Haunted

• Tim Ongko, Grade 9
• Short Story
• 2015

A three month ago, Terry was convicted of numerous amounts of murder, manslaughter, torture and abuse. He was sentenced to life in prison and hard labor. After all this time, I thought he was my friend, someone I could count on, someone who I can rely on. That all changed when I got a letter saying I was summoned to court. Today, I got a call from a government official allowing me to meet Terry is a high-security mental asylum a few kilometers away from my house. I had only brought only my phone, keys and flowers because my only intention was to go meet Terry. I took about 8 minutes to get there. As I walked in the building, the mental asylum was full of guards and security offices. I went to the reception to check in and had to go through airport style security and a metal detector for safety reasons. As I went through big metal double doors, there was a giant corridor with jail cells designed for the mentally unstable. As I walked down the corridor I was escorted and guided by high class security officers. As I made my way through, ‘victims’ were banging on the door and yelling as I went past them. I finally reached a hospital room at the end of the corridor, through the door window I saw Terry on a hospital bed unconscious. What happened to him? Did the mental asylum have anything to do with this? As I moved around a bit to see inside. There was a scientist in the corner typing away with his computer and recording statistics about Terry’s health. The security guards eventually let me in after a thorough check and locked the door behind me. I personally grew scared as I slowly walked towards Terry. I stood next to Terry, scared, worried, and curious about what had happened and what will happened. I starred at the ground in thought and silence. Out of nowhere, Terry woke up and quickly gripped onto my arms and pulled me towards him with one hand whilst punching me with the other. After several punches I had lost consciousness. Terry had killed the scientist and all the guards in the mental asylum. The last guard had managed to call in reinforcement. Soon after, I gained consciousness and was hastily dragged along the ground by Terry who was carrying a gun a killing everyone in his way. All the sound of gunfire, disgust everywhere, hunger and thirst made me dizzy. Terry’s last words were “I will always protect you, even if it means leaving you,” the dizziness quickly made me unconscious again. I woke up in the ambulance truck with a headache and reports came in saying Terry escaped and still on the run. I never heard from him again after that. Terry’s last words haunt me to this very day. You can’t always trust the ones you love and not everything can be explained.