The Thing

The Thing by Jabari Stephen, age 12

It was 3:00 AM and I was out with my friends. My friend, Mark, had heard of a haunted library, and wanted to check it out. My friends were down, and I was, too. Mark found the address and we approached the door. We opened the door to see a huge library. It smelled like something had died. That’s when it hit me: one of my friends had gone missing a few years back in high school. I took a step and stepped on a piece of paper. I picked it up. It said, “DON’T MAKE NOISE. The code is 538.” And that’s where it cut off. I tried to leave the building, but the doors were locked. It had a padlock. I put in 538, but there’s one more. Then a figure came and started making noise. I had to run. I looked back and got a clear look at him. By the time I processed all of that in my head, I felt hands on me—he had me in his grasp. I was done for. Its front teeth were about to behead me. Then, I woke up. Was it a dream? But it felt so real. I went to my mirror and . . . had bite marks on my neck.To this day, I don’t know what happend. I still speculate if dreams can be real . . . ? I covered up my neck and went to breakfast. My brother looked shaken. “I had the weirdest dream,” he said. “I couldn’t see anything. It’s like I had no eyes. And then I woke up with hair in my mouth.”I went outside to the living room. The news was on. There was a report about connected nightmares. People have been reporting that they’re having connected nightmares with the people around them. I called my brother over and told him to look at the TV. He came over and heard the report. He looked at me without a clue. “That’s what we just had!”

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