To all my friends that attended WPES with me in my 4th-5th grade years. You guys were all super funny and had ideas for anything. If you ever move, a piece of me goes with you. I will always be right where you left me.

EP :-)

(This is not my quote!)

        Echoes in the dark

                    By The Crimson Curse

    If you are ever curious about something, go for it. If it's something like a HAUNTED HOUSE..... I suggest not. I have no clue how I made it out alive, but it was a frightening experience. 

    If you ever hear someone calling you at night, go with the best option:

    RUN. 

t all started when I was walking home from school with my friend, Lila Johansen, when something caught my eye. It was an old house, and it looked weird. Almost as if it was haunted! It had 2 little grass patches out front, big, rusty gates outside, and creepy windows. I swear, I might have seen EYES staring at me through the window!

    Lila probably knew what I was thinking, because she immediately started telling me about the house.

Chapter 1: That One Mansion 

Do all horror stories start this way?

    That's the old mansion that's said to be haunted! No one has lived in it for 30 years! It’s haunted by the ghost of---

    Blah, blah, blah. The chances in me believing this are 0.01%, because yesterday, Lila told everyone in the class she was secretly related to Taylor Swift!

    But I cannot take my mind off of that house! Well, it looks like a mansion, but an old one. A couple of blocks later, We go to our houses and say our goodbyes. I walk inside to greet my mom.

   "Hi, Mother!" I say. "May I please have a snack?" I start scavenging the cabinets before she can work up a reply. 

    "Sure! How was school?" Mother says. She starts washing the dishes. 

    "Good! We had an assembly today. This man from the zoo came with lizards and snakes and stuff!" I say, sounding very excited in the 

cutest way possible.

    "Abel told me about it!" Mother says. "It sounded very cool! I can't believe the ZOO actually came to an elementary school!" (If you are wondering who Abel is, he is my younger brother.) I decided to go up to my room and chill.

    I grabbed my notebook and wrote about the assembly, and how we got to pet lizards from the reptile man! That was nice. Not only do I write about that, but I write about the house. Or, the haunted mansion. House. Manor. Whatever it was, I was intrigued. Even if Lila was lying about how it was haunted or how there is a ghost in there. The brave Dessi Raven loved the tale and set off to learn more. So, I decided to go knock on Lila's door, so we can hang out in my room. Lila's mom, Ms. Johansen, answers the door. "Hello, Dessi! Come on in, how are you? she

says and gestures me inside. "Lila is just finishing up her homework. LIIIII-LAAAA!" she calls for Lila to come downstairs. 

    "Here!" Lila says, as she comes running down the stairs and says, "Let's go to your house". Can she actually read minds?

    We head to my house, and we go up into my room. "So tell me, Lila", I say, "What is the backstory of the haunted house we saw while we were walking home?" 

Chapter 2: If this were a movie, I'd watch all the reruns

            ld Man Hickor's mansion has quite a story behind all of the creepy windows and screechy gates. If you want to hear the tale, we should start at the beginning.

    "Old Man Hickor built this house in 1793, and one day, a mailman named Sai came to his house, trying to deliver the mail. Problem was, whenever someone visits Hickor, he gets MAD. So mad, he pushed the mailman off of the porch and poor Sai broke his leg. Hickor immediately said sorry and helped him up, and even though he paid for Sai's hospital bills, he was banned from Baltimore, never to be seen again. 

    "The house was torn down by the US Navy in 1842 because no one 

had lived in it for so long. Then in 1923, a young woman moved into town, in need of a house. So, a new house was built there.The woman wanted a mansion, but the builders were lazy so the mansion wasn't very sturdy. Loose screws, creaky floor boards, the works. 

    "As soon as the woman stepped into the house, she never came out. Legend says Old Man Hickor got mad the Navy tore down his house, so he haunts the new one. Waiting. To. ATTACK! RAHR!!"

    "AAH!" I say as Lila jumps on me, trying to scare me. "Wait, 

she moved there in 1923? That was 30 years ago! 'Cuz it's 1953 now!"

