Hearing the noise, leads to anticipation

    Walking through the dungeon, Kooper and I saw nothing that was spectacular. There were twelve cells, six on each side of the long corridor that had a set of stairs on each side. Stairs that lead up and others that lead down. The dungeon was dark and dank. There were single cots stuffed into the already too small cells, and a single wooden bucket for who knows what. 

    Both of us had flashlights so that we could see through the dark of the medieval surroundings. The dungeon was most uninteresting except for one little tid bit on the wall next to the descending staircase. 

    “BYPASS THE LINE. KS”

    We both came across the words at the same time. It was scribbled on the right wall in Klein’s terrible handwriting. 

“It’s not the first time I have heard of this phrase, the curator at the museum mentioned it. So perhaps Klein had found something mentioning it on the way here. Clearly he had come this way there is no doubt.” I said.

Kooper pointed his light down the descending staircase. Though the flashlights were powerful enough to slice through the night sky, they seemed unable to pierce the enveloping darkness.

“Youth before beauty.” Kooper said as he motioned down the corridor.

I smirked at the joke and went first down the stairs. Kooper followed right after. Our footsteps on the stone stairs were almost silent as sound reached my ears. The earth seemed to get colder the further down we went. 

After about a hundred steps, I finally came to flat ground. The tunnels that lay before us were rounded and reinforced with stones. The weather seemed to be odd, warm and humid, very peculiar for the time of year. The tunnels seemed to be of a natural formation, for the foundations were slick with a dampness. The tunnels were dark and mute. The light could barely penetrate it. 

Not too far down a passage could be seen off to the right while the corridor continued on. Both of us went towards the intersection. I glanced back toward the stairs because I thought that I could feel something creeping up behind us. However, on my glance back, I saw nothing. I thought that maybe Florence or Lance might decide to come down. But, alas, I was disappointed. The feeling of someone being behind us didn’t leave at all. Then for no reason at all, I thought about the stone statues from McClung manor. Their height and weight not too mention the scariness was something to be remembered. I turned the corner to the right, to follow after Kooper. There at the end of the passage was the most unusual thing that could have been buried within the earth. 

A tall wide door stood at the end of the passage, ten feet tall six feet wide. large wooden doors barred the entry into whatever lay behind it. Dragons decorated the posts, seven drake heads were counted. A singular keyhole was seen in the middle of the left door. I thought that I could hear a chanting or a singing coming from the otherside of the door.

“Can you hear what sounds like chanting?” I asked Kooper.

He had moved to examine the door and he stopped and began to listen. “It might just be your imagination, kid. I don’t hear anything. Or maybe your young ears can hear what I cannot.” 

Even with his reassurance that he heard nothing I still felt extremely uneasy about what was behind that door.

Kooper pulled on the door to see if it would give way. It did not. The heavy wooden doors would not even budge. 

“It seems to be sealed.” I stated. Kooper gave me a sideways glance. I smirked. “Perhaps it needs a key.”

“Perhaps.” Kooper said as he pointed his flashlight at the keyhole. “Maybe the key is further down the main corridor.”

The two of us moved back to the main corridor. While Kooper moved further down the hall, I looked back down toward the stairs. The air had become freezing and cold, a distinct change in the air. There, on either side of the door, were two figures, hooded and cloaked. They were both looking at me, their eyes hollow and unblinking. They stood there silently watching. These must have been the wraiths that I saw earlier in my journey, I could feel my fear build as I watched them, for it seemed that they came closer the longer I stared.

 I looked toward Kooper, he was a good way down the hall. I looked back at the figures and they were gone. It seemed that they were nothing more than figments of my imagination.

I hurried to catch up with Kooper. The hall was deceiving long. Cobblestone and mortar There was nothing lining the hall, no barrels, no boxes, no pictures, no nothing. It was a completely bizarre and lonesome feeling. When I did catch up to Kooper, He was at the end of the hall. The hall dead ended with a solid stone wall.

“That’s not possible.” I said incredibly unbelievingly. “I saw nothing all the way down, and now there is a stone wall.”

“Don’t be too surprised by it, son.” Kooper said. He was hitting the wall with the back end of his flashlight and listening to the sounds that it made against the stone. “This rock is not rock. It is camouflage to look so, but it is really a wooden board.

Kooper knocked the small plank out and revealed a small cubby. He reached in and pulled out a bit of wrapped cloth. He unwrapped the cloth and found a cylindrical key with a dragon at the head.

“That might unlock the door.” I said peering over Kooper’s shoulder.

Kooper reached into the wall again, and this time he pulled out a small book. “The McClung family history”. 

That was really unexpected to be found down here. Perhaps it was meant to be found here. Kooper handed me the book and stood back up. I heard his knees pop and his joints creaked under the strain. I flipped through the first few pages, and I noticed something very odd. Orange fingerprints, cheetos from the look of it. 

“You see it don’t you?” Kooper said peering at me intently.

“Cheeto fingerprints?”

“Yeah, they still have the puffed corn scent too. Meaning that someone left it here recently. C’mon, let’s get back to that big door and try the key in it.”

We both went back down the corridor. I saw four figures gathered around the stairs at the end of the hall. I froze in place. Fear had frozen me. Kooper was behind me and though he was still studying the key he ran into my back.

“Dang it, Dylan! Why did you stop?”

My eyes did not leave the four figures, and so I asked my question, “Can you see those hooded figures in front of us by the stairs?”

Kooper moved around me and peered down through the darkness. I could see the man squinting in the dark straining his eyes to see what I could see so plainly. Their eyes seemed to pierce my very soul. 

“I can’t see anything, son.” Kooper turned down the hall with the dragon door. I followed. I kept my eyes on the four as long as I could. I dropped my flashlight on the ground and my eye contact broke off with them for a second and when I retrieved my flashlight. They had disappeared without a trace. Maybe my mind was just playing tricks on me.

Kooper turned and went back to the Drake’s door. He placed the key into the keyhole and turned and the door opened with a whoosh of air. The slammed against the cave wall with such force that I thought that it might’ve splintered from the impact. If we were searching for quiet in our approach, we had just lost it.

The chanting voices continued on, uninterrupted. We walked through the door and the chanting intensified and grew louder and faster. We continued forward and down another stair passage. A torchlight could be seen at the bottom of the stairs. We rounded to the entrance way and stared into the cavernous room.

There about thirty people were dancing around a big bonfire. Their limbs and bodies were flailing moving rhythmically to the chanting of the others that were nearby. They did not hit or run into each other; their movements were chaotic, but not random. They were ordered while seeming to be psychotic. The chanting was done by some of the most baritone men that I had ever heard. They sang without a conductor, they knew when to increase or decrease their tempo and they did it with perfect unity. Everything that was done was done in perfect synchronization, everything from the licking of the flames to the dancing of the youngest person.

“What is it?” I whispered to Kooper.

“A dragon dance. For the honor of the dragons that were said to inhabit this region centuries ago.”

“This far north?”

“Ice Dragons, son. Fierce beasts that could freeze the oceans and connect land masses. They are only legends, nothing more than that.”

“What do you suppose Klein saw within here that made him panic and leave here?”

“I don’t know yet I haven’t seen anything that would make me leave yet. Let’s try and sneak past the rabble and continue on. Stay in the shadows and follow me.”

Kooper crouched down and silently crept forward. I stood up to see if I could follow Kooper’s path with as much ease as I could muster. In my standing I felt the creeping robes behind me, I looked and saw the ghostly pale figures right behind me. The deathly figures clapped a hand across my mouth and spoke in their creepy tone and I remained silent. 

“We seek the same thing, though you do not know it. The price will be steep. But you need to find it, and we shall assist. The journey is almost over, but the end will be more harrowing than you can possibly imagine.”

The wraith uncovered my mouth and they disappeared back into the nothingness that they once were. My mind was lost and confused. It sought meaning in what I had seen and nothing could be seen. I wiped my face and forehead with the tail of my shirt and found that I was sweating profusely. I was drenched in sweat. I saw the stairs that I had just come down and thought that I should retreat and leave never to return to find out what the cost was for whatever the prize was.

Florence appeared at the top of the stairs and came down quickly and quietly. My mind went aghast with horror. She came down to me and stopped to look me over, she must have seen that I was shaken, but she said nothing. She looked around the cavern and moved forward without a word to me. She seemed to be following the same path through the shadows that Kooper took. The voices grew quieter and it seemed that the dance was almost over. The orators had grown quiet, the dancers had slowed to a waltz, and oddly enough the fire had grown dimmer.