Tunnel

Tunnel

“What are you doing?”

“Quiet,” I hissed. He’s always asking questions and bugging me, I thought to myself as my little brother watched me curiously.

“It’s past midnight.”

“I know,” I growled back as I continued opening the window. It stuck at one point, but I pushed up with all my strength and it finally gave way.

“Are you going back to the tunnel? I want to go with you,” my brother pleaded.

I rolled my eyes. “Shut up and go back to bed.”

“I’ll tell mom if you don’t let me,” he said as he put on his snow boots.

“Fine,” I whispered back. “Grab a jacket and hurry up.”

He stumbled his way to the closet and picked out a large, warm winter coat.

“Now shut up and follow me. If you can’t keep up I’m not waiting for you.”

“Oh-kay.”

It was hard keeping the excitement alive in me with my little brother now following me, but I tried to ignore him, remembering the day before. We had been playing in the wood when we came upon an old shed, at least a couple miles away from our house. Our interest piqued, we quickly figured out a way in, finding it only boring at first with a variety of random tools and other things. But then we noticed the latch in the floor.

It was a square wooden door with a brass ring as a handle. We had to use some of the tools we found in the shed, but finally we had gotten the trap door open. Wooden stairs led down to a dark room, the light only barely touching the ground at some points from the door in the ceiling.

We climbed down into the dank room, filled with little but dust and hay. But at the far end was another wooden door. Neither of us had dared to speak, scared that our voices would anger some dӕmon that lived down there. But slowly we made our way to the door, only to discover that it had an old rusted padlock securing it shut.

“What do you think’s down there?” my brother asked suddenly, knocking my thoughts from their reverie. There had been a set of bolt cutters in the shed, but we feared that our parents would grow suspicious of our long absence, so never saw what was past the door.

“I don’t know,” I whispered, still unwilling to raise my voice even though we were deep in the forest now, our house long behind.

As we walked along, large flashlights bouncing in my coat pockets, I saw my brother skipping along happily beside me and a smile crept on my face. Although I’d never admit it, I was glad he was here with me to discover the secrets behind the door.

Finally, after what seemed like hours, we reached the cabin again. I had handed one of the flashlights to my brother about a mile back and we had used them since then, believing we were far enough away from our house to not be seen with the light.

As the light hit the shed, it looked far more daunting than before. But we continued on, our curiosity out-weighing our fear. Once we were in the hidden room again, my brother shone his flashlight on the lock while I broke it with the bolt cutters from the shed.

The lock came off easily, and we shared a look – a smile on both our faces – before slowly opening the door to see only a tunnel of shadow before us. We shone our flashlights down the passageway and walked in.

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