    "Exactly! That's what I said earlier when we passed the house!" Lila says. Yeah, I wasn't exactly listening to that racket when we passed the house. Either way, this story isn't giving good vibes right now. If this was only 30 years ago, the ghost of Old MAD Hickor could still be living here, 

haunting the streets of Baltimore! He could kill Mother and Abel and Lila and Ms. Johansen and-------

    Okay Dessi, slow down. This is probably just a little "fairy" tale. Lila has only lived here for a year, but we've been friends since we were six. Otherwise, how would she know so much 

about the house? Or that a ghost haunts it? Plus, ghosts ain't real.........right?

    RIGHT?!

    "Earth to Dessi, earth to Dessi", Lila says to me, waving her hand in my face. "Focus!" She starts snapping her fingers. 

    "I'm awake, I'm awake!" I exclaim. "Lila, I know it sounds cuckoo, but we need to go into the house. We need to bust the myth and prove that the house isn't haunted!"

    Lila looks at me like I'm stupid after I say that. "But Dessi, the house is haunted. Why else would the lady have never come out? And why is there no one living in there now?"

     "Probably because the house wasn't sturdy and she fell 

the floorboards. Plus, there wouldn't be Old Man Hickor's ghost haunting there, because he was banned from Baltimore! He probably died in, like, New Jersey!"

    That made Lila shut up. She taps her chin and says, "Okay, fine. You got me. I'm in. What's the plan?"

Glad you asked. Set your alarm for midnight. Get a bag of snacks, and wait on my porch. I'll provide the flashlights. Then, we rush to the Hickory-Dickory-Dock Mansion (or whatever it's called) and we go in. We gotta be back by 3AM. 

But that's the hour all the haunted stuff happens! We need to see the ghosts to prove the myth!

Fine, 4AM then.

I was hoping I'd get some sleep tonight.

Chapter 3: Brace yourselves

          y alarm went off at exactly 12AM, and I was very                startled. "What the HECK?!" I said as I jumped out of bed. Just then I remembered the plan. I put on some pants and a hoodie and I rushed downstairs. I got my snacks and ran out the door. Lila was waiting in my yard. 

    "Jeez, it's only one after 12! How'd you get ready so fast?" I say, watching Lila grab a Z-Bar from her bag.

    "How'd YOU get ready so fast? The waiting was building the suspense! I stayed up all night!" Lila says, overexcited. How is she not tired?  I thought.

    "Did you wait in my yard all night?" I ask. She doesn't answer, which isn't consoling. 

    When we make it to the house, something strikes me. 

 "Lila", I ask, "Why was Hickor so mad when someone visited him?"

    "His wife died", Lila says. "Yellow Fever was a bad sickness back then, and his wife had caught it." Lila creaks open the rusting golden gates. 

    Poor Old Man Hickor. 

    "I thought it was, like, WW2 or something!" I say.

    "Bro", Lila says, looking at me like I'm dumb. "World War 2 ended less than 10 years ago! His wife passed in the 1790's!" I then begin to remember that.

    Stupid me.

    We get to the porch, and brace ourselves to open the door to old Hickor's mansion. "I'm excited!" Lila says. I really am, too. She can probably already tell. "1...2...3!"

   We burst open the door. Dust flies everywhere, and gets in our faces. 

    I don't see anything suspicious yet, which is a good sign because I wasn't counting on it anyway. There are dusty cabinets and bookcases (with...photo albums) I'm not sure.) all over the place and stairs leading to random rooms. 

    "Split up!" Lila shouts. We'll meet back here at 1AM." 

Even though it's a bad idea, I agree. Even if the house isn't haunted. I decided to go upstairs into a different room. Still dusty, but nothing much yet. Lila goes into the room next to the one I'm in. 

    The room has a bed and I bookcase. And a lock with chai-

ns on the door. 

    Wait. . . WHAT??!!

