BELL- by I. Rufilanchas and A. Ibáñez

Here's another story in our Halloween series. This story is the result of a creative writing project in which our students were asked to write a horror story set at our school, transforming our safe surroundings into unsettling places where the creepiest, most dangerous things could happen. 

Will the students manage to run away from the monster who is threatening their lives? Read the following story to find out...

BELL

Once upon a time, there was a group of friends whose names were Emmet, Alice, Cobo, Africa, Miriam and Noah. They had known each other for ten years as they had been going to the same school- a very peaceful, well-known and strict school.

One day the six friends got locked inside their classroom after everyone else had left. The minutes felt like hours! It was unbearable for them. It was 3 in the morning when Alice woke the rest up, because she felt as if someone was watching them and she couldn’t sleep. She started to worry and shouted, “Wake up, wake up!!!”

The rest of the group told Alice to shut up when all of a sudden the lights went off.

One minute later, Alice wasn’t in the classroom anymore, and a message was written on the board. The message said: “If you want Alice back you’ll have to get a bat”. They didn’t understand what it could mean and started to panic, not knowing what to do.

Five minutes later, they heard the bell ring and the lights went off again. When the light came back, they found Alice’s dead body where she had been at the beginning. A note was written with blood on her jeans. It said: “This is just the beginning.”

They all started to run from one side of the classroom to another, thinking about what they could do. Time was passing, and they didn’t know what to do. Suddenly, the bell rang again and they all ran to the same corner. The door opened. They were all scared to death, and suddenly an enormous shadow was projected on the wall. In less than a minute, they all lost consciousness and when they woke up again Emmet wasn’t there, and another message was found. This time it said: “If you want Emmet again, you'll have to make a train”.

After a few minutes thinking, Cobo remembered that a month before they had made a train for art and fortunately the train was in the classroom, but then Cobo remembered that it was Emmet who had it in his locker. They all started to worry and suddenly Africa started to say numbers out loud, the same combination, constantly. Cobo tried the combination on Emmet’s locker and it worked! The locker opened. They all asked Africa why she hadn't told them before and she said the she didn’t know the right combination, but she remembered that someone had told her while they were all sleeping, before they took Emmet. They were all horrified because of the idea that someone had told Africa the combination while they were all sleeping, the same person that had taken Emmet and who was threatening them to save his friend’s life.

Cobo took the train and left it on Emmet’s desk. A few minutes later, the alarm rang again, and they all started screaming and running to a corner of the classroom. The alarm stopped ringing and Emmet appeared again. Another message had been left. This time it took the fiends’ breath away.

“One two three, you will come with me, don’t prank me out or you’ll see what I’m talking about.”

Emmet was despairing. He was so scared that he couldn’t even talk. The others tried to calm him down but he just stayed in a corner in silence. He couldn’t stop looking at the floor without blinking. The rest of the group were thinking about what they could do to get out of the classroom and save their lives, as the last message they had received was very worrying. Miriam decided to find a word to call the monster that was horrifying them. They all decided to call him Bell, as every time he did something the bell had rung. That way, if anyone could hear or see him, they would scream his name so that he wouldn’t know they were talking about him.

Nothing was heard in the next few hours later. The group of friends couldn’t stop thinking about the next movement of the monster and that her friend Alice wasn’t with them anymore and they couldn’t do anything to save her. They felt as if they were the worst friends in the entire world: so many hours in the same place without eating, sleeping for only two hours and watching Alice’s dead body was causing a lot of stress and a lot of arguments in the group. They had stopped talking to each other, and a few minutes later the bell rang again. They all were sick of that situation, they just wanted to get out of there without having any more dead bodies.

While the bell was ringing, lots of screams were heard and suddenly Africa, Cobo and Miriam disappeared. A new message was left by Bell. This time it said “I’m tired of this game, this time you can’t do anything to save your friends, you’ll have to fight each other to show me who deserves to get out of here alive.”

By this, the monster meant that Noah and Emmet had to fight until one of them killed the other one and won, so he could get out of there. Emmet and Noah refused to fight each other to death, as they were like brothers.

As they refused to fight, lots of screams were heard again and a video appeared on the board. The monster had recorded how he had killed the three friends while telling them that it was Noah’s and Emmet’s fault. They had died thinking their friends were the cause of their deaths, that cause Emmet’s and Noah’s craziness as they just wanted their friends back and the monster’s head.

There were only three hours left for the lessons to start in the morning. The bell rang for the last time. This time Noah was the one to disappear. Emmet started shouting at the monster and begging him to let Noah go and take him in his place, but no one answered.

A final message was on the board: “This time you’re going to die, but I won’t make you suffer. This wouldn’t have happened if your friends hadn’t helped you, as you were my target from the beginning”.

This time there was a live video of the monster killing Noah. Emmet couldn’t stop crying, screaming and punching everything he could, but the only answer he received was “You’re locked in and the only thing you’re going to get is watching how your friend dies and suffers as I suffer because of you!”

Emmet didn’t know who he was, the only thing Emmet could feel was loneliness, depression, anxiety and how his body was freezing. He closed his eyes and this time he never opened them again. He died without knowing who hated him so hard to take away the most important people in his life in front of his eyes and at the same time killing him.

What could he have done and to whom?