The Neanderthal's Traps

[FuriousDestroyer75]

Hello, today I'm going to be sharing my short story.

BAM!!! I hit the baseball as hard as I could. “Homerun!!!” I shouted as I dropped my bat. The ball landed in the forest and rolled down to the creek.
Atharv started to walk toward it, but I stopped him. “I’ll get it.” I said. I didn’t want him to get bitten by a snake, because once a snake jumped at me when I was down by the creek. I slowly stepped toward the ball watching my every step, ready to bolt home. I forced myself to the ball and gently picked it up. I looked back and…
“BOO!!!” Atharv scared me and I fell back into the creek. I landed on my back (luckily) and popped my head out of the water to catch my breath. I climb out. “Sorry dude,” Atharv says.
“No it’s fine,'' I responded. “I saw something weird when I was underwater. It was like a cave, but human made.” I said.
“Dude, that’s not possible. You must have bumped your head.” Atharv responded.

“No, it was real. First of all, I landed on my back, and secondly, you know I have a strong skull.” I pointed out.

“First of all, you wouldn’t know how you landed if you broke your skull, and second of all, maybe you’re like Achilles, you have one little weak point. Besides, what are the chances some mystery like that would take place in our neighborhood?” He said.

“I don’t care what you think, I’m gonna come here again tomorrow.” I said.

“Whatever. Now can we get back to the game?” Atharv asked.

“Sure.” I answered.

So, that’s how my day went, swinging strikes, while repeatedly asking myself, “What was that?”

The next day at 3 in the morning, I took a flashlight and packed my stuff. I jerked on my socks, put on my jacket, and slid into my shoes. I swung open the door, took a deep breath, and bolted into the empty darkness.

When I got to the forest, I switched on my flashlight and took a look around my surroundings. “AH!!!” I exclaimed when I saw Atharv sitting on a rock down by the creek. He turned to look at me and grinned.

“Greetings my fellow friend.” He said. I walked down, this time forgetting to watch my step.

Once I got down, I asked him, “What are you doing here?”

“I figured you would need me due to your broken skull.” He responded.

“And, how’d you know I’d be here at this time?” I asked.

“Well, you technically advertise your lucky number to everyone.” “So, now stick your head in the water.” He said.

“NO!!! I’m not doing it. It’s your turn now.” I said.

“But...”

“AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!” Atharv and I exclaimed as a massive hole appeared and we plummeted to the bottom. We landed on our backs and everything went black.

“Ugh.” I regained consciousness and looked up. The hole’s opening had closed up. I gave Atharv a nudge. He woke up.

“Where are we?” He asked.

“I dunno”, I responded. “All I can see is words in a weird language carved onto the wall.”

Then, all of the sudden, we heard chanting.

“Where is that coming from?” I asked.

“From the rock.” Atharv answered.

“Dude, this is no time for joking, we have to… AHH!!!” “Rocks shouldn’t have mouths, and they shouldn’t glow, and they shouldn’t... ” “Wait, is it making that scroll fly?” I asked.

“Ya, it is”, said Atharv nervously.

I grabbed the scroll, “Yes! Finally something in English!” I started to read it. “You dared to try to steal our treasure. Now you are trapped in this hole for eternity.” “What! That’s not fair! We don’t even know what treasure you’re talking...”

“Relax, there’s a back side.” Atharv said.

I continued to read, “Unless, you are the smart one from your tribe. You will be given clues. If you solve them, you will be led to your exit, but there are no chances. Fail once, and you are trapped forever.” “Okay, not as bad,” I said. “But still terrible!!!”

“If you want to get out, then focus.” Atharv said.

Stones moved revealing an opening. I reached for my flashlight.

“Where’s my flashlight?” I asked.

“I dunno, but we have to get started now.” He answered.

We walked into the opening.

“Ok, so what now?” I asked. ”AHH!” I exclaimed as a knife was chucked at me and skinned my face. “Nobody said there would be booby traps!”

Atharv walked to the knife, he picked it out of the wall and called me, “Dude, check this out.” I walked toward him and took a look at the knife. “There are words on it.” Atharv pointed out. He read, “You are a spoiled generation, decreasing your body functioning for fun. Why is this?”

