Our Big Break? or a Big Mistake?

Creeeeeaaaack. I slowly opened the door to the creepy, abandoned gothic mansion. My three friends and teammates Adarue, Seth, and Sam were behind me, armed with flashlights and a video camera. I turned to my friends saying with way more confidence than I actually felt, "Come on guys, don't be chickens, this is going to be our big break. All we have to do is video us exploring this house for the contest, and we're golden!" Me and my friends had entered a movie contest for Halloween, the winning person or team of up to four people would receive $1000, a new video camera, and have their video be played as a preview at the local movie theatre. We had sent a sample video in as the application, and a few days ago we received a letter that said, Dear Team: Moonlight, We are pleased to inform you that you and your team were chosen as one of the applicants for the 9th annual Halloween Video contest. Congratulations! The prize for this contest will be, as always, 1000$, a feature in the local movie theatre, and a brand-new deluxe video camera! The theme for this contest will be Haunted House. The video should be between 10-15 minutes long and the deadline is October 31st. Good luck! I had immediately called my friends over to brainstorm how to film a haunted house, and Adarue, being as clever as always, remembered the old Gothic mansion at the end of the road. We had all agreed that this was a perfect setting and decided to explore it today. Now, as the daylight coming from the open door cast a path across the rotting wooden floorboards, I was starting to wish I had put up more of a fight. I took a step into the house and pointed my flashlight in front of me. There was furniture covered with cobwebs and dust, once intricate wallpaper now reduced to shreds, and there was a fountain with a highly weathered statue that stopped working last century. I could hear the scurrying feet and the flapping of bats, but they didn't scare me. I took another cautious step. Old houses usually tended to have rotting wood and I didn't feel like breaking my ankle. My right shoe crunched on something hard and brittle. I stopped and pointed my flashlight down; there were tiny bones on the floor, probably from a rat, I told myself. Adarue bent down to put the bones in her pocket. "Let's go upstairs first," I said heading up the once-beautiful, now-moldy carpeted stairway. Every step I took groaned and creaked in protest as me and my friends advance to the second floor. Sam started to sneeze, every time he did it seemed to upset more of the grey, gritty dust that seemed to finely coat everything. At the top of the stairs, I turned toward the camera. "This house has been here for more than a decade, and we are the first people since the owner to explore it." I turn around again to find myself face to face with an evil-looking man. His eyes seemed cold and calculating, his expression a grim frown, even his black beard, and fancy clothes seemed rigid and angry. I screamed, which made my friends scream. Then I realized it was a huge painting that was mounted to the wall and started to laugh. "It's OK you guys, It's just a portrait.” I looked around, the wall was covered in portraits of important-looking men, and pretty women in gowns. I turned to the left and started walking down the hallway. I don't really remember what happened next. I must not have been looking where I was going because the next thing I knew, there was a cracking sound, the floor seemed to give way underneath my feet, and then I was falling through a hole in the floor. I landed on a dirt floor in a room that looked like a jail cell, complete with barred doors. There was writing all over the walls as if it was the home of a crazy person. There was a desk in the corner, but the paper was scattered everywhere. I picked up a sheet from the floor closet to where I had fallen, it was ancient and yellow and the ink was smudged, I could make out two words run, and die.  I heard a shout and looked up to see my friends about two stories up through the hole in the ceiling. I checked myself, no broken bones. That's when I noticed the bones, correction, a human skull staring at me from across the room. I screamed and ran out the open door of the cell, up the stairs, and back to my friends. "What's wrong?" Adarue asked, looking me up and down. "T-there's a skull down there!" I managed to squeak. They looked at each other and then down at the hole. Seth seemed about to say something when we heard footsteps from somewhere deep down the hallway followed by the sound of metal dragging on the floor. That was the last straw. This place was just too creepy. All of us started screaming at the top of our lungs as we ran for the door, which of course woke the bats hanging from the ceiling, who started flying everywhere. I hightailed it towards the exit and burst out of the door and into the welcome daylight, with my friends following closely at my heels. We looked like ghosts, we were covered in dust, cobwebs, bits of plaster, and I was coated in woodchips. we all collapsed in the grass, trying to catch our breath. "Promise, promise me you'll never make us do something like that again." Adarue managed to gasp, the color slowly returning to her ashen face. I just nodded "Hey at least we have the video footage right?" I turned to Sam who was messing with the camera. He said, sheepishly "Um, actually the camera was never turn on."