The Haunted Mine - A Screened Word Story

         It's this time of year again – early October – and I was one of the few kids in school who had no idea what I wanted to be, or who I wanted to be this year. After begging my parents over and over again, we finally got a chance to hop over to the local Walmart and looked at all the outfits that were on display at almost every which corner in the store. There were witches, there were bats. There were skeletons, there were mummies. There were Frankensteins, there were wizards. Just so many to choose from. But what could I have found from this whole store that would’ve spoken to me? Which kind of outfit would I have found that would have slipped into me like a glove just for this one occasion this year?

         I had no idea. But no matter what we would have found at the store, I had to start somewhere.

         So it was October 1st, after school let out, when my parents and I shopped around to find either the right outfit or, when push came to shove, just some good ideas for an outfit. And after trying on the first go, we'd had no such luck in finding any outfits that were my size or that spoke to me. But then, just as my parents and I were about to walk away from the costumes aisle, I ran into my good friend, Billy, who also went with his parents.

         "Hey, Gina. What brings you here?"

         "Oh, hi, Billy," I said back. "My parents and I are just looking for good Halloween outfits."

         "I see. Well, could've been worse. You could've been shopping for outfits at the last minute," he said.

         The longer we talked, the more we both began to slowly drift away from our parents, who were each busy doing their own thing. I mean, I do recall them sharing a quick hi to one another, but they both left it at that as they both, as they all drifted off in their own ways and began shopping for their own things. Extra grocery shopping, perhaps.

         "Well," I told Billy, "I've been coming here on a regular basis myself. Fortunately, however, I think you would've been lucky to have my parents. They think I'm responsible enough to not have to tag along with them for every grocery trip."

         "Lucky!” said Billy. "Well, as soon as I saw you in class, I remembered what I meant to tell you."

         "Oh? And what would that be, Billy? Are you wanting to dress up as a romantic interest for whoever I'm going to be?"

         "Oh, heck no. That would be gross," he said. I found the idea to dress up in matching outfits to be overrated, anyway. “But that's not quite what I was going to tell you.”

         And then, after what looked like some slight hesitation on his part, he continued, "Have you ever heard of the haunted mine?"

         "Yes," I told him, "I have heard of it before. But whatever it is you want to tell me, I don't believe in that whackadoodle stuff. How can that possibly be true anyway?"

         "Believe me, it's true," he told me. He continued, but this time with more seriousness in his voice, "A friend of mine told me that his parents heard some talk all around town about how those who would have passed by the mine nearby in the Rocky Mountains had heard some very faint laughter and screaming. They told me that at first, they thought it was from some of their buddies, but whenever they looked around every corner, they could not have found a trace of those noises."

         Nope. Still not talking me into it. “So?" I told Billy.

         "So," he continued, "If even my parents and their friends believe it to be true, then that's all the more reason for us to have to..." Before he could continue, he looked around him to make sure nobody was leaning in or eavesdropping, and then with a quick lift of his finger, he put his lips to my ear and he said, "Maybe you, John, and I can get together later this week and see if we can hop over to that mine ourselves."

         A sudden shiver of shock ran through my spine, but not of fright, but of shock. I knew that he had been irresponsible for many things before, but this time I thought that what he proposed really took the cake.

         "Man," I told him, "You really are crazy."

         "I might be, I might not be," he said to me. "I guess the only way to find out is to look into the haunted mine ourselves and see what we can find. What do you say?"

         At first, I was tempted to say no, because I've heard enough of his silly stories to know that he was usually a prankster and have always been prone to pull some pranks on me and some of our buddies before. How was I expected to trust him on this story?

         But on the other hand, I had been slammed with homework over the past month and a half. Not that enjoying every minute of summer vacation had anything to do with it, but even compared to before or last year, something about the homework we were given this year began to feel like overload. So, anything that would’ve have taken my attention away from the homework would have sufficed.

         "All right", I told him with glumness in my voice.

         "Yes!" Billy said. "I knew you would have bought into that story too."

         "Don't think that I do just yet," I told him. "Let's just meet up some time this weekend, all right? As soon as we are both free, and John too, the three of us will hop over to the mine together, okay?" I told him.

         "Sounds fair to me," Billy told me. "Well, I gotta catch up with my parents", he continued. "I will catch you later, Geener." That was his nickname he would have given to me. Typical. Every time I heard him say that, I knew he was just being a smart aleck.

         But this time, judging from how much he meant what he believed he heard, I was willing to give him a pass for it this time.

