There’s a Monster in the Basement!

"You quickly gather and turn around the wall. But you hear a… noise… inside. A crate starts shivering, as the lid explodes. A BEAVER JUMPS OUT!” Bodhi’s red freckles and hair glinted more than ever. We - Carl, Alexey, Ian, and I - were sitting on a rectangular, wooden table staring at Bodhi, playing the world’s greatest roleplay game: Dungeon’s & Dragons (D&D), where our imagination was everything. Carl’s parents hosted our heartfelt reunion. Let the game begin!

Though we were experienced, a turn took 10 minutes. Alexey was distracted by his new iPhone he got for Christmas, taking ‘uncensored’ photos of our faces. Even when his favourite animal, beavers, were mentioned, Alexey’s eyes were glued to the screen. Therefore, the 4 hours of D&D our parents had set aside for us ended in 40 minutes as Alexey skipped his turn in favour of posting his images on Instagram. Bodhi started playing with the pull switch light to escape boredom. 

He pulled it on. “I have an idea!” He pulled it off. “I lost my idea.” 

Carl’s Central Bearded Lizard, Bullybob, stared on. Then, rain tapped the house’s roof. Carl got up and headed downstairs into the abyss of the basement, where he grabbed a torch and beckoned us to sit down.

Carl’s voice shook, his round eyes even rounder. “I’ve got something to tell you. A dark secret about our house…”

We leaned forward. “Tell us more!”

Carl lowered his voice. “The entire block has a secret tunnel installed underneath their houses, used as air-raid shelters in World War II.” 

I hope they are taking this in.

“It was never used. Still… It's worth an adventure of its own.” He then shone his flashlight on his chin, giving his blue eyes a dangerous yellow tint. “BOO!”

At that moment, Bullybob the lizard snuck upon Ian’s back, clawing his way up his clothes. Ian’s face immediately contorted, furrowing and his mouth screaming.

“Gerroff me, gerroff me!”

Carl ignored him. “Let’s go!”

Ian lifted a heavy trapdoor to the tunnels, an abyss into nothing stretching to the horizon. I jumped down and pulled the light. A faint humming echoed through the dark, as a metallic squeak jumped out, lights, one by one, flickering on. The tunnels stretched on, endless, a cavern of concrete, a series of arched crumpled paper with coffee stains.

Bodhi’s hand trembled with adrenaline, snatching a headlamp from Carl’s hand and jumping from the ladder without turning on the lights. The sound of his footsteps drifted to a point of no return. “Where is Bodhi?” Alexey kept insulting him on what he was going to do to him if he refused to come out “THIS INSTANT!” At last, we decided to send out a rescue party to recover the missing Bodhi.

With only 2 headlamps to go around, Ian and Alexey volunteered to go find Bodhi, Alexey going one way (towards Bodhi) while Ian took another. Carl went to find more headlamps and I jumped down to follow the trio without lights.

“Don’t worry Ian, there isn’t anything here but an infinite tunnel.” Ian refused to go in front of me, let alone allow me to use his headlamp. As we descended down into the tunnels, the air immediately turned into a thick warm blanket of something vaguely metallic. Shadows flickered from the lamplights, and the underground breeze seemed to whisper.

Ian shook his head. “Nothing. I hope Alexey has better luck finding Bodhi.” But at that instant, when Ian shifted his foot, I heard a floating, twisted whisper. “Ein… Help me…”

I took a sharp turn to Ian. “IAN! Did you hear that?!”

Ian’s ears twitched. “Ian? Me? Help you? You don’t need helping. Plus, you don’t need to whisper. I’m right next to you.”

“Well, whatever! I don’t want to be in this tunnel any longer.”

Sprinting back, we saw Alexey’s headlamp on the floor in front of us, as the heavens shook. Dust rained from the ceiling, as a result of shaking vibrations. The whispers grew louder with every vibration and flickering light.

Ian’s face was drained of colour. “IS THAT AN EARTHQUAKE? OR A SHOCKWAVE THROWING MONSTROSITY? A MONSTER? RUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUNN!”

He let out a mixture of gurgling horror, teeth chattering. Ian bolted faster than Usain Bolt, jumping into Carl’s house, banging his fists to pulp on Carl’s parents’ room. Carl’s mother appeared to Ian’s exclamation. “There’s…There’s a monster in the basement! A monster that sends the whole earth shaking! Call the police, call my mother!”

Carl’s mother responded. “There, there, the tunnels may have rats and cockroaches, but that’s all.”

Ian’s eyes turned square. “THAT’S EVEN MORE TERRIFYING!”

He dropped on the deck and flopped like a fish.

Meanwhile, in the tunnels, I was still contemplating the fact that Ian had left me behind. However, that meant that the only thing that kept me from breaking, his headlamp, was gone. Thanks to the dark and damp tunnel, my new yellow shorts must have lost their charm. By chance, I trekked to a lit clearing where I saw Bodhi singing a lullaby to his rock friends, having been a horror movie aficionado, while Alexey was playing ‘animal hand shadows’ against torchlight. “Oh Bodhi Jr, you’re so lucky to have such a handsome father looking after you.” He saw me. “Oh Ein! Welcome to Camp Isolation!” I stared. “Bodhi, you’ve been too long from civilization.”

After retracing footprints and a miracle or two, we gathered at the foot of the trapdoor. 

“Let us out!” Carl’s ears twerked up. 

“Trapdoors talk now?” 

Still, he released the trapdoor to find… 3 pairs of eyes staring back at him in the dark. His eyes popped out of its sockets. 

“AAAAAH!”

He dropped the trapdoor on our heads and he joined Ian in rolling on the floor. Our voices sang in soprano. “OOUUCHH!” Bodhi had caught the trapdoor with his head allowing us to clamber out. We joined Carl and Ian in the Great Marathon of Rollin’ ‘Round the Floor.

My mother had arrived just on time to pick me up. As I stared out of the car window, all my thoughts were attracted to my Tom Sawyer adventure today, more thrilling than our D&D adventure. My life is always filled with boredom, but when my friends are around, boring moments are erased from our world. The pale-faced Ian parachuted into my brain. I believe he is going to launch a ‘basement investigation’, pressing his ears to the floor and poking a hole in every crevice.

P.S. The ‘monster and the earthquake’ was from Carl dropping all his torches.