The 7th Sense

“The 7th Sense” is one of the outstanding stories of the first biannual International Short Story Contest 2018 written by Aayushi Chawla, Jss International School, UAE.

The 7th Sense

“I swear to God”- she said, looking down towards her little sister, a hint of more than annoyance in her voice due to the fact that simple stepping stones frightened her sister enough to need assistance. The younger girl was obviously too scared to climb the foot of the hill alone and her aid was just peering from above. A call from the top of the hill stating the shortage of time they had made the elders sisterly instinct kick in, ultimately providing the younger the assistance she needed. The harshly cold winds didn’t help the situation of the five kids, blowing across their cheeks with speckles of rain and dew. The cloudy sky overshadowed the light of the great goddess Selene, just having left a greater shadow when Apollo was dominating the territory of Zeus.

Their trek into the forest began with a tiny squabble, only so much organization was expected from this tiny lot but it proved devastating.

“Who lost the map?”

“Not me- I think it was Shea!”

“Stop pointing fingers guys-”

“It was with you before we left”

“How about we split up and look for the fort?” a booming voice said, standing out amongst the gibberish thrown around by the other frantic voices every few seconds. “I second that” two other voices exclaimed, leaving the majority vote for a solution to fall towards the other’s side. “Ok then” Sam said, her sister clinging to her side. “So… Sam, you search that direction with your sister while I will search the other way, got it?” Shea said, hoping that there was no opposition from her friend. “I think it would be better if-”, a sudden interruption of three sets of footsteps running towards the other direction left her with no choice but to look for the fort alone with her sister.

She could hear faint singing among the chirping of the crickets among the trees, she brushed them off as fragments of her imagination.

Sam, slowly wandering with her torch and her sister by her side pondered about the strange behavior of her three friends when her thoughts were interrupted by her sister.

“I regret wanting to come here, I thought it was going to be a fun treasure hunt or something not a scary and cold walk through the forest to look for some haunted fort or whatever.”

She could clearly hear the fear in her sister’s voice, her sister had nagged them all day just to come on this treasure hunt along with us once she found out we were doing this. Coming to think of it, the other three had also nagged her to come along with them to look for this ‘haunted’ fort.

“Is that it?” her sister said, pointing out towards a wooden structure covered in vines and foliage, appearing to have inscriptions scribbled all over it.

“hmm… probably not, it doesn’t really look like a fort ”

“Let’s take a look at it, I hope this is it because I want to get out of here as soon as possible” her sister said, hoping that she would consider her acquisition.

The two girls entered the wooden house and took a closer look at the inscriptions dotted all over one of its inner walls. “ aur utter blasphemy herald with shijon’, the next line says ‘thirteen flabbagaters cartilages coffee folds the of’’ her little sister said with a little laugh escaping her lips.

“That makes no sense whatsoever, look at this line ‘window elves flip toss miss match recreation territory’, scribbling’s of a maniac I swear!” she exclaimed with slight amusement.

“Nonsensical Latin would’ve been better…”

Tick tock

“Did you hear that?”

Tick tock

“No, what was it?’

Tick tock

“It’s the sound of a clock”

Tick tock

“Yea, so what?”

Tick tock

“There is no clock in this room-“

Tick tock

“It must be your watch or something-“

Tick tock

“I don’t have a watch!”

Tick tock

“Is there someone with us in this room?” she said, noticing that the rugged curtains could easily conceal a human.

“CAAARRLLYYY, SAAAM STAY EXACTLY WHERE YOU ARE! THERE IS A GHOST HERE!” she heard her Maria’s voice say, utterly petrified. “What should we do?” her sister inquired, but ran outside of the wooden house hoping that she would follow. Just as she tried to stop her sister from running away and leaving her behind, the door closed in front of her.

“Tick tock, tick tock, did you notice me?” she heard three voices say in coalition. “What the hell are you guys doing here? Weren’t you upstairs a second ago Maria?” The girl said with three bodies approaching her, one of them bearing a knife.

“C’mon guys, l-let’s just get out of here together, we are all friends, right?” The girl said hoping the only logical conclusion of the situation wouldn’t occur. It suddenly ticked, the other three had got her to enter the fort so that they could kill her, all they needed was to separate her from her sister, hence the impending scream about a nonexistent ghost. She was wearing a watch which would explain the ticking sound and their sudden departure from her would support her theory.

“Oh really, we should just run out of here like your feeble little sister. What was her name again? Carlo?”

“It’s Carly, not carlo”

“Goodbye now…”

“Please don’t”