         As much as I don't want to believe his stories, however, I guess Billy was not alone when it came to listening in on stories from some of his adult accompaniments also. Whenever I went into town, either with my parents or with other people who my parents knew, I always heard some stories about some wailings and ghost-like noises coming from the mine up in the mountains.

         At first, I wouldn't have believed it. After all, what value were ghost stories if they turned out to not be true? But I was beginning to agree with Billy. if I heard it even from the adults who heard stories from those who passed by the mine about what they heard, then who would I have been to say that that wouldn't be possible? Could they have been right? I couldn't tell. Maybe they too could've been wrong, but if they said it's true, then who would I have been to disagree with them?

         Later that week, on Saturday, October 4th, Billy, John, and I met up at our usual gathering place, the picnic area in the local town park. And we had to be careful about us meeting up without drawing too much attention, especially at this time of night. We're talking about as late as 10:00 PM. Most people would've been asleep by then.

         "Okay, so now that we met up, guys, where do you say we should start?” Billy said.

         "Well", John started. "I have taken some hikes up near the trails just northwest of here. Maybe we can go there and if we just keep going that path, it'll take us directly to the haunted mine. It will require us having to cross the river and walk our way through forest terrain, however."

         Interestingly enough, I recall seeing just a glimmer of excitement in Billy's eyes. "Okay," he said. “Since you know your way around the woods, almost, I will take your word for it. You, Gina?" he told me.

         I had seen John make his way around as many hike trails as we have known of our area, so who was I to disagree with him?

         "Okay," I responded. As long as I let John lead the way, since he knew his way around the area, he should have known where to lead us.

         “It’s settled, then,” John responded. "While I'm happy that you'll be tagging along with us so we can show you why this could be true, I'm happy to know that you trust me enough to know how to make this work."

         "Think nothing of it until after the trip, okay?" I told John in return. "Well, what are we standing around here for, guys? Let's hop to it."

         So then, we hopped onto our bikes and pedaled our way out of town and into the nearest hike trail. We had to sneak our way past some of the outskirts of town, and by the time the terrain became more rocky, that's when we hopped off our bikes and carried them the rest of the way through that pathway and across the river.

         Fortunately, the river was shallow enough for us to walk over without any issues or any chances of slipping and falling. True, the water was really freakin’ cold, but as long as I knew there would've been nothing else underneath our feet to nibble on us, then I would've been willing to take my chances.

         Of course, as cold as that river was, that was only the first obstacle we had to deal with.

         After that, we had to carefully work our way in through some of the thick forests laid out in front of us. We had to push our way past the bushes and whatever little amount of space we could've taken advantage of in our trek to the haunted mine. We also had to be on the lookout for whatever animals could've been crawling about at this time of night. Snakes, bears, mountain lions, whatever other animals could've been walking about at this time, you know? I did hear a couple snaps a ways behind me, and I did take a quick peek to see where it came from, but one, I did not remember seeing anything behind us, and two, even if I knew where that noise came from, maybe the animal who made that noise was off trying to find their next midnight snack or something.

         Fortunately, it did not take long before we started to trickle our way out of the forest and into gradually more expansive openings. The forest began to give way into some wide open spaces ahead of us, and the ground beneath us went from being soggy and woody into rocky and uneven. That told us that we were getting pretty close to the mountains now.

         But yeah, we thought the temperature of the river and the thickness of the forest were bad enough. Imagine having to carry your bikes all the way up the mountains near the very top.

         That was exactly what Billy, John, and I ended up doing for almost a whole hour. And we were nearing the top of the mountain when we started to feel out of breath. How high up could this mine have been, unless we were walking the wrong mountain?

         Being a little out of breath himself, Billy said, "Let's take a rest here for a minute. We need to catch up with our air before we continue the rest of the way." He made sure to bring a water bottle on us in case we got thirsty.

         The idea of having water to drink ignited a sense of excitement in me. I had to take a quick sip of water no matter what kind of trip we had to take. So then, as soon as Billy handed out his water bottle, the three of us sat in a circle on the rocky pebbles and under the bright light of the moon as we each had our much-needed fill from the water bottle.

         We were so thirsty that we ended up drinking the entire bottle full by the time we all were replenished.

         "Well?" said John. "I think we're beginning to trek into no man's land now," said John. "As many times as I've hiked around town, this is definitely not some place I remember trekking into before. How far do you think we have to go before we reach the mine, Billy?"

