The Creepy Challenge

“The Creepy Challenge” is one of the outstanding stories of the first biannual International Short Story Contest 2018 written by Samudrika Gopinath, Oakridge International School, Bangalore, India.

The Creepy Challenge

SAM TV conducted a challenge and many people wanted to go for the challenge, but unfortunately the judges had to select only 7 of them. The lucky people who got selected were Raviish, Pranav, Naren, Sid, Manath, Tanvee and Sunidhi. The challenge was to go to a creepy and haunted castle named The Death Castle and find out whether there were ghosts in that castle or not. The media and citizens say that whoever goes inside DIES. They have to stay there for 5 days and if they want to quit, they have to quit before the morning of the 3rd day. So, the deadline to quit is 2nd day night. They cannot give up after that.

Everybody was introduced to each other. The person who created the challenge was the creative artist Sandiv. He told some important rules and points. 1st point was that there will be cameras everywhere in the castle to know what they are doing. 2nd point was that Sandiv can see what they are doing in live. The other one was a rule and point. The rule is they shouldn't go the 3 places in the castle:1.The well, 2.The stairs which lead to other 5 rooms, 3.The King Raja’s room. The point here was if they go to those places there is a possibility that they may DIE. They were all ready and set to go. The next morning, at 10:00 AM, they left to the castle. It took them about 11 hours to reach the castle……..the time passed. They finally reached. They glanced at the gate and saw a watchman standing. He was creepy. Naren said that he might have been the ghost who is roaming around in the castle. Tanvee interrupted that in these 5 days they’ll find out who the ghost is. The castle looked huge, creepy and haunted.

It was 9:00 Pm, so Manath went into the kitchen to cook something. She saw many containers to cook in. She went to the basin to wash her hands. She opened the tap and saw a ghost’s hair coming out that was flying in the air. The other six were inside the castle looking at the other rooms. Manath screamed so loud that all the six came running to the kitchen to see what’s wrong. She slowly took big steps and came back. They all came and asked what was wrong. She told us what she saw. Raviish boldly went forward and opened the tap and nothing came out of it. Raviish told her “Look Manath there’s nothing, don’t worry, it was just a dream” but that was actually real. Manath told “Don’t you people believe me. I told I saw it with my eyes.” Sunidhi told don’t worry, we’ll find out what's the reason. Tanvee sat next to her and told her not to cry. They made the food together. They were done and while eating, Naren saw something that passed so fast that it was not clear at all. He did not tell anyone about it since he knew that no one would believe him. They slept in their own rooms.

Sunidhi slept immediately and when she woke up half way, she looked up and saw a ghost facing her. The ghost’s face was covered with blood and her hair was all open. There was a sudden breeze that made the vase on the table break. The windows moved back and forth. She screamed loudly and everybody came in. They were all scared to see what was happening in the castle, so they decided to sleep in the same room. Finally, the 1st day was over.

The 2nd day started. That was the day when they could decide if they wanted to quit the challenge or not. They all woke up, took showers and had breakfast. Later, they decided to go to the village and ask anyone if they knew more about the castle. They asked many people and they all had their own opinions and stories about it. But the 7 of them didn’t believe anyone. By the time they went to the castle, the sun started setting. They had to search in different places for things which look suspicious in the castle. Until it became night, they all were searching. Today they decided to sleep in Sid’s room. They were all on the bed and were playing 7 up game. Sid saw a ghost in the corner of the room and slowly told everybody in a soft voice. They all looked at the ghost. Its eyes were wide open, wore black dress, put hair open and red eye balls. They were holding each other and closed their eyes tightly. After a few minutes, they opened their eyes. They didn’t see anything in the room. After a while, they saw the ghost sitting on the bed which they were too sitting on. They shouted out loud and went to Pranav’s room. Manath started to cry and asked if they could give up the challenge. But they managed to convince Manath to stay there. They all slept quite well that night. The 2nd day was over and there came the 3rd day.

They as woke up as usual, took showers, cooked food together and ate them. Until evening they were trying to be proactive and they tried to make themselves busy somehow. Pranav had an idea to check whether there were ghosts or not. He had a machine with which he could detect ghosts. He went all around the castle. The machine showed that there was a ghost inside the King Raja’s room. They all wanted to go inside the room which they were not supposed to. They opened the room with a key and went in. The room was bigger than all the other rooms. They found a golden and shining book in the room. Sid took it and started reading it. It said the King’s daughter had a dream in which she saw a handsome guy. And she was waiting for him to come in reality and marry her. She waited for three years but he didn’t come. So she decided to suicide. Now, if a guy came there and she liked him then she would marry him or if she didn’t like the she would kill them.

They understood the whole thing and kept the book aside. They left the room and locked it the way it was before. They fell asleep soon because they were tired. The 3rd day was over and the 4th day started. They were ready and all set. They started to play cricket because Naren got the cricket set to play. Sid hit a sixer and the ball went and fell near the stairs which leads another 5 rooms. They told Raviish and Tanvee to go and get the ball because they were the closest. When he first saw the ball, it was on the 1st step. He turned and spoke to Tanvee but when he bent down to pick the ball up, he saw that the ball was next to his leg. He was wondering how the ball came next to his leg. He went and gave ball to them and started playing again. It was night and everybody went to sleep.

At 12:10 Raviish got up and he went towards the stairs where the ball fell. He put a ball on the step and turned back. He turned front and saw the ball if it was there. Tanvee came running and asked what he was doing there. He told her about the ball. She asked whether it was the breeze that pushed the ball or not. But he replied saying that there was no air at that point of time. Raviish said that he had a brother named Chinmay who had come here for investigating but eventually died. Raviish saw Chinamy’s dead body in the well. They both went and looked inside the well saw nothing, not even water. Tanvee was sleepy so she went back to sleep.

But Raviish went inside the well and found a door. He opened it and it looked like a tunnel which was so short that he had to crawl. He went deep inside and saw a door to his left side. He tried to open but it didn’t open. He took a thick stick which was next to him and slammed it to open the door. He went inside. It looked like a hospital. He saw a refrigerator which had different organs in a bag and was all frozen. He saw another refrigerator which had the same things but was written to sell before 12th of December. He got to know that somebody was killing people to take their organs and sell it in the market. He wanted to go out and immediately found one. But before leaving he saw a phone which Raviish had given to Chinmay on his birthday. He took the phone along with him. He went out and ran to the castle.

The phone was out of charge so he started charging it. Tanvee heard the sound of his footsteps and came out to see what Raviish was doing. She asked him what had happened. He explained everything he saw. They were waiting for the phone to turn on. They unlocked it and saw two videos. They eventually understood that Pranav was a doctor who was Chinmay’s friend and that he was the one who was responsible for the death of his brother. Raviish also told that there he saw a list of people’s names, photograph and organs to take and sell. And he also saw that the names included Sid and Manath.

They went to sleep but they see only them in the room which means Pranav had already taken Sid and Manath to that place. Raviish ran to the place. He rescued Sid and Manath and killed Pranav. Tanvee, Naren and Sunidhi were extremely scared about what would happen to the 4 of them. Later Raviish, Manath and Sid came to ask what had happened. Raviish and Tanvee explained everything that happened.

It was the 5th day. They had to leave the castle. They packed everything and were set to go. They went to the gate and the watchman asked them where they were leaving to. Sunidhi said that they were going back. The watchman opened the gate and said a goodbye to them. They also waved back at him. Finally they all proved that there were no ghosts because actually the ghosts thing and the book inside the King’s room was all Pranav’s creation to make them feel frightened. They reached their city. The creative artist Sandiv the great asked them how their experience was and everybody had different opinions about their life.