The lights flickered in the room. No one seemed to notice.
It was a nice evening in the middle of the summer holiday. The sky was clear, and millions of stars shone brightly all over it, but not overshining the crescent moon. The air was hot and steamy in the evening, too. Two girls were chatting outside, on the balcony of a big house that stood alone at the edge of a beautiful but dark forest. It was quiet and relaxing.
"Hey, by the way, thank you for letting me hang out at your place for a whole week!" Cora said.
"Of course! I mean, we are like besties! Besides, I need some break from these two idiots," Sarah answered, referring to her brothers, who, in fact, could be really annoying. Their parents decided to visit a distant relative on the other side of the country and Sarah and the boys didn't want to go, so they will be alone for a few days.
"Soo..." Cora asked, "what are we going to do for four days?"
"I actually don't know...yet. But we can go have a picnic tomorrow, you know, for starters. I think the weather will be just fine."
"That's a great idea!" agreed Cora. They continued stargazing in quiet, looking for shooting stars, but just after a minute, they heard loud thumping on the stairs. It was getting louder, followed by another person.
"Look what I found! Look what I found! "Cole, Sarah's younger brother kept shouting, with great excitement in his voice.
"Well, damn , here we go again." Sarah sighed.
"Can't you give us a break?!" she said louder, a bit angrily, but they stood up to go inside.
"Every damn time I try to be alone, he finds me with something. Little siblings are so annoying!" she complained.
Cora chuckled. She was an only child, so she never knew what it was like to live together with two boys, but she had a 5-year-old nephew, so she could imagine. Then Cole bursted into the room, followed by Damian, who was supposed to play with his ten year old brother.
"Look what I found!" Cole said proudly, holding up an old, bit rusty-looking key.
"A key?" Sarah asked confusedly.
"You interrupted us just because you found a key?!" She shook her head. "Unbelievable," she muttered.
"Well, what does it open?" Cora asked curiously and took the key to take a look at it, to examine it. It was black as night, with silver lines on it. Cora realised they formed a short text, but it looked like it was written in another language. She could't translate it. It was written in cursive, and some words she could make out looked like italian, but she wasn't sure. Sarah was opening her mouth, but Damian was faster.
"We don't know, " He claimed.
"I mean there aren't any doors in this house that are old enough for this key." He said.
"We checked every room, but it wasn't good for any of them!" Cole added.
The four of them stood in the middle of the room, thinking. Cora visited them many times before, and there wasn't a room she hadn't been in. She just kept looking at her friends, to see if they figured something out. The moon was shining into the room, and a cold breeze came through the open window. The wind ruffled Cora's short black hair a bit. She slightly shivered and put her hands in her pockets. She looked around but it seemed like none of her friends noticed the cold breeze. Then Sarah gasped, like she just realised something.
"No, you are wrong. There is one door you haven't checked."
"The attic." Damian said, and Cora could have sworn she heard fear in his voice.
"But...that has never been opened since we moved here. We don't even know what is there," Cole whispered.
"Eh, probably some old crap that mom and dad put there when we moved here." Sarah said with a shrug. Then Cora came up with an idea:
"Maybe, you could try and open the attic door and see what is there? What could possibly happen?"-she laughed nervously.
"That is not--" Damian started, but he was interrupted by his sister.
"Cole, isn't it past your bedtime already? You should be in bed at-she looked at her watch-11 pm now!"
"Please, please, please!" Cole begged. "Just a look inside! I won't be able to sleep out of curiosity! Pretty please!" he looked up at his older siblings with his irresistible puppy eyes. Sarah and Damian looked at each other as if they were having a conversation with their eyes, then gave in.
"Alright, fine!" Sarah sighed. " We can take a look inside." she smiled. After all, she seemed quite excited, too.
"Yayy!!" Cole yelled, and ran out of the room. Sarah went after him and they could hear her warning her little brother: "Not so fast on the stairs!".
Cora was just standing there, unsure what to do, even though she was the one who suggested the idea in the first place. She and Damian looked at each other. She blushed. Cora had always looked at Damian as some sort of a big brother figure when she was younger, because she was an only child, but as she grew older, she always caught herself watching him from a safe distance, and now she found him quite cute. They have known each other for more than ten years, but she still didn't tell Sarah about this. Sooner or later she will have to, but not this time. She couldn't hold eye-contact anymore. She gripped the key so hard it almost felt like it was cutting into her hand. Damian held out his hand, waiting.
"You coming, Cory?" he asked. " Cory ". He started calling her Cory the moment they met, and the nickname stuck to her, and then all three children started to call her that. Cora actually liked it, especially from him.
"Yeah, comin'!" she said finally, then she put the key into his hand and stormed out of the room. She was a little tense from the contact. Cora ran upstairs, and Damian followed her, calmly walking. Then they walked towards Sarah and Cole at the end of the corridor. They looked rather defeated as they looked at them. Cora and Damian looked up, just to see a ladder folded on the ceiling.
"We can't reach it," Sarah stated the obvious with an annoyed tone in her voice. "Dami, please get it down!"
"Yeah I can see that!" Damian laughed as he simply reached up, and started unfolding the ladder.
"Watch out!" he warned the others as he put the end of the ladder on the floor. Damian went first, because he had the key. Cora went right after him, then Cole, and Sarah. As she started to walk up on it, Cora started shivering again. She couldn't explain why, but as she got closer to the attic, she suddenly had a very bad feeling about this whole thing they were about to do. Seriously, opening a door in another house that hasn't been opened for more than ten years? Who knows what is in there? She would have preferred to back out of the whole thing, but after all it was her idea and everyone was so excited. Besides, it's just a bad feeling and you don't base anything on a bad feeling. Damian put the key into the lock smoothly.
"Well, the moment of truth!" he said with a laugh as he turned the key without any struggle and pushed the door open.
Not surprisingly it was pitch black inside. He stepped in and Cora followed him.