         "Let me see." He went, grabbed into his pocket and whipped out his iPhone. After pushing a few buttons on his phone, he tracked down our current spot on the mountain, and he said, "Well, we may not find the mine on this mountain, but if we keep going down that hill nearby and up one more slope, we might be able to track down the mine."

         Oh, great. We would've been dying of thirst before we had the chance to make it to the mine.

         "Are you nuts, Billy? Are you still insisting that we walk that far just to reach some abandoned mine?"

         "Personally, yes. If we don't look into the mine for ourselves, who else will?" He continued, "Think about it, guys. Why else would the adults have been talking about this mine but not some of the other kids in school? There obviously must be something going on with that mine that maybe the kids do not know. That's all the more reason why we oughtta keep on going until we have a chance to check it out for ourselves. So let's stick to it and keep on going."

         With that kind of spirit in him, that was all it took to talk me into sticking to his side and continuing to walk the rest of the way into the mountains and whatever else we had to scale before we finally reached our destination.

         Somehow the rest of the terrain ahead of us seemed much quieter than way back behind us. I couldn't have told if it was the altitude or the atmosphere or whatever, but there was something about these areas that seemed more serene and calm and peaceful, unlike the forest behind us where you’d never know what could've been crawling in every which way. So we kept on going and went beneath the tipping point of the mountain as we caught sight of the downhill slope ahead of us and the up slope that would've come after.

         After we scaled both those sides of the mountains, that's when we started to realize something a little unnatural about the path we were taking. It suddenly did not look like some sort of hike-like trail. Pretty soon, the path was starting to grow much wider by then. There was enough space for the three of us to have walked side-by-side if we needed to. But then, once we got closer, we noticed some long trails of iron emerging from the ground by our feet.

         The more the iron trails made themselves known, the more convinced I became that these were the cart tracks where the miners would have off-loaded whatever minerals they found from the caves. I noticed some more excitement from Billy compared to back in town or even when he told me about the story. Whenever I saw him this happy, that would've told me that something exciting must have happened to him to have made him feel this way. With this in mind, this convinced me more than what he said that we were getting closer to the mine we sought out.

         It did not take us any longer than 15 minutes before we ultimately reached the end of the ore tracks and noticed them make a right turn into a pathway on the side of the mountain. What we did not realize, however, was that the pathway that they were all talking about also happened to be closed off.

         Where there would've been an opening that led into the depths of the mountain there were instead rows of wood boards nailed onto the entrance. One of them said, "Do not enter." Others said, "No trespassing." And one of them said, "Danger." Whoever put these signs up, whatever kind of danger would they have been talking about?

         "Well," Billy said, "apparently, the wood boards look too thick for us to yank off. I guess I would suggest that we try to work our way in."

         "Not a bad plan, Billy," John responded. "I'm sure we can improvise in some way."

         With that in mind, we had first thought about just using our gloved hands so that we could have taken out some of the rock on the side of the signs, and literally dug our way into the cave. But we didn't have to go that far. Even though it was supposed to be sealed off, I remember catching a glimpse of some loose gravel on the right side, that the right side of the mines used to be nailed on, but has since given way and possibly let the sign tilt over in time.

         Because of this, we each decided to take turns in slipping our way into the cave through the space between the right edge of the sign and that edge of the cave. Billy went in first, since he had the leather gloves, and slowly but surely pawed at the gravel until he made a noticeable pathway as it expanded under Billy’s committed hands. Next, we each went in one at a time so that we would not have forced ourselves into one of the nails that were used on the signs.

         But after carefully working our way in, we became surrounded in pitch black darkness. The only freckles of light I saw were the beams of light piercing through the darkness from the slits of the wood boards. That was the only way I could've told where my friends were, and where they stood beside me.

         "I don't know, guys," I told them. "This does not feel safe. I wonder if it was sealed off because of whatever poisonous gases could've been trickled through here."

         "Don't be ridiculous," Billy said. "Some mountains are like that, but there were no reports of any poisoning coming from this mountain. Besides, my phone should still have enough battery life. We can trust the flashlight to lead the way this time." So after hearing him press his finger on the touchscreen of his iPhone, a strong beam of light pierced through the darkness and covered a good chunk of the ground, plus John and me, as Billy pointed the beam of light straight ahead, where the path would have continued.

         "Well, how are the batteries on your phone like, guys?" asked Billy.

         We each checked our phones to see whether the battery life we had left would've been enough for us to use our flashlights.

