By Karson Chuang

Chapter 1: An Ordinary Kid

Look, just to be clear, I am just an ordinary kid. My name is Luke, Luke Williams. I live at my aunt’s house. I moved there many years ago when my mother died of cancer. A few years ago, I lost my dad in a car crash. My mother’s name was Elizabeth, Elizabeth Brown. She was born in London, just like me. She’d read me stories every night before bedtime. She worked as a superstar, being famous all around the country, and brought home large amounts of money. My father’s name was Jack, Jack Williams. He was also born in London, where he met my mother in middle school, and he proposed to her after they graduated from university. He would tell me jokes and always make my day even better. He was a rich businessman, always busy at work, bringing home billions of dollars. He was the founder of NitroTech, the biggest tech company in the world. I was now alone, stuck here with my aunt; she’s evil, I guarantee, probably a worker for Satan himself. I didn’t know much about her; she was tall and ferocious and always laughed at others' misfortunes. After my parents’ passing, she inherited the money and sold anything they owned. Now, she wasn’t just rich. She was filthy rich. Even though she now had millions, if not billions, she never gave me a single penny. I hate her deeply; she makes me do house chores all day in exchange for some loose change she had found under the sofa. I need to find a way to escape fast.

Chapter 2: A Mysterious Figure in the Window

Today is Friday when I only have half of my ridiculous amount of chores. I lay on my bed right after dusting the attic. I pulled out my phone; it was one of the only things my Aunt Gruff let me keep. Any photographs were burned, and any pictures on my phone were deleted; she wanted me to forget them. I hate her so much that I would rather roll down a cliff into the ocean and swim back to my old house where I live. I just pulled out the only picture she let me keep; it was a charred black-and-white photograph of me, my parents, and my sister. Her name was Elizabeth, and she was named after my mother; so many people called her Junior. I loved her. She was nice to me. She would dry my tears when I cried. She died in the car crash with my dad. I was in the moment with the picture when something caught the corner of my eye. A black figure in the window stared straight into my soul. I then ran towards the door, but it was gone. What in the world was that!? I was so startled that I dropped my phone on the bed. I looked out the window again, and that thing was staring at me again! I ran out of my room, desperately trying to look for his aunt.

“Aunt Gruff! There’s a monster in the window!” I screamed.

“Monster, eh? It’s not in the house, so I don’t care,’’ she barked, “Now get back in yer’ room, Luk!”

She always called me ‘Luk’ when she thought I was ridiculous. It’s one of the abnormal things about her. I knew I saw something; if she didn’t believe me, I would just have to stick around.

Chapter 3: The Basement

My aunt has a basement. I’ve never been down there. It was always bolted down with only what I could describe: ‘an endless amount of locks’. She always kept what was in there top secret from me. I never knew why. Well, anyway, today, it's Sunday. I was dusting the top of my aunt’s shelf when I hit something, and a box fell from there. I caught it moments before hitting the ground. It was a box covered in some strange markings. I tried opening the box, but luckily, it was still open. Inside the box was another box, but this box was locked; I tried looking for more clues but to no avail. I put the box back on the tall, rickety shelf. I was shocked about this discovery and decided to keep it a secret. My mind was still whirling. Could the box be a clue as to how to open the basement door? Could it reveal what Aunt Gruff was hiding down there? And could it reveal why she had kept it a secret for so many years from me and everyone else? I couldn’t answer these questions now. I placed it in the back of my mind and just ignored it for a while.

Chapter 4: Puzzle Cracking

It’s Monday, and I have to get to school. It might come as a surprise, but my aunt forces me to pay school fees with my own pocket money. School fees ranged from hundreds of dollars to even thousands. I had to do jobs on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays to even cope with them. I hate school, but it's the only place I can escape to, a place of freedom away from the old country house, being guarded and controlled by a devil. I finished school at 3:00 and made my way home, or at least a place I could stay. Anyway, I went home and saw my aunt wasn’t there, so I decided to do some puzzle-cracking and solve the Mystery of the Box on the shelf. I took the box down and examined it for some time. I was going to give up until I shook the box and heard a rattling noise. I lifted some of the leather, and it revealed a key. I tried to see if it would open the smaller box inside, but it had to be for something else. My parents always said I was a little Einstein, but I had to use that knowledge. I looked up in the attic and rummaged through some of the boxes until something hard hit me on the head. I lost consciousness for a few minutes before I stood on my feet. I rubbed my head and examined the small object that hit me; it was a small diamond-shaped box with a few markings on it. I thought one of the markings represented Satan, the devil, but I was probably still hallucinating from the box hitting my head. I used the key on the box, and it opened, revealing something game-breaking.

