Who's Afraid of the Dark?

Zayn swallowed hard as he stood in the center of the dining room, his hands resting on the back of an old wooden chair. “Guys, what do you think happened to Lottie?”

Liam shrugged. “You don’t think that she’s just wondered off to play a game of hide and seek, do you? I mean, she is the youngest out of all of us. Maybe she’s just playing a practical joke to scare the piss out of us.”

“I honestly don’t think she would do that,” Louis said quickly. His voice was frantic and low as he considered the different possible things that could have happened to his younger sister. “Do you honestly think that me and Zayn would just make something up about her being snatched out of the year? Do you think I’m that much of an arse?”

Around them, the lights of the dining room flickered. How the lights had managed to continue to work after years of abandonment was something that Zayn thought was extremely mischievous. He shivered and moved to zip his jumper up, but his hands were frozen in place. “It was terrifying. I could hear the screams from where I was.”

“What even happened?” Ember asked softly.

He shrugged. “I honestly don’t know. I was with Louis and Lottie one minute and when I turned around, I was alone in a corridor and nothing looked familiar. It was awful. Like in Scooby Doo when the pictures move to watch you and their eyes follow. It felt like something was watching me the entire time I was alone. And then I heard Lottie’s screaming and I tried to find my way back. I tried to run through the corridors but it was like every step I took, I took three back. I couldn’t move no matter how hard I tried to run.”

Zayn took a deep breath and forced eye contact with Louis. “It wasn’t until I heard the screaming stop that I found my way back to Louis. Then we met here and waited with the lights on, too afraid to do anything else.”

Louis nodded in agreement.

Niall frowned. “What should we do? We can’t really go looking for her. We could all get lost and then we’d who knows what would happen.”

Sophie took a deep breath. “What if Leap Castle really is haunted? What if it’s full of ghosts and demons like man at the tavern said?”

Anise rolled her eyes. “Honestly, I don’t think it’s haunted. I think that Lottie and Zayn and Louis are just pulling our legs and freaking us out on purpose.”

“Then where the hell is my sister, dammit!” Louis stood suddenly and slammed his fists down onto the table. The contents on the table top rattled from the force behind his fists and they all jumped back from their positions around the table. Liam rested a hand on his friends’ shoulder. Louis took a deep breath. “If this were a joke, do you think I would be this worried about her? Do you think that I would play it up this much if it were a fucking joke?”

Zayn let himself fall into one of the chairs, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “Can we just all sit down and take a deep breathe? Charlotte’s missing and no one knows where she is. We don’t know what’s wrong with this house because everywhere we turn, everything changes. The hallways change, the stairs change, everything is different.”

“We can split up and go in pairs of two to find Charlotte. Everyone who paired up earlier can pair up again, but Zayn and Louis can pair up,” Ember said quietly. “I don’t like the idea of splitting up more than two people because that’s risky. We all know how Scooby Doo worked out.”

Louis huffed angrily. “Then let’s get started. I can’t stand to think of where she is and what’s happening to her right now.”

Zayn nodded and stood, waiting for Louis to follow him. They fell in together as they walked past the front entrance and stood at the foot of the stairs, breathing heavily in fear. They looked up the stairs and frowned. “Everyone else went into the other directions. I guess we’ll be taking the stairs.”

Nodding, Louis marched up the stairs with Zayn traveling behind him. The creaking and moaning of the old and rotting wood filled their ears and their heads until the sound turned into the heavy screaming of a young girl. They turned around quickly, hearing the direction of the screaming. “Lottie?!”

Louis bounded up the stairs, leaving Zayn in a hailstorm of dust. He turned his gaze over his shoulder before he quickly trailed after Louis, standing at the junction of four different hallways, all of which echoed the panicked screams of Louis’ younger sister. He continued to shout her name repeatedly until he paused. “Which hallway?!”

Fine tuning his ears, Zayn closed his eyes momentarily. “Left.”

And before Zayn could respond, Louis sprinted down the hallway, his torch light faint as it reached the end of the hallway. Lottie’s screaming ceased and Zayn felt the darkness close around him as his torch light flickered and his breath pooled around his face. He turned quickly as the torch light went out. “Lou? Louis?”

There was no response and he no longer saw the faint light of his friends’ torch at the end of the left hallway. His throat felt tight as he tried to swallow his anxiety.

Zayn Javadd Malik was alone.

Who know he was afraid of the dark?