         "Battery life on my phone is around 35%,” said John.

         "Mine's at 64%" I told Billy.

         "Well, in that case, I think Gina and I will both go ahead and walk the rest of the way into the cave." He continued, "John, since you seem to have a little more battery life left over, I'll trust you to stand watch while we look into the cave. And if you hear anything off or troubling, just give John a call."

         "Of course, genus." I said.

         "That sounds fair to me too,” said John.

         "Okay, Gina, you know what to do."

         "Yes, I do," I said. So, watching my steps, I crept my way closer to Billy as he and I stood side-by-side and worked our way into the cave together. I heard some minor mumblings from John as we crept closer into the cave. But since we were there, there was no turning back. We had to find out for ourselves what was so special about this cave.

         At first, I wanted to trust John to lead the way since I still knew that he had a keen sense of direction, no matter which mine trail he would've gone on. But because we didn't know our way back at that point, I guess none of us had any other choice. We had to keep going, no matter what we would've found. With every step, Billy and I crept closer into the cave, as we saw small fragments on the floor of the cave in front of us. I noticed some of those sparkling from the flashlights on our phones, and while we marveled over them for a minute, we also noticed more of the iron trails that we saw from back outside, and how it continued to go even farther into the cave. Even whenever we spoke, it still sounded like the way ahead of us was very hollow and very long. As long as we would have found somewhere decent to step, then there's no stopping us for sure.

         Along the way, we passed by a couple of ore carts stranded in the middle of the tracks. In both cases, the wood boards were splintery and barely being held together. The metal looked too rusty, and when we leaned in to take a good look, inside, it was dusty, dirty, and, though we’d not seen it, possibly crawling with whatever thought this would’ve made a nice home. No such luck in finding rare minerals in these carts.

         We kept on going, but as soon as the terrain looked decent ahead of me, I had to step outside of that track, and eventually began to be in the lead over goody-goody Billy. The more I kept up my pace, the more excited I began to feel. I was really feeling the rush of adrenaline coursing through my veins. I sure felt like we were somewhere close to getting down to the bottom of the whole mine mystery, and seeing whether we would've found any semblance of clues or traces back to where the voices came from and what the miners were digging for in this cave.

         However, that's when I should have known better than to attempt to take the lead myself. But only because I could not have done so at a worse spot.

         "Ha, I gotcha," was all I said back to Billy when I was walking backwards, and then, my foot forgot to grab onto the hard surface underneath me. It took me down as I toppled backwards and forwards, and then forwards as I felt my body cramp up from all the pebbles and rocks pushing their way against my ribs, my legs, my shoulders, my knees, my chest, sometimes even the sides of my head.

         Then, I felt a pretty bad bump on the back of my neck. I thought for sure that I was a goner. The only thing I saw around me was that wherever I ended up, it felt a little more hollow than the pathways Billy and I took earlier, and that there was no one around close to me this time that I noticed or heard. So then, I had eventually begun to drift off into nothingness.

         Soon, I heard some voices coming from around me. But the voices I heard did not belong to my friends. Could these have the voices everyone back home was talking about?

They sounded generally older and a little rowdier, like I was listening to some distant cowboys or something. With what little strength I thought I had at me, I crawled quite a ways ahead, where I saw a most prominent light nearby. Funny. I had taken a pretty nasty fall, and yet I didn't feel any pain as I was working my way towards that direction.

In fact, the voices I thought I’d heard would not have been so riotous and loud. If nothing else, who in the world would have come all the way to this mountain, and were they there to rescue me from this pit? Maybe my friends managed to call them for me. I would not have known. Either way, there went our chances to explore the mine. At the same time, though, the light I had seen seemed most curious to me.

However, just as I was about to turn the corner and reach the light, a middle-aged man with dirty clothes and a grimy pickax showed up in front of me, along with two other men standing behind him. I fell back with a fright and hit the ground behind me.

How could this have been possible? I still did not remember feeling any pain from that moment.

Of course, once I got my senses back, I took a closer look at the man who found me, and he seemed more familiar than I thought, judging from his scraggly face. It couldn’t have been David Johnson!

I only recognized him because I heard the other people muttering his name. I also recognized his friends whose names I heard being said as well. I heard their names being mentioned as Benjamin Horkle and Abel Clerksen. I remembered hearing of them all back in history class, after my teacher, Mr. Davidson, mentioned them as among the first miners to have ever searched for gold in the mountains near our town.

Those had to have been the three miners whose voices I heard coming from around me.

