Zahra's speaking moment (11º5)

 This happened last summer. I was staying with a cousin at our grandparents’ house in a small, remote village; one of those full of tales of ghosts, demons and other unearthly beings. I had never been to such a place. It certainly lived up to its reputation. Although it was very hot, one would not assume it was summer judging by the sky. It was grey as clouds full of rain. But it never rained; instead, the whole village always seemed to be swallowed by a never-ending fog that only existed around it.

One day, my cousin decided to explore the village. I wasn’t daring enough, but he managed to convince me. We asked our grandparents if we could go for a walk. I was hoping they wouldn’t let us, but to my surprise, they said it was completely safe for us to go. My grandmother didn’t believe in anything that she couldn’t  see, hear, or touch, and neither did I, but there was a little voice in the back of my head that  kept telling me that that wasn’t such a good idea.

We left the house, turned right, and walked a few meters until we found a straight, very narrow path surrounded by incredibly crooked, leafless trees. I had to stop right there, but my cousin wanted to keep going.  He succeeded in convincing me again, as curiosity spoke louder, and we found a small, seemingly abandoned house at the end of the path. However, we didn’t approach it, in that moment; neither of us was brave enough to. The white paint was peeling off, and all the windows were shattered except for the topmost one: behind the dirty glass, I could only distinguish a pale figure touching the window, pointing outside. I yelled at my cousin and told him to leave, and began running as fast as my legs could bear, but he grabbed me by my arm and stopped me. Apparently, he hadn’t seen the creature. I looked again…And then there was no one there. I figured it was just my mind playing tricks on me. Five minutes later, we saw two kids entering the house. We knew them; they were our neighbors, so we found it very odd that they were entering the house. How could that be? Could they be visiting a relative? They just opened the door and went inside, effortlessly. We finally decided to go back to our house and never spoke of the matter again.

A few days later, my grandmother came to me with a worried look on her face. She asked me if I had been with those kids – my neighbors – or if I had seen them. I lied and asked her why she was asking me such questions. She simply answered:

“They have been missing for a couple of days now”

I couldn’t believe her words. In the blink of an eye, before I had time to think about the reckless decision I was about to make, I decided to go explore the village on my own. I didn’t want to tell my cousin. It took me a while to find the path we had been through the other day. Strangely, it seemed much longer than it was that day.

But that wasn’t the strangest thing.  As I looked at the end of the path, instead of a house, I found nothing.