The Untold Truth

            Everything in Lilah’s life had been turned    upside down that day. In a split second, her innocence had been ripped away, leaving her as a shell of her former self, not knowing what was true, or who to trust. But to fully understand what happened, we have to go back to the beginning; the place where it all went wrong…….

Lilah’s family moved around a lot. She never really understood why, with her dad being a surgeon and her mom an archaeologist, but they did. For the first 7 years of her life, they lived in one house, in the middle of nowhere, almost completely cut off from civilization. Lilah never liked it, because it was a very old house, with creaking floors and doors. It always had a weird smell. When she mentioned it to her parents, it seemed like they felt the same way, so they moved into a bigger house in town. After a year or so, they moved again, to a different neighborhood, not far from their last home. Their life was always like this, sometimes staying for a few years, sometimes a few months.

It was just before her 15th birthday when she was uprooted and they moved again. Lilah was furious. Her friends had a party planned for her, and now she wouldn't get to go. The house they moved to, like their first house, was in the middle of nowhere. It had a nice little porch, with a swing, a bright blue door and a garden that lined the sidewalk as well as the front of the house. Lilah was too mad to notice any of this though, as she went storming in, leaving her parents to unload the car.

Once inside, Lilah slammed the door shut and slumped to the floor against it. As she sat there and tried to cool down, she heard the trunk of their car open. This was odd because she didn’t think they put anything back there. She didn’t care though, it was probably just more boxes. She got up soon after that, so she wouldn’t block their way in and decided to look around. Right off the entry, there was a narrow staircase with a dining room on the left, as well as what seemed to be a games room and a bathroom. On the right, there was a living room and a kitchen. Beside the stairs, there was a door which she thought was either a closet, or it led to the basement. Lilah walked over to the door, and just as she was about to grab the handle, her parents came in.

Both of Lilah’s parents were carrying big brown boxes labeled “KITCHEN STUFF” Lilah looked at her parents as they looked around their new home. Her mom had her long blonde hair up in a messy bun, along with a floral headband. Her blue eyes seemed to sparkle as she looked around. Her father though was slumped up against a wall, wiping sweat off his forehead. His shaggy brown hair kept falling over his eyes, which he constantly had to push away. His blue eyes sparkled as well, but with more sweat than anything else. As she looked at them, she could almost see why people always said she looked exactly like she had been the mix of these too; her hair was blonde but had brown streaks throughout. She shared some of her mother's more dainty features, but was tall and had big feet like her dad. The one thing that was uniquely her own, were her eyes, which were a deep emerald shade of green.

“Lilah honey, could you go get some stuff from the car?” Lilah’s mom asked,snapping her out of her trance.

“ Sure.” and with that, she walked outside, and started grabbing stuff out of the car. She primarily grabbed her things, like her bag, and some of her boxes. She also grabbed her parent's bags, which were surprisingly heavy. When she walked back into the house, her parents were standing by the stairs. The boxes were no longer there. Lilah passed them their bags, dropped her stuff, and went back outside to get the rest of it, looking back oddly at her parents as she went, but they soon followed her outside to help.

After they finished bringing everything inside, Lilah grabbed her stuff, and headed up for her new room, eyeing the door by the stairs as she passed. Since the stairs were so narrow though, she had to put all her attention into just making it up without dropping everything and risking possible injury. Once there, she came to a landing, where there were 4 doors; one closest to the stairs, one tucked behind a wall, one right in front of her, and one to the left. The door to the left was open, revealing a small storage room and the door ahead was a bathroom. She assumed her room was the one tucked behind the wall. She walked over to it and opened the door. Sure enough, she guessed right. The room was painted a pale purple, with a striped accent wall on the one side. There was a bed in the corner by the window, and a couch closer to the closet with a little table in front of it. There was also an antique dresser on the opposite side of the room. It was smaller than some of her past bedrooms but it was nice enough.

A week or so passed and while her parents were at work, since she was doing online school, Lilah had the whole house to herself. She did most of her school work, but found that she spent most of her time on her phone talking with her friends from her old school. She primarily talked with Keagan, Addie, Reese, Seth, and Bailey. They were a close-knit group of friends, but she was closest to Bailey. The 6 of them were all on a group call one day  and they all swore they had seen Lilah’s parents in town. This didn’t make any sense since they moved almost 3 hours away.  She didn’t think much of it though, they had probably just forgotten something at work or their old house.

It had been about 3 weeks since Lilah had moved and she and her friends were all on a call. Except for Bailey, who hadn’t been to school that day, which was odd because she never missed school. She had missed every day that week too, as did Addie and Reese. They all thought it was very weird that not only did they miss school, but so did their supposed “friend”, Paisley; the girl who had patronized Lilah during her last year at that school.  It was odd, but they all just assumed they would be back at school on Monday.

After saying goodbye, Lilah looked at the clock, which read 5:30. Her parents should have been home by then. She went downstairs to see if she just hadn’t heard them come in, but they were nowhere to be found. She peeked out the window to see if they were waiting for her in the car, but they weren't there either. The only place she hadn’t checked, was the room that lay behind the door behind the stairs. It was unlikely, but her curiosity got the better of her.

She walked over to the door and just stood there, staring at it. She felt oddly nervous, which was silly because it was just a door, right? She took a deep breath, reached out and grabbed the handle. She slowly turned the knob, revealing  a  set of stairs leading to the basement . Lilah just shook her head at herself. What would you expect, a dead body? She took her first two steps down the stairs, only to immediately come back up, coughing. The smell emanating from there gave her major flashbacks to her old house. It smelled like a combination of rotten eggs, rotting cabbage, feces, and garlic that had been set on fire. Intrigued and a little worried, Lilah took a deep breath, covered her mouth, and headed down.