Chapter 5: A Perfect Clue

Inside the box was a map with an arrow pointing towards the basement. I wasn’t sure what it meant, but then I remembered something. When I was young, I would make secret messages using lemon juice. I took a lemon and squeezed the juice onto the paper, which revealed a red ‘X’ in the guest room, which was my room. The house was expansive and never-ending - which was, of course, bought with money she stole from my parents. Room after room decorated the corridors. There were at least seven bedrooms and two guest rooms and of course, being the mean aunt she is, she gave me the most damaged room in the entire house. I searched around my room, and to my surprise, a floorboard could be lifted. Under the floorboard was a chest. A few more boards could be lifted, but the chest was locked. Not a key, but a number lock. I checked the map again to see if I missed anything, and in the top left corner, it read ‘36’. I knew this was a clue, so I tried the combination ‘36’, but it didn’t work. I was looking around when I heard the familiar sound of the front door opening and my aunt’s clomping feet. She was back! I quickly put the floorboards back, hid the box in the attic behind a drawer, and put the other box back on the shelf.

“Luk!” I heard a shout from downstairs, “Get down ere’ and stop being a lazy git!!”.

I stepped down the stairs and saw my aunt was back with some groceries. I carried the mountain of groceries into the kitchen and watched as my aunt sat on the couch and turned on the TV. I precariously placed the groceries in the fridge and hastily made my way back upstairs.

Chapter 6: More clues

My aunt had just left the country; she took a vacation to Hawaii and left me alone. Well, I have a nice job as a mechanic. It was Sunday, so, no school, and I could get cracking some mysteries. I first started by searching around the box. I found a piece of paper that read ‘862 42’. It could be another clue. I tried the numbers 3,6,8,6,2,4,2, but it wouldn’t open. I realized on the back of the page, on both the map and the paper, there were a few numbers: 1,2,3,4,5,6,7. I used the combination which I theorized was correct from the 2 numbers on the front and back of the page. 8,6,6,2,3,4,2, which opened the box, and inside was a key and a note. The note read: “Thou demons lie deep. When awakened, the brave will fall, darkness will take all.”. This didn’t make sense at all; what does this mean? Was this some sort of secret code? I couldn’t figure this out. I decided I should head down to the market to grab a few things to make for dinner. I haven’t told you, but I can cook. It’s just very simple things.

Chapter 7: A Remote Place

Well, I looked for some eggs and rice for dinnertime down at the market. I knew how to make eggs and rice since I moved in. I bought a cookbook using some of the money. It was filled with recipes that I cooked. It wasn’t a surprise that she left the country; my aunt had billions, and she was way too rich, having expensive vacations now and then. The merchant gave me some eggs, and I got some rice, garlic, and food for tomorrow's breakfast. I was on my way back, I got in and started cooking. I opened my cookbook and read the instructions: “Add the eggs to the wok and stir them until fluffy,” “Add rice…”. 10 minutes later, it was finished. I was hungry; my aunt didn't cook for me. She finds whatever food scraps she finds in the bottom of a cereal box. I ate my dinner normally and cleaned up the plates. I heard strange noises from the basement; it sounded like something was choking. It was like an animal of some sort. I finished dinner and started exploring again to find more clues. I went around the house to find some sort of mechanic or another clue to find the secrets of the basement. I always thought the place was peculiar. Why was it here for a house? It was very remote, with little to no residents nearby. I found a tiny button the size of a pebble right on the side of the house. I pressed the button and heard a small ‘plink!’. A key fell from the roof; it was tiny and almost escaped my line of sight. I walked around the house and remembered something, a place in the house I hadn’t checked yet.

Chapter 8: The Garage

My aunt owned a Ferrari; it was the only car she owned, but you wouldn’t need a better car if you already had a $25,000,000 Ferrari! I always wondered why she needed such a huge garage for just one car; the garage was huge, not as big as the house, but still huge! An entire disco dance floor could be installed into it! Why would she need so much space for just one car that she never parked in the garage? I quietly crept into the garage and saw a whole bunch of boxes. That was strange; she had never bought anything from TaoBao, and there were hundreds of boxes and piles of junk. I walked around, looking for clues to anything that the key might open. I tripped and fell into a pile of boxes; I wiped the blood off my knee and found a lever in a glass box. I tried to open the box by force, but it was lodged and needed a key. I found a little secret password input on the wall, and I put the key in. The glass box opened and dropped out a paper that wrote the first 100 digits of pi! Why?

Chapter 9: Entering a Hellstorm

I looked at the 2 locks on my aunt’s basement. I tried to open the number combination with the pi digits, but it didn’t work. The key that fell from the roof worked, and one of the locks was unlocked. ‘One down, one more to go!’ I thought to myself. The lock felt a lot heavier than it should have been. It could have just been metal, but I felt like something was shuffling around inside the lock. It found a version of Uno called Uno Flip. I don’t get it; what was this doing inside the lock? Then it came to me: the digits of pi didn’t work, but what if the Uno Flip was the digits flipped upside down? After much trial and error, the lock was snapped off the door, and I entered the haunted secret place. I suddenly entered some sort of dark room with no light except something that chilled me down to the bone.

