Who's Afraid of the Dark?

Ember nibbled at her bottom lip as she looked up at the castle towering above her, casting the two lovers in shadow and making it nearly impossible to see anything in front of her face. Her heart was racing in her chest as she appraised the side of the building, wondering how the hell she was going to get inside. She couldn’t see any windows from where she was, given her somewhat poor eyesight that she failed to fix with corrective lenses, and there didn’t appear to be any kind of draining system or fence that she could climb.

“Em,” Niall called out, his voice just above a whisper so she could hear him across the empty space, “Em, over here.”

She glanced over to see him waving frantically toward his direction, looking like a little child that had just found a bit of sea glass after searching through the sand for hours. Sighing to herself, she crossed the bit of grass between them and brought her eyes to look at where he was pointing: a window, probably the height of the two of them standing on each other’s shoulders, hanging partially open. The bricks that led up to it almost seemed to pop out as an easy stepping ladder, although the rest of the castle looked carefully constructed without so much as a speck of mortar out of place.

“Think you can climb up?” Niall questioned. “I’d go in first, but, you know, I have to watch your back and everything.”

She laughed a little bit and nodded, flipping her hair over her shoulder. “Yeah, it should be easy enough. And you always said my rock climbing was for nothing.”

“I still don’t get it. Heights are the worst thing ever,” he defended. “But at least it’s paying off right now.”

She smirked at him for a second before propping her feet up on two of the bricks that were sticking out, quickly grabbing onto two more with her hands to steady herself. She could feel the ridges of the building material ripping into her skin, but she couldn’t let it ruin her concentration. The fall backwards wouldn’t be too pleasant, and she knew that even if Niall did try to catch her, they’d both just end up getting the breath knocked out of them against the hard castle grounds.

“You okay?” Niall called up, his voice slightly muffled like he was cupping his hands around his mouth to work as a makeshift megaphone. “Do you want me to come get you?”

Ember laughed loudly to make sure he heard before shaking her head. “No, I’m alright. One second.”

Once her mind was focused on what she was doing, it only took her a few seconds to finish scaling the wall, swing her leg over the window, and drop down inside of the castle.

The room she’d entered was clearly one that hadn’t seen life in years. Every surface was covered in a layer of dust so thick that Ember couldn’t tell whether the wood that made up the furniture was light or dark. The floorboards under her were ratty and rotting in places, completely out of place in a tourist attraction that needed constant upkeep. They squeaked under Ember’s light weight, screaming and begging for mercy.

“Ember, love,” Niall grunted in a strained voice, “not to be pushy, but I need your help. I’m not as good at this as you are.”

“Oh, sorry,” she chuckled, running over to the window. The windowpane dug into her stomach as she leaned over, extending her arms for her boyfriend to take, bending her knees so her foundation had a little more strength. God forbid she didn’t have a good enough grip on him, and they both ended up flying back out the window. “Niall, will you fucking pull yourself up or something? I can’t do this all by myself. I’m not that buff.”

With another massive heave, Ember managed to pull Niall up into the house, the both of them stumbling backwards and slamming against the dirty, worn hardwood floor.

“Ugh,” Ember groaned, reaching up and touching the back of her head tenderly to make sure there was no blood. “Couldn’t you have been a little more graceful with the landing?”

“Not really,” he laughed, tightening the arm that he had around her torso, pulling her closer to him. “This is kind of cozy, don’t you think?”

“No,” she shot down, throwing his arm off her and climbing to her feet. “It’s nasty in here, and nothing about this is cozy. Only a dumbass would have sex in a place like this.”

Niall snickered as he finally stood up and brushed the dust off his back. “Now that you say it, this room kind of does give me the creeps.”

“Let’s just get to the dining hall and meet the others.” The brunette girl wiped the dust from her palms onto her pants before grasping the handle and yanking as hard as she could. But the door didn’t move. “Um, Niall, I think it’s locked.”

“It can’t be locked,” the blonde muttered, brushing by her. “Here, let me try.”

He wrapped his hand around the handle, the tendons in his hands sticking out from his hard grip, as he jiggled it up and down. Nothing. “Fuck,” he breathed. “Alright, it’s okay. Just look for something around here that we can stick in the space between the door and the frame to undo the lock.”

Ember followed directions, going through the chest of drawers and desk in the room, making a ruckus as she did so, but she couldn’t find a thing that was thin enough to fit into the small space.

“Niall, I can’t…” she trailed off before turning to look at her boyfriend, reaching behind her back to grasp her belt loop to restore her jeans to a more appropriate level from where they’d slipped while she looked for a desired tool.

He was crouched against the door, his ear against the wood, his eyebrows furrowed in concentration. “I think I hear someone,” he whispered, as if to keep the source of the sound from hearing him. “Who entered the castle closest to us?”

“Um…Zayn, Lottie, and Louis, maybe?” she suggested. “I’m not really sure.”

He popped up to his feet and knocked a couple of times as noisily as he could. “Louis! Zayn! We’re locked in here! Help!”

“Niall?” another voice called back, very distinctly Zayn’s Bradford tone. “Hold on, we’ll get you out.”

The blonde Irishman took a step back, clasping his hand around Ember’s. “I have a bad feeling about this,” he mumbled as running steps drew nearer and hurried, frantic voices grew louder.

The sound of someone grabbing the door handle from the outside was fully audible from the inside of the room, and when the couple heard the door get shoved, the lock fell open with a horrible clanging, crashing sound that reverberated throughout the room what seemed like a hundred times, the ever-decreasing echo almost sounding like a distant screech as it diminished.

Ember squealed in shock at the sudden noise, while Niall tightened his grip on her hand. “That was definitely locked from the inside,” Niall mumbled so only she could hear.

His girlfriend nodded mutely, her eyes fixed on Louis and Zayn in the doorway. They both looked frightfully pale, their eyes wide with fear, and Ember noticed that Louis’ hands were shaking, despite the fact they were still wrapped around the handle of the heavy door.

“Hey, are you okay?” Ember asked with a worried tone. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost or something.”

“Ember, that isn’t fucking funny,” Zayn snapped.

“Don’t talk to her like that!” Niall scolded. “She didn’t do anything to you!”

“It’s Lottie,” Louis finally burst out, tears starting to pool in his bright blue eyes.

Ember and Niall shared a look, both of them feeling awful that, in their fright, they failed to notice that Louis’ younger sister hadn’t been among the group. “What happened to Lottie?” Niall demanded. “Did she wander off?”

“Teenagers don’t wander off, Niall,” Louis snapped. “She got dragged through the air, flailing, trying to get free. And then she just…disappeared.”