By Dariga Amalgedina, Y9
He woke up in a massive cottage in the middle of nowhere. It was freezing outside, making you feel like you were somewhere in Antarctica. The man, whose name was Harper, was in complete turmoil as he could not remember how he got here and why. As he was naturally conscientious, he decided to examine the area that he was currently stuck in. The cottage had ripped and unkempt walls the color of dirt, spider webs in every corner, and every room was a complete disaster. What really intrigued Harper was a storage room with nothing but gasoline bottles, however, he decided not to pay much attention to it. After examining the cottage, he sat down on the bed in which he awoke and started imagining every possible thing that might’ve led to him being there: “I am probably just having a bad dream again” or “Maybe this is what happens after death” or even “I’m definitely in a coma”. Later in the day, he started to feel hunger and thirst so he ate some of the rotten food he found in the kitchen’s non-working fridge and drank from the tap. The food in the cupboards and the fridge was pretty sufficient for at least a week so he didn’t worry much about starvation, what he did worry about though was that some of the food he barely touched went missing. This unsettled him, and gave him a feeling as though he was not alone…The 4th day, he noticed a piece of chalk on the floor, and got the idea of writing or drawing on the wall. He drew on his bedroom’s wall and left to the kitchen to get some food. When he came back to his bedroom there was another drawing next to his. His heart was beating so fast at the sight of it but he was determined to find out what was going on so he drew another drawing, left and came back again to find the same thing had happened. This time, he decided to do the same thing but with a question as simple as “What is the color of grass?” to which he got an answer “Green.” There was no doubt that he was not alone all of this time in his cottage. Harper looked around but saw no one. He took the chalk in his trembling hands and wrote “Who are you?” and the answer he got was “Your step-brother”. For a second, he felt happiness at the sight of the answer, but then he remembered that his step brother had died 3 years ago…
