The Truth by E FromHebs (the reading list book TXT) 📕

to Luke and he flicked through it.

"Do you know what it's about?" he asked

"nope"

I sat down next to him and saw the many diagrams and drawings

"What are they?" I ask

"No idea"

He gave the book back to me, there was a drawing on the page that was open. It was dark, and had writing beside it. The writing was in Spanish, good thing I took Spanish when I was at secondary school.

"This is in Spanish" I say, "It says, 'The darkness, a living nightmare,  disguises itself as a human being, but especially fairy tale characters...'"

"Creepy"

Suddenly, the door bell rang. I went downstairs to look out of the window. A little girl and a little boy stood on the doorstep. The boy was carrying a hand full of breadcrumbs. Hansel and Gretttel.

"No! Don't open the door!" I shouted. Too late.

Taken

Louise flung the door open, a huge smile on her face

"Can I help you both?" she asked in a sweet voice

"We only want you to know the truth" they said, completely in sync

She slammed the door in their faces, looking absolutely petrified

"Go lock all of the windows and doors" she managed to say

We did as she asked. Me and Luke did the top floor, and the rest of them did the bottom.

"So" I say to Luke, who is walking beside me

"So what?" he asked

"I was just thinking of something to say" 

"It's not that awkward, is it? Being here with me?" he asked

"No, but the silence was"

"Nothing to be afraid of"

I had to laugh at that. How could there be nothing to be afraid of? Two fairy tale characters show up at the door disguised as some invisible monster, yeah, not scary at all.

"What are you thinking?" there was curiousness in his voice

"How you said there is nothing to be afraid of, when there is this invisible monster and fairy tale characters"

We walked along for a bit. I could hear the faint tap of the rain and wind on the windows. I counted between every strike of lightning and every rumble of thunder.

"The storm is two miles away" I say. I have never been very fond of storms, ever since that stormy day at pree-school.

"Don't worry" he put an arm around me, "the house is designed to keep many things out, I'm sure it won't mind a bit of lightning"

"Possibly not"

Without any warning, he pulled me into a room that I had never been into before. The walls were painted a navy blue, and in the middle of the room was a large oak double bed, with two china lamps beside it.

"Why are we here?"

"This is our room now" he said proudly

"W-what do you mean?"

"Well, it's our room, to do whatever we want" there was a grin on his face. I lied down on the bed, the mattress sinking below me. Luke lied down with me. All was peaceful.

The door burst open, my eyes flung open. I could faintly see two figures, they walked over to me and grabbed me, dragging me along. I could faintly hear the shouts of Luke's voice, and then it all went black.

Luke's P.O.V

My eyes snapped open when I heard the familiar shout of Lena. I scrambled up out of the bed, I saw a trail of blood leading out of the room. I ran out, Lena was no where to be seen.

"Lena!" I shouted, there was no reply

"Lena!" I tried again. I searched every room of the house, she wasn't there.

I sunk to the ground. She was gone.

Tortured

My throat was dry and sore, like sandpaper. I took in my surroundings. Grey walls everywhere, no daylight, no space to move around. How far away are the walls? I stretched out my arms, I could touch the walls around me. Is this hell? I asked myself. No, because I am obviously still alive. My jeans were torn up, and I could vaguely make out the redness of blood trickling down my arm. I felt the wound, it could have been worse. There was nothing to be heard apart from the distant clanging of metal on metal. I tried to remember the last thing I had seen. I was in the room with Luke, asleep, but then I was being dragged away, by two figures.

"Is anyone there?" I tried to take control of my shaky breath

Suddenly, a bright light came pouring into my eyes. I struggled to see, but then my vision came back into focus. Standing above me, was a girl no older than my age, she had brown curly hair and wore a red overall. Red riding hood.

"Good to see that you're awake" she said, a mocking tone in her voice

"Where a-am I-I?"

"You don't need to know. All that matters is what I need to know"

 "What?"

"Where is the book?"

I kept my lips pressed together

"Now, you can either tell me where the book is, and I will let you go running back to your little boyfriend, or, I can force it out of you"

"Never"

"You useless freak" she spat. She walked away, and then a few seconds later came back with a knife.

"Have you ever heard of plastic surgery?" she asked

I tried to scream, but it was muffled by her hand

"I'm sure you'll love your new look" she smirked as she drove the knife into my cheek.

 

Six weeks later - Luke's P.O.V

I sat at the wooden table, as I have been for the past six weeks, waiting for any news on Lena. None had come. I shouldn't have been so careless, I thought to myself, I shouldn't have left the door unlocked. Will I ever see her again? Were my last words to her, 'I will keep you safe'? I couldn't bare the thought of he being dead, or even worse. There was a knock at the door.

"Come in" I say

Saphire walked in and sat on the chair opposite me.

"Any news?" the slightest of hope rose in my voice

"I'm sorry"

"Well then how will we find her!?"

"I don't know"

I felt my eyes well up with tears, No, I mustn't cry, we will get her back. What would be the point in killing her straight away, if she was the one that had the book? She is still out there somewhere, I just know it, she is alot stronger than she thinks.

"Do you think that she is still alive?" I ask

"I have hope, but after six weeks, I honestly do not know"

"There must be some lead, something to work on"

"We've tried-"

"Have you tried her addresses, postcodes, anything!"

"Most things, apart from-"

"What?"

"Her postcode"

"So we still have a chance!" I jumped out of my seat in joy

"Maybe, but. Luke, it's just a postcode"

"That's what we thought when Tarragon went missing, but we used her mobile number to find a date and and a time, and then her address"

"For your sake, I hope we find her soon"

We went into the dining room, where the big map was laid out across the table, with a thousand notes, annotations and writing all over it.

"What's this?" I ask

"All of our attempts to find Lena"

"You really have been trying"

"Yeah"

She handed me a notepad and a pen

"What was her postcode?"

"Um" she searched through the notepad, "here, IL69 3AS"

I tried unscrambling the letters over and over, none of it made any sense, there was only one combination i hadn't tried. I wrote it down, success!

693 SAIL

Again

This has now been happening for six weeks straight, the same routine every day, lying here, in a damp dark agony chamber, waiting for somebody, anybody, to come. They never do. The food it gives is, well, I think it's cat food, but I can't be sure. Everyday it looks different, asks me where the book is. Of course, I don't answer, so I get tortured. The saying, "there are worse things than death", I never used to believe that, now I know it's true.

What if they have given up on me, simply just let me go. After all, who would put their own life at risk for someone that they just met?

The light poured into me eyes again, today it looked like Grandma. It still won't convince me, I made a promise to Avril, and I wasn't going to break it now.

"So", it said, "have you thought about your answer?"

I kept still, I find that's the best thing to do. She slapped me, hard.

"I will come back in 1 hour"

She went away, slamming the door behind her.