Once upon a time there was a boy named Ali, who was in grade six. One day his class fellows told him about a haunted mansion in their town.

Ali got excited because he wanted to visit a haunted mansion since he was in grade three. So he made a plan to go to the haunted mansion with his class fellows, who lived in the same apartment building, at 3am the very next night. Three in the morning was the spookiest time, that was why he planned to go to the haunted mansion at that time.

His class fellows said, “Ali that is not a great idea because 3am is the spookiest time and we are going to a haunted place.”

Ali replied, “Be brave! Come with me, if it is too scary we will come back home.”

The next day after school ended, they all discussed about the haunted mansion and planned how they would go. Then they all went home and spend the day in the usual manner, playing and studying. But as the night drew nearer, they were all a bit scared at the thought of what they would find there.

Ali woke up a little before three and got ready, as did the rest of the boys too. They then sneaked out of their homes and met outside their apartment. The night watchman was sleeping so he didn’t see the kids sneaking out. They quickly made their way to the haunted mansion. Everyone was scared except Ali, because he was the bravest.

Ali said, “Be brave, don’t be scared. There are no ghosts in real life.”

They entered the spooky mansion and they were welcomed with a spooky surprise. A skeleton with blood fell down from the ceiling, saying, “Welcome to the spooky mansion!”

The kids were so terrified that they couldn’t even scream! They went through a lot of spooky and scary surprises. There were some photo frames which looked normal when they looked at them from the front, but spooky when looking from the sides.

Next they went to the second floor and found more scary surprises. There was a hand that came down from the top and it tried to pull them up. Then a spooky mask popped out from nowhere and scared them very badly, so they went back downstairs.

Now the boys tried to look for a way to get out of the mansion and quickly ran to the door but it was locked.

A robotic voice said, “If you want to go out from the haunted mansion, get the keys from the bucket of eyeballs.”

All the boys looked at each other in horror — none of them had the guts to do it! Then Ali stepped toward the bucket and put his hand in it and found the keys. He then rushed towards the door as the others followed him and opened the lock with the key ­and all ran outside the haunted mansion and kept running till they were at a distance. They then stopped to catch their breath. All of them were angry at Ali for bringing them to this house of horrors.

They all said, “Ali, we will never come with you. We almost died!”

Then one of them happened to glance back in the direction of the spooky mansion and was really shocked. “Look! I don’t believe this!”

When they all turned and looked back, they were shocked too — there was nothing where the spooky mansion should have been. It was an empty space with just an old tree with huge dried branches standing in the middle.

They became more scared and ran all the way home and quietly sneaked back into their homes. They were so tried from their spooky adventure that they fell asleep at once, but not before promising to themselves that they would never go to a haunted place ever in their life.

Published in Dawn, Young World, January 20th, 2018