    The lock magically locks itself, trapping me inside the room! Dust flies in the air and I can feel a breeze. I scream, wishing for Lila to hear me. The walls are thin, so she could hear me! She could save me! She....she....she doesn't come!

    The dust and breeze then stops, revealing....

                            A GHOST.

Chapter 4: Caught Dead (but literally)

                     his wasn't happening. THIS WASN'T HAPPENING!                               This-

    I pinch myself to make sure it's not a dream, and surely, it's not. I look at the ghost standing (or, more rather floating) in front of me. "What do you want from me?" I ask. "OLD MAN?!"

    The ghost starts laughing. Although, it's not like a cackly, creepy, witchy kind of laugh. It's more of a soft, but LOUD  belly laugh. "Relax, kid", it says. "My name is Alexander, and I'm not going to hurt you". Wait, Old Man Hickor had a first name? 

    "Wait, I thought your name was Old Man Hickor! And why do you look like a middle aged man?" I question. But seriously, he doesn't look a day over 39! I thought he was supposed to be OLD! It's weird! 

    The ghost falls onto the floor and actually starts choking! Is that even possible? A ghost! CHOKING! Has the world lost its sanity?! When you are a ghost, you get to choose what you look like! If it's better for you, I could look like this!"

    A poof of dust gets in my face. When it fades away, there is a 13-year-old boy standing before my very eyes! He honestly looks kinda good. Gray, but good. "Wow, I never 

knew!" I say. "So, what about your name? It's Alexander Hickor, right? 

    Okay, this ghost probably needs a lot of mental help, because he's laughing even more now! "Okay, okay. I probably should have explained 

to people who didn't know my real name before I died."-Wait, if everyone hated him, how would he have been able to tell them? Anyway, back to the dialogue.-"They called me that because I was always ticked, so they started calling me 'ticker'. I hated it, do they called me 'Hicker', but spelled it Hick-OR. And I was an old man, so my name came out as 'Old Man Hickor.'" Alexander explains. I wonder if his ID card said Old Man Hickor on it. If Baltimore even gave him one, anyway. 

 "Quite a story. . . sounds like one of those weird stories from a children's novel." I commented. I pinch myself again to make sure it's not a dream, and it's a painful pinch. Definitely not dreaming. "So. . .  why did you all of a sudden lock me in a room?" I ask, snapping all the "Oooh... grey but good" opinions out of my head. 

What did this ghost want from me? "And why do you hate visitors?" I 

 mean, just because his wife died, doesn't mean he has no need to control his anger issues! 

    "Sure is quite a story!" Alexander chuckles. "I locked you in here because... I never really had a friend after Malissa died." (I assume Malissa was his wife.) "And believe me", he continued,"I tried finding a therapist in New Jersey, where I went after I was banned for pushing the mailman, but most states had received the word that I KILLED the guy! I mean, I only broke his leg!-Okay, maybe his collar bone-but whats wrong with that?"-everything.-"So all therapists and psychiatrists were scared of me! I mean, who's afraid of little old me?" Could make a good song title one day, but everyone (probably except Lila) Again, it sounded like something from a children's novel. All of these wack-a-doo tales. Crazy, huh?

    But not in a romantic, kissy-wissy, mushy kind of way. (Remember, I said to forget the "Grey But Good" statement) I mean like KILLING THEM!. . . . .

 Anyway, back to the point, kids. 

    Was he REALLY trying to be my friend? I mean, he is humble and modest so far, but what if he turns out like a THIEF?! Not just a regular thief, but a THIEF THAT STEALS PEOPLE'S HEARTS?!

             ormally, fairy-tales aren't that scary. Well, to a 13 year old like me, anyway. True as it was, Dessi Raven was not afraid of kiddie little classics, But maybe to a 5 year old when they are being told a bedtime story, they could be "scared" when The Big Bad Wolf shows up. 

