Urban legend - The Graveyard Bet.

I am no longer friends with them now after that horrible day of the 14th of March. It all started when I was invited to a party. I love parties, especially the food and dancing but this party had a surprise. We played a game, not hide or seek or a babyish game like that; we played Truth or Dare. It was all right until it came up to my turn. They decided that we were now just going to play 'Dare'. They dared me to go into the old haunted ghost house. I couldn't refuse with all my friends around me so I reluctantly agreed.

A chill went down my back as I walked up to the haunted house. Flashes of stories of children never coming out travelled to my head. I kept saying to myself that they were rumours from friends and were not true. I thought of how Sarah and Michael must have told everyone my secret that I had once seen someone around the haunted ghost house and got frightened for weeks as a result.

I reached the door in which graffiti was written all over it. My friends, including Sarah and Michael, stayed outside leaving me all alone to go in. I put my torch on as I walked across the corridors.

The floors creaked and water was dripping down. I followed the old signs directing the way out. I wanted to run to the way out but I couldn't because everyone would know and would call me chicken.

I moved along slowly; everything was silent. Then suddenly the machines started to work. "Who is it?" I said; still there was silence. "It must be Sarah and Michael trying to scare me," I said. "Or is it?" Skeletons were popping out screaming. The once silent atmosphere was turned into a frightening nightmare come true.

My head ran wild again with visions of stories and movies like where the main character dies. I calmed myself thinking that its nonsense. I kept my mind on other things like how Sarah and Michael were horrible to tell my secret and how when this ordeal was over, I was going to break up with them...

The electricity in the ghost house was flickering, which brought a shiver down my back. I kept my mind on other things and I walked on. Suddenly, out of the blue, I heard talking in the distance it sounded like Sarah, "who is it I screamed?" "Who are you?" still there was silence. My torch went out; I tried to knock it to start but it wouldn't start. The flickering light from the ghost house was my only guide. Suddenly, the lights went out; I felt my leg being pulled it was stuck. I tried to tug it out but it wouldn't come. I shouted for the others but they didn't come.

To my joy, the electricity came on again. I looked down and there on the table was a note saying, "Walk to the left room", "Was it a joke?" I whispered to myself. I gathered up all my courage and turned to the left room. My cheeks were stone white. "Who wrote the letter? Is it my friends or perhaps the person I saw here when I was younger". The room was as black as midnight. My heart was beating faster and faster. The lights came on and there, standing in the middle of the room, was my dead mother.

There was silence and a big white light shined into the room. Who was it? What was it? No one knew and still, after fifteen years after the disaster no one went up that hill until....

Most ghost stories end like this but mine doesn't. As I wrote before, mine is unique and my own. My story is the truth; it is not some wild fantasy devised to scare people with. Mine really did happen. The story is personal to me and saying it to anyone makes me appear insane to the outside world. I guess it does seem unbelievable in retrospect. The images of that night of the 14th of March still haunt. This will be the only time I will tell my story; it will be my last confession before I die.

As I write this in my dying days, I am hoping that you will never feel the need to show courage, as I did to my friends, because the results may not be what you expect. That night I lost my friends and my sanity.