The basement was very dark, with thick black curtains hanging around the room. It didn’t seem as if her parents were here. As she began back upstairs, something about one of the curtains caught her attention. It was much shorter than the other ones, and it seemed to be radiating a sort of eerie blue glow. Cautiously, Lilah walked over to it. She decided that it was probably just a window, so she grabbed the side of it and pulled it down. As she did this, she stumbled backward in shock, as there before her was a flaming blue portal.

For about 5 minutes, Lilah just sat there, transfixed. It was giving off a strangely cold feel, even though it was made of fire. After contemplating for a minute, she got up and walked over to it. She moved her hand towards the flames, expecting to be burned. Instead, it felt as if ice had been sent through her veins, and her hand easily passed through. She pulled back in  surprise, before walking in altogether. Once she did, she was surrounded by a bright blue light, except for what seemed like another black curtain at the other end. She reached out and grabbed, pulling it aside, and stepped through to the other side.

The room she walked into was covered in the same curtains as the ones in her basement, except they were all giving off a subtle blue glow. The glow from the portal she went through illuminated the otherwise dark space, revealing a grate of some sort in the center of the room, along with a set of stairs going upwards. The grate had a pale orange glow emanating from it, and as she walked over to it she realized it was that of a lantern, illuminated by the faces of her missing friends.

Seth and Addie, along with Paisley and 3 other people were sitting in the small hole in the ground. Seth reached up to the grate.

“ Lilah, you gotta go help, Bailey.” 

“Wha….” but before she could finish her sentence, an ear-piercing scream rang through the room. Lilah ran for the stairs, bounding up them quickly.

“Be careful Lilah” Addie joined Seth at the bars as Lilah went racing up the stairs, only to stop, a loud creaking noise frightening her. She kept going though and once at the top of the stairs, she heard more creaking. She then flung the door open and got an odd sense of deja vu. Another scream rang out, leading Lilah right to where her friend was strapped down on a table. Two hooded figures standing over her, carving symbols into her skin with oddly shaped knives. Bailey saw Lilah and screamed her name, along with help, which startled the hooded figures, causing them to look up, revealing their true identities.

This was the moment when Lilah’s life was turned upside down, as she stared into the wide-eyed faces of her parents. She stood there gawking. A single tear fell down her cheek. She now knew where she was; her old house. She saw a pair of boxes behind her parents labeled “KITCHEN STUFF” filled with all kinds of surgical equipment and weird looking ancient artifacts.

“Lilah, honey, what are you doing here?” her father asked, moving towards her, as did her mother, both of them clutching knives.

“What are you doing here!?” she screamed, backing away from her parents as they advanced on her. She bumped into something, falling, which gave her parents enough time to reach her. 

“Get away from me!” Lilah said as she shimmied backward until she hit a wall.

“Lilah, calm down, we’re not going to hurt you. Just go home and we can forget any of this ever happened.” her father leaned down to help her up, but was instead greeted by a kick in the face.

“No! You're going to kill Bailey!”

“Sweetie, this doesn’t concern you.” her mother tried to speak in a calming voice, but the irritation was evident.

“No! I won’t let you do this!”

“Fine.” and with that, Lilah’s mother took her knife, and stabbed her daughter. Shocked, Lilah grabbed her wound, blood seeping from it. She looked up at her parents as they walked away. Her father looked back at her, tears glistening in his eyes, and she saw her mother wipe something off her cheek. A few moments later, the screaming continued.

Knowing she had to help her friend, Lilah tried to get the bleeding to stop. She took her shirt off, ripped it and tied it as tight as she could, close to her heart. She then got up and headed to the kitchen around the back. The boxes of knives had been out of her parent's view, so she had no problem grabbing various knives. As she approached, Bailey saw her, but before she could scream for her again, Lilah put a finger to her mouth. She continued to scream, just from sheer pain, making it easy for Lilah to sneak up behind her parents and strategically stab them both, not as to kill them, but only make it hard for them to move. They shrieked, falling to the ground, allowing her to get her friend free. Before Bailey could run, Lilah motioned downstairs, and the two of them headed down.

Once downstairs, they heard a loud creak above, encouraging  them to move faster. They went over to the grate, and Lilah reached for one of the larger knives she had grabbed and tried picking the lock. When that didn’t work, she took the end of one of the bigger knives and bashed the lock open. She peeled it off, opening the grate. She and Bailey then started helping people out. Once everyone was out, they closed it, only to be tackled from behind.

“What the hell happened to you two!?” Addie said, hugging her two friends.

“We don’t have time to get into that right now. Let’s just get out of here.” Lilah motioned everyone towards the still open portal, which led back to her basement. Paisley was the last to pass through, only to be yanked back. Without thinking, Lilah followed her back through. On the other side of the portal, she found her mother holding a knife to Paisley’s throat, and her father aiming a knife at her. She felt someone behind her, but she motioned behind her back for them to go back. Before they did, they placed a gun in her hands, which she hid behind her back.

“Lilah, if you go now, we’ll let your friends live.” her father said, all the emotion gone from his eyes. She looked at Paisley, the girl that made her life a living hell, but she could see that she thought she was about to die.

“No, they're not going to die, I know that. But you are.” and with that, Lilah pulled the gun out from behind her and shot both her parents; first her mom, then her dad, but before he died, he flung his knife towards Lilah, striking her in the neck. Not noticing it, Lilah grabbed Paisley and pulled her back through the portal. Once through, she heard Paisley say thank you and I’m sorry. Her friends looked at her, with shock in their eyes. She heard some of them cry out, before she passed out, the thought of why her parents did this swirling through her mind.