    So if fairy-tales aren't supposed to be scary, this couldn't be one. this couldn't make it into the "Hans christian Andersen and others" collection. Not saying this was scary as much as it was questioning and weird.  I mean, the ghost came from nowhere and trapped me in a room, just to ask me to be his friend. Like, what the heck? who does that?

Chapter 5: Are Fairy-tales Scary?

    I mean, if he wanted a friend, why didn't he make friends with the woman who lived here in...1923? or more rather the ghost of her? I asked Alexander that and he says, "Um......well i actually don't know.  i never found her ghost here. and i totally don't know how she died."

    I don't know if he knew if this sounded convincing or not, because it did not. To be honest, wherever his body ended up, he probably ended up in hell because he hurt the mailman, and now....It sounded like he was the one that killed the woman! I don't know her name. Maybe Lila knows. I'll ask her at 1AM, when we meet up. But right now, i need to find a way that the ghost will 

let me out of here. 

    Then, it hits me.

    maybe, I can butter Alexander up to be my "Bestie", and ask him 

to give me a tour of the house. Then (If ghosts can't actually teleport through walls), I will lock him in the room and escape! But find Lila before the escape part, of course. 

    I don't know if I say, "Okay, Alexander! let's be friends! give me a tour!" It will probably be obvious that i'm trying to escape or just trying to make sure i don't get hurt by his monsterous threats 

not that he has opposed any yet, which is good. 

    So i decided to put this claim to the test. "so...Alex", I said, "what happens if i don't be your friend?" I hoped it 

would prove that he wouldn't do anything that will threaten or hurt me. Like, if he needs a friend, he needs to be nice to the person! Right? 

    "Oh ho ho...." He chuckles, "then i will let you out unbothered!You can go home and live free without callings or warnings from this place again!"

 since ghosts are see-through, i can see him crossing his fingers behind his back. "Why, you-"-He cracks his neck creepily-"Don't wanna be friends?'' he says it kind of angrily. OoF.

    "NO, no, no...." I say, "I do wanna be your friend. It's just.... I was wondering. for no reason." This may not be a fairy-tale, but it is as easy as a fairy-tale! The main character always gets their way, and I'm getting mine. Piece of cake. "Also, I was wondering if you can show me around..... OUR home?"

    I swear, he had the biggest smile on his face when I said our home. it made me almost feel bad for tricking him like this! Then again, he is a serial killer. This is the right thing to do. To be honest, i don't know what i'm doing, but I just 

wanna get out of here. Facts. He starts to unlock the door, and he holds it open for me.

"After you", he says. PERFECT.

    Then, I pushed him back into the room and shut the door. I ran over to the room that Lila went in, and I 

open the door. I see something that i never thought i would see before. I never even brought this into my mind. I see Lila. 

    She is a demon ghost. This is truly not a fairy-tale.

Chapter 6: The Demon Calls 

            ow I get it. all the pieces of this scarring puzzle now fall                  together. Lila knew so much about the house because Alexander told her. Lila said "Old Man Hickor" and not hi real name or explanation for his nickname so that it didn't sound so obvious that she had been in there before. Lila agreed to go into the mansion with me so that she could plot to kill me with Alex. Lila knew his backstory. Lila knew Alexander wanted to kill the next person he saw. But how did Lila become a demon ghost in the first place? Why and how did she muster up the guts to walk into this house the first time anyway?

    Is her entire FAMILY demon ghosts?! 

 Well, her family is just her and Ms. Johansen (her mom), but That'sa lot of monsters. And also, by reading this, you are probably like, "How do you know it was Lila? She is, like, your sidekick! The protagonist! Give her a chance to talk first!!" 

    Funny you mention that, I knew it was Lila because I heard her talking with some other ghost 

(looked like a woman, probably the one who last lived here) and said, "We need you to go recruit more ghosts! I swear, we need this girl dead!"

    And you are also asking, "How do you know that girl they are talking about is you?" Okay, first of all, These people shouldn't be killing anyone. As I said before, it's in the 10 commandments. Thou shalt not kill. But anyway, I knew they were talking about me because she said, "She is