Wait. Could that have meant…

"Could I have died and gone to heaven already?" I wondered. And then I asked the miners behind him that same question.

"That entirely depends, lass,” Abel said. “Who are you?”

“My name is Gina.”

"Could you have come in here all the way from the nearby mining town?" Asked Benjamin.

The only answer I could have given him was, "Well, it used to be a mining town, but now it's become as much of a regular town as probably the ones you used to live in back home," I told them.

“I guess the east caught up with us,” David responded. “Well, then I suppose that you know how we continued to dig our way as deeply into the cave as possible until we found what we know were unmeasurable piles of gold and silver and other such goods in this mountain, huh?"

I told them that I didn't hear it. Partially, I did hear it, but from the sounds of it, it must not have been the whole story. "Yes," was all I felt comfortable telling them.

"Well, it seems to me like we should've listened to our folks back home before we dug in too deep,” Abel said. We were just around the corner of striking it rich, or so I believed, when all of a sudden we heard a big crack all around us."

"For a minute,” continued Benjamin, “we were hoping that it was just Abel's back since we know that he's not had the best exercise."

“I did, too.”

"No, you did not. Every time we saw you, you usually lounged around with a bottle of whiskey in hand.”

“But as we were saying," David turned his head towards me, "we were beginning to feel like wanting to keep digging in further when we heard a loud noise and we thought to ourselves that it might be time for us to scurry back out before things got any worse. But sadly, it did not take long before the rocks and the dirt started to creep in onto us from up above. We felt the dust trickle down our necks, and as soon as we saw some of the rocks fall from up above, that's when I knew we were in deep trouble. But we were in deep trouble already because we had to scurry before we were buried by the rest of the rubble that came after."

"And now look where we ended up,” Benjamin said. “All trapped inside this hellhole of a cave. And worst of all, without a precious mineral to be found."

"That's the gold fever for you," I said.

"No fooling,” Benjamin said.

“Of course,” Abel said, “it's not often that we had people coming into this neck of the woods without falling to their death the same way you did. You could say that instead of making a pathway to more riches, what we made in this this mine is more of a booby trap.”

"But you, Gina,” David said, “you look way too young to have to deal with the same burden that we had dealt with 100 years back.”

"Wait," I told him. "You mean to tell me that I'm not dead yet?"

“The word is ‘Yet’,” he said. "So... that's why I'm telling you right now that as long as you can still breathe and see, just try to find your way out of this place before you get into an even bigger pickle than you should be."

I simply told him, “I’ll try. Thank you very much."

But as I was just about to dig my way back upwards and out of the cave, that’s when I finally came to.

My head felt all black from the dust, and judging from what I felt, I was sure that it was slightly red from the cuts it could’ve gotten on my way down. I was sure of it when I noticed the bloodstains on my fingers and the rocks behind me. But I noticed something else colorful lying beside me, and it wasn't the blood. It wasn't even liquidy. It looked sparkly.

Either I might have found just a scrap of what the miners were looking for, or I must still have been dreaming. But what did that matter? I wanted to get out anyway, so I just used whatever strength I could've used in my hand to pick up that mineral. And then I began to slowly lift it up and express a firm grip on it, but when I turned it around, I began to recognize some more of the metallic color that I had seen of it, which was like a light gold.

I noticed a lot more on this rock than I thought I was expecting to see, so then I slowly worked my way up so that I could've made it out with my friends.

But interestingly enough, I noticed that the flashlight for my phone was still on. Wow! After taking a tumble and a fall, I'm surprised that the flashlight still managed to stay on for so long. And that explained why I noticed some of the colors around me. When I took a closer look at the phone, I noticed that it had not sustained any more damage than just a slightly deep crack on the glass case. But I could still have tapped into it and still brought up the home screen, which was pretty impressive.

But as I carefully separated the rocks and took out the phone, I followed the beam of light from the iPhone, and that's when I noticed even more of the metallic colors that I saw right by my hand and that I had grabbed first.

By that point, I was sure I was still dreaming. I had to have been! Right in front of me was a whole slew of the metallic gold glittering in front of me, while half of it was all covered in black soot.

My heart began to beat faster as I took a closer look at what I was seeing in front of me, or least what I thought I was seeing in front of me. As soon as I put the one mineral that I held in my hand in my pocket, I began to slowly use up whatever strength I had left in my hands to sweep away the black soot off of the stones. But as soon as I swept some of it off, I began to see even more of that metallic chrome. I was about to do a little more digging before I heard the voices of Billy and John shouting at me from above.

