A Game of Hangman I will never forget

In front of me was a beautiful sunrise. The celestial fireball in the sky shone brighter then ever in the vast blue sky and it was 6 in the morning. Today was the start of summer break and the best thing is that none of my parents were at home as ty had went for a vacation. As I lay down in the grass, staring at the magnolia white clouds in the sky trying to figure out what they resembled, Jim whom I had been waiting for finally arrived.

"Hey Tom, get in and let's start playing. Don't waste time because today is a perfect day!"

As I trudged back into my house, I was surprised to find out that Jim had already took out all the board games and balls which I had stored in my closet.

"What are we going to play" I asked

Without answering my question, Jim took out my mini- whiteboard and drew the hangman symbol on it in red. Sighing as every decision between us was always settled with a game and not words, I sat down beside him.

After holding the whiteboard and marker Jim had passed to me, I looked at the pile of toys beside us and pondered. Then, I began writing out ________ which stood for Monopoly. As most people would, Jim guessed the vowels first and the only vowel was O. Thus, he had gotten 5 chances left. Determined, he then chose the letter 'S', which was another common word. However, he was wrong again and he got 4 chances left. His 3 other options were t, f, r and they were all wrong.

"Stupid game let's just play chess!" Jim hollered saltily.

"But Jim, haven't you heard about the stories the 8th graders at our school told us? They said that if we play a game of hangman and not complete it, the Hangman will come and tie us up and the only way to escape is guessing a random word correctly! No one in this town and maybe that's why Samson went missing."

The moment Jim heard me say out the name Samson, his best friend, his face turned dead serious.

"Samson died in a car accident with his family and you know that!"

After saying that, he pulled me to the ground and asked me to help him arrange the chess set and we started playing. That day, when the sun was still out, we had lots of fun. We payed games like chess, connect 4, monopoly and football too as the weather was beautiful. However, the weather at night was as different as chalk and cheese. The lightning tore through the night sky and the loud 'boom' of thunder followed.

As we were playing ticket to ride, the lights suddenly flickered. Banging sound were heard from the basement door. The dog from our neighbour starts barking. This was the perfect example of a setting from a horror movie. Having watched, countless horror movies and played many horror games, I knew that it was all just a coincidence. 10 minutes later, the banging continued and a strong gust of wind which entered through the window which was left ajar.

Jim stopped what he was doing and whispered," Tom, do you think something is wrong. This is pretty weird. Could it be?"

I turned to Jim and gave him one of my 'seriously' looks and replied," Like you said earlier. This is just a coincidence. There is no such thing as a Hangman!"

After beating Jim in a game of ticket to ride, we decided to play snakes and ladders. As I