Chapter 10: A Portal to Hell

A glowing portal stood in front of me. It glowed an eerie, blood-red glow, illuminating the room; stains of blood were all over the red carpet. Suddenly, the portal started glowing brighter and brighter and started shaking. Before I even knew it, I was being pulled into the portal. I gripped the walls as hard as I could, but it was no use. I was sucked into the portal before I could react. I screamed as I felt like I was dead, but I wasn’t. This dimension was strange, with black, rotating hexagons in the sky. I walked around; there were creatures I’d never seen before. I heard a roar in the distance, a huge worm the size of Mount Everest! I ran faster than I had ever run before and saw the worm destroying everything in its path. I heard a loud screech, and the sky turned black.

Chapter 11: The Figure

It was right in front of me, the creature I had seen in the window of my room. But this time, it was different; the mountains were taller than the ones I had seen before, and they had dominated the dimension’s sky. I heard a cackling voice, a voice almost too familiar to me. It was Aunt Gruff, standing on the creature’s head.

“HA HA HA HA HA!!” she cackled.

“What the heck are you doing here!? I thought you were in Hawaii.”

“You see, that creature was never fake. It’s known as a Stalker, Stalking you.”

“But out of billions of people on earth, why me?” I nervously asked.

“I made a deal with the devil to kill your parents. I was always jealous. I was alone, with nothing, so I found this portal and made a deal.” I was shocked. She had made a deal to KILL my parents?!

“On the 6th day of the 6th month, your parents would die. In exchange, I made it so that this creature would stalk you for eternity! So Luk, you better run while you still can.”

I started running, and the running turned into sprinting, which turned into Olympic sprinting. I felt like the air was sharp ice bolts as I ran faster than ever before. Sharp pillars rose from the ground, attempting to penetrate me. I even had a close call when one spiked out underneath me! “Luk! You can RUN, but you can’t hide.” I couldn’t hear anything anymore. The wind was rushing past my ears like cannon balls; all I heard was a loud whistling of the wind as if I were running through a tornado.

Chapter 12: The Book of Eternal Knowledge

I found a huge pile of ruins, which I could hide from the creature and my aunt Gruff. I swiftly jumped into the pile and found a giant underground maze. A sign on the side sent shivers down my spine; it read: “Catacombs of Death”. I walked through the maze, finding all sorts of weird items, such as a flashlight that seemingly had an infinite battery, a long silver long-sword from the 1500s, and a mysterious book. The book had some sort of cryptic writing, including some shapes. I found a piece of paper inside the book, and it translated the words into English. “The Book of Eternal Knowledge”. It was a book that supposedly contained the answers to every question ever asked, asked, or will be asked. I flipped through the pages and found something strange. Instead of a table of contents, it was a soundboard thing.

“How do I beat the Stalker monster?” I asked.

The book flipped itself to a page that read: “The Amulet of Light”, so I guess this is how I beat it. By finding a magic Amulet, I could destroy the monster. There was a map that showed that the Amulet was somewhere in the Catacombs. I walked around, and I found nothing. I was about to give up, but then I realized if I failed, the monster could go for other innocent people! I walked a bit more and saw a glowing light, with the light of a million stars.

Chapter 13: The Amulet of Light

I walked towards the mysterious light and saw some sort of altar with some cryptic writing, the same as the one in the book. It translated to: “The Amulet mustn’t fall into unworthy hands”. I touched the altar, and it cut my hands with a blade; as I screamed, my blood dripped onto the altar, and the amulet dropped right out of the ancient case and into my hands, so this thing needs to work, or else I die, no big deal, it's not like I’m risking EVERYTHING for this. I hid in the Catacombs for as long as I could, but the Stalker creature had already ripped the Catacombs right out of the ground! “What are ya gonna do, Lukey?” my aunt mockingly asked in an evil demonic tone. I pulled out the Amulet and faced the creature, but nothing happened. The magic Amulet was a dud! I jumped from the floating structure into a large bush and started running. I risked everything to save the world, and now I was going to die.

Chapter 14: The Finale

I ran and ran like an Olympic gold medal winner, but the creature owned this dimension. It could do anything and everything. It caught up, and I embraced the fact I was dead, but for some reason, I wasn’t. The Amulet hovered up and shot a magical beam of light. It was so blindingly bright that it outshone all the stars in the night sky. The creature screamed, and my aunt was destroyed by the beam of light. A portal appeared next to me. I walked through the portal, and I was back in the human world, back in my Aunt’s basement. The last I heard was a few blood-curdling screams through the portal to the Stalker’s dimension, and the portal shattered into a million pieces; shards of glass were splattered all over the blood-red carpet. I did it, or the Amulet did it, I don’t know, but I was happy. I was free from the years of torment I received from my aunt, and I could do what I wanted to.

Chapter 15: Happy Ending

After a few weeks, they discovered that my aunt was missing and proclaimed she was dead, so I inherited the money that was wrongfully stolen from my parents and used it to go to school. I also used the money to move back into my old house and start a successful worldwide business that boomed all over the world. I worked hard in school and my young business, knowing that it could start a new beginning for me and for generations to come.

A few years later, I finished school and received my Master’s Degree in business and finance, then worked hard to increase my business. I got into a relationship with a girl called Susan. That relationship grew into an engagement, and an engagement grew into a family. I retired at 68 years old and dedicated my life to having fun with my kids without ever worrying about that witch known as my Aunt Gruff ever again.