"Hey, Gina," I heard Billy shout.

"Don't worry, we called the cops,” I heard John say. “They're coming in here to help pick you up."

"We are so sorry to have done this,” Billy said. “I wanted us to go into the mine to see what was what, but Gina tumbled and fell in before we could've grabbed her."

Well, I guess they must've thought that I was unconscious, or worse, even dead. In that case, I better have tried to take apart as many rocks as my hands could've clung onto, and taken them apart as quickly but quietly as possible before they could've come.

For the next five minutes, I was able to do that, and lo and behold, I was looking at exactly what David Johnson was looking for all those years ago. A whole slew of gold, silver, copper, and all kinds of minerals to be found in this mountain.

As soon as I took it all in, I felt for sure that I would've been unconscious this time. But no. I was still standing and as awake and excited as can be when the policemen finally came down to pick me up.

"Hey. You okay?" One of the policemen told me.

“Y-yes, sir. I'm okay," I said.

“Don't worry. The ambulance is just around the corner outside. The doctors will take care of you from there, okay?"

"Okay," I told him. After a moment's thought, I quickly told them, "But first, sir, if I may, I think I need to take some quick pictures of this."

"Of what? Can you even hold your phone?" one of the police officers asked.

"Yes, sir, I believe I can." My hands were still shaky a little bit, but I was still sure I could have held onto my phone long enough to capture a few quick pictures of what I found here in the cave.

“Missy, we have no time for that right now. The ambulance is waiting for us and we don't want you to push yourself any further than you should. We have to go."

"One minute, sir. I'll be fast," I said. And with all my speed and all my grip, I managed to position my phone, tap the camera app, and take a few quick snapshots of it, but as I switched over to the flash option, I felt the officer's hand resting upon my shoulder when I took just the shot that I needed.

"Okay, look. You need to go now," he said. While I was still taking some steps backwards with them, I still took one or two more shots of what I found, before I continued the rest of the way with them. I still felt some aches and pains all over my body, and I did not even know I would've felt them because of how dizzy I felt as I was sweeping off all the black soot from what I found. I felt myself limping, backwards and forwards, as I stepped at a slow pace with them.

Soon after, we came back out the way Billy, John and I came in, only this time the wood boards that blocked off the passageway were no longer there.

"What happened here?" I said.

"Well, the policemen broke these signs down when they came in looking for you, Gina,” responded Billy. “We had to have tracked you down soon... somehow. Honestly, I'm so happy you're okay. I'm surprised you did not die from such a steep fall."

"Well, as you can see, I'm fine, but I am also kind of excited at the same time."

"Why? That you’re alive?” Asked John.

"Just take my phone. My guess is that they won't expect me to carry it with me to the hospital, but you'll see what I mean."

As soon as I walked out of the cave, the bright flash of moonlight beaming down upon us somehow felt brighter than earlier in the night. I thought walking into bright daytime would've been much too severe to walk into. I guess brightly lit moonlight nights would’ve come at an obvious second. I guess you never know just how well your eyes could adjust to your surroundings after spending enough time at night.

I took only a few more steps further when I noticed the ambulance waiting for me around the other corner of the entrance to the mine. The red and blue lights I saw from the truck were very bright this time and so was the back of the ambulance.

But with the policeman's arms guiding me closer there, I kept my head held high enough to follow the door and carefully step my way into the back of the ambulance.

Before I took a seat and heard the doors close beside me, sitting in front of me was the town nurse.

"Gina," she told me. "I was worried sick when I heard the news about you having fallen into the cave. We will take you to the hospital right away, I promise."

"Thank you."

"And we did let your parents know about it. They will want to have a word with you about what you and your friends tried to do."

"Oh," I told her, "I think I can handle it, depending on what my friends have to say about what we found."

"It doesn't matter what you found in the mine. We want to make sure that you are as okay as you should be."

"I understand that,” I responded. “But personally, it does matter. I think. As soon as my friends walk up to you with what they found on my phone, I think you guys might be in for quite a surprise."

"Whatever. I guess I'm willing to..." the nurse said exhaustedly. "At least I'll be able to take your word for it."

"Thanks," I said to her. I suppose from this incident, maybe it would’ve been better for me not go for any major outfits this year. Maybe just some light bandages all around me will make for a decent mummy.

But considering what I found back in the cave, who’d have known what that might’ve guaranteed us next year? Maybe this Halloween, too?