I fumbled in the dark and searched for my phone. I checked the time. It was past 6 a.m.
"Why isn't it working?"
There was no signal in the basement. I shined the light from my phone to my side. So Young was still fast asleep.
"So Young!"
"So Young!"
I tried to wake her up.
"COUGH"
"COUGH"
Suddenly, the dust went into my mouth. I started to cough. The air felt stale, so I shined the light around. The entire room was filled with dust and spiderwebs.
The karaoke machine was working up until a while ago.
"What is going on?"
"Hey! So Young, get up."
"What's the matter?" She woke up feeling annoyed.
"Why is it so dark? Where are we?" So Young looked confused.
"Let's get out of here."
I hurriedly dragged her out of the room. The hallway was pitch-black. We fumbled the walls as we moved.
Suddenly, I found a dim light up ahead. We followed the dim light to the entrance. But the door was locked and there were chains around it.
"That woman must be insane. Did she lock the door and leave?"
We were dumbfounded.
"So Young, check your phone. Mine doesn't have a signal."
"Ahh! Ahh!" So Young suddenly screamed.
"What? What happened?"
"Gosh."
The clown from earlier was standing on the other side of the glass door.
"What a relief! He came to open the door."
I was relieved by that thought.
"Sir, you startled us."
"Sir, can you open this door?"
"We are locked in here."
But the clown didn't try to open the door. The clown just looked at us. It felt so ominous.
For a second I thought, "Maybe he was the one who locked us in here "
"This place is so strange."
"How do we get out of here?"
So Young and I said to each other. We walked down the hallway, looking for an exit. Just then we noticed that light was coming from one of the rooms.
"Is someone inside?"
I peeked inside. Suddenly, I heard footsteps. When I turned around, the clown was standing in the hallway.
"Ahhhhhh!" We both screamed.
The clown was no longer on the other side of the glass door. He was advancing towards us.
"Run!" So Young shouted and we both ran.
I thought I was hallucinating so I looked behind me. But there was no one. We relied on phone's light and fumbled on the walls as we looked for a way out.
"Is this the way out?" I was thinking when the clown suddenly appeared in front of us.
"Ahhh!"
The clown started to act even more grotesquely.
"Why are you doing this?"
We were both about to cry. Even so we both turned around and ran the other way.
"Is he a ghost? Or is he just crazy?" I was confused.
After a minute or so, I saw the dim light again. It was coming from under one of the doors.
We were about to leave through that door when....
The clown appeared again. We barely dodged him and opened that door. But it wasn't the door to exit. It was another room. Still we went inside that room and locked the door from inside.
There was a window in that room. We opened the window right away. However, the window was facing a wall.
But luckily, behind the wall, we could hear people talking and the sound of a forklift.
"Excuse me! We need help over here." I shouted in desperation.
We screamed out the window like crazy.
"Over here!"
"We need help over here."
"Please help us."
"Who's there?" Someone finally answered.
"Sir, we need help."
He finally heard us and talked to his colleagues.
"Hey, stop the work. There are some people here."
And then we were safely rescued.
When the people came inside to fetch us, they told us that the karaoke had been closed since months ago. Moreover, the building was supposed to be demolished that day. They said that they had come there to demolish the building.
But this shocked me even more. If he didn't find us, we would have been dead under the demolished building.
(You can check out my original story. Its title is 'The Reddest Red')