The Secretive Mansion

• Jaydin Fryer, Grade 8
• Short Story
• 2021

I awoke in the library to hear my father shouting my name angrily. Quickly, I sprinted to the painting and opened it to reveal my ‘Safe Place’. My house has many of these secret rooms and compartments, and being a massive mansion, it has many.
I peeked through a small peeking hole in the painting to see my father searching the library “Where are you boy?” -my father is very abusive towards me, but he cares for my older bully of a brother, John-. As my father searched, I noticed he stood around one bookshelf a lot.
Eventually, the angry man left. After he left, I exited the Safe Place and rummaged around the old, wooden bookshelf. I looked high and low, before finding marks on the floor at the bottom of the shelf. Curious, I pushed the heavy shelf to reveal a dark, old staircase, lit up by only a few torches, which led to a suspiciously shiny metal door. I opened the door, to reveal a hallway with many doors, with metal as thick as an elephant. Slowly I walked down the old hallway, attempting to open every door as I went. Eventually, a door opened.
Cautiously, I looked around the room to see computer screens showing parts of the house. It was a security room. I scanned the many screens and saw my father and brother on the phone at the bookshelf. Scared I jumped up and left, knowing they were sending someone down to get me. I needed to hide, but I had nowhere to hide. I ran to the last door at the end of the hallway and opened it. I looked around in shock to see a bunch of slaves making money and drugs, guarded by expensive robots. So many questions ran through my head “Is this how my family is rich? How long have they been down here?” but, there was no time to answer those questions as the hunter would be here soon.
As I scoured the massive bunker of slaves and robots, I heard a faint sound of footsteps followed by a knife against the wall coming from behind me. I looked back to see a big man in a butcher's outfit, wearing a mask of a pig, chains around the leg slowly walking towards me. I froze in fear, as the scary man approached. I looked around for a way out before noticing the weak structure of the bunker and a hatch above my head. I began to pull a part of the fence off. As I pried it off, I began hitting the structure as hard as possible.
The building started to collapse as the man got closer. Quickly I jumped up and grabbed the ladder to the hatch. As I opened it the building collapsed on the slaves and the man. Horrified I ran towards the forest to escape my crazy, evil family and get help from huntsman Gary who lives in the forest.