“So, the clues will be this easy? With no doubt, we can get out of here.” I said.

“So, you know the answer?” He asked.

“No, I’m just saying that we’ll be able to solve them, it’ll just take time.” I responded.

“But, we don’t have time”, Atharv said. ”See that hole on the ceiling?” He asked.
“It gives light to the statue on the floor. When the statue's shadow moves along with the sun, and touches this little rock, our time is up.”

“So how much time do we have left?” I question.

Atharv studied the shadow. “There is a problem, we only have about a minute left.” He said.

“Oh god, oh god, oh god!” I hesitated. A million random answers popped into my head. “I got it!” I exclaimed. “My phone!” “Call the police.” “It’s from our generation, it….”

“There is no cellphone service this far down, and no time for explanations,” Atharv said as he snatched my phone from my pocket. It started mysteriously ringing despite that there was no cellphone service. He picked it up.

“No ones talking” He said.

“Beep!” “A message, it left a message!” “Look at it.” I said.

Atharv clicks on the messaging app again and again eagerly until it loads. When we get in, Atharv clicks on the message. “It says, Congratulations! You have found the answer. Your phone makes you a spoiled generation and decreases your visibility. ” Atharv says.

An opening appears, and we rush through it.

BOOM!!! I looked back to see the previous room we were in explode. It was in ruins. The statue’s pieces were in the corners and parts of the wall were chipped off.

I shuddered and walked forward waiting for another knife to skin me, but nothing happened. Instead, there was a staircase leading up back to the surface. We couldn’t believe it, we made it. We both happily ran to the staircase.

“AHHHH!!!” We exclaimed as another hole appeared and swallowed us.

“Ugh” I said when I hit the ground. “Not again!”

“Can you hear your own thoughts, Ansh?” Atharv asks?

“Ya, it’s distracting.” I said.

“I think that’s the point. It's trying to distract us.” He said.

“AGH! It's getting louder!” I say.

“Look there’s another one of those clocks” I pointed out.

“Let’s not waste time!!!” Atharv worried. “There are only about 20 seconds left in this timer!!!”

“Where is the clue?!” I cried. 10 seconds later, I found a button and pushed on it, it was too hard to press. “Atharv!!!” “Help me!” I yelled. He rushed to me and put all his weight on it. We finally pushed it in all the way. We saw another opening start to open, and we bolted to it as fast as we could.

The opening was far, and we were only halfway done when the walls started closing in really fast. I dropped my backpack and increased my speed, letting all my energy out in a few seconds. We were about 3 meters away when we could barely squeeze through to the opening. We both dived, barely making it. My backpack was crushed to little pieces at the end.

The walls moved away from each other and a fire finished my backpack off. I realized that we were in a cave. It had stone tools and knives. There was a big rock made supposedly to sit on, and there were tree trunks put together forming a bed. An opening formed, and a ghost walked through.

“It’s a monkey ghost,” I told Atharv.

“No, not monkey.” The ghost surprisingly said. “I am one of you.”

“You mean like a caveman?” Atharv asked curiously.

“NONSENSE!!!” The ghost exclaimed. “I am a Neanderthal.”

“So, a caveman?” Atharv asked.

The ghost gave up and said, “Sure.” “Anyways, this was actually a test to see who can be responsible, fast, smart, and on task. I need to find the right people to help me. See, when I died, the witch did all she could to make my soul a ghost. My ghost will soon disappear. Because of this, I need a few people to take care of my Tiger.”

The ghost called his tiger. A white tiger with wings walked through the opening and licked Atharv. “This is so cool, but we can’t do this,” I said. “Our parents definitely won’t let us.”

“No, you don’t tell parents. Just let the tiger free and feed him at night.” The ghost explained.

“Ok, we’ll do it.” I responded. “Now can you show us the way out?”

“Just sit on the tiger.” The ghost said. We listened, and the tiger started rising into the air. Then suddenly with a whoosh, we were on our way through the ceiling and back home.

So anyways, that was the end of the danger, and we made the tiger one of our best friends. We snuck into our beds and acted as if nothing happened, but deep inside we will always remember this day.