in red paint. Smitty had walked about a mile, so he decided
There was undergrowth—a mat of brambles and bracken. There were no obvious paths. Dark and light came and went, inviting and mysterious, as the wind pushed clouds across the face of the sun.” (355) The "thing" in the story was symbolized as the terror
Its ever-changing walls, numerous dead ends and unspeakable horrors were starting to irritate me. But just a bit. Every now and then, the walls would rumble and quake at the might of an otherworldly roar; prompting me to tremble like a little girl in my pathetic excuse I call shoes. The Elders had sent me- no, thrown me into this hellhole, jabbering on and on about how this is teach me a lesson, that I never listen to instructions and this was the last
Aaron Kassel dashed through the treeline into an open field. He stood there momentarily catching his breath, before continuing up the slight incline in front of him. The air was crisp and sweet, nothing like it was in the real world. As Aaron reached the crest of the hill he could see a great castle in the distance, its flags fluttered in the breeze and a great horn sounded. The drawbridge of the castle slowly opened to make a passage across the chasm.
After a long wait for 1 hour, I pushed the tall door to enter. I looked around and saw serene teal walls. Elegant and exquisite painting hung on the wall so that they surrounded fawn-coloured leather couch. Next to it was a colossal window displaying an alluring view (Nature paints the most astonishing paintings!) The mountains - in the distance - reached the faint spread of clouds.
Smooth, oval rocks lined the bank of the secretive lake. Discarded and neglected; overlaid with spongy moss and choked by fallen, decaying leaves from the unclothed and withering trees above. As the lake swelled around the ashen boulders, icy, black water lifelessly lapped against the long, thin beams of wood holding up a rickety pier. The structure was covered in splinters and ragged, iron nails, and as it reached out into the centre of the sombre lake, it became more and more distant. Half-cut beams lined the sides of the pier, as nettle patches hissed from the shore when the water drew too near.
Capturing Her Castle Dead, sunken eyes bulged luminously from his protruding skull beneath a stretched sheet of blotchy, pallid skin. His lip leaked a fresh stream of blood from an angled cut. A lone shard of glass that had been separated from its mirror was propped up against a wall from across the room. Leaning over the corpse, I gazed into the shard as a drop of blood from one jagged corner travelled across my reflection. My bagged eyes told that I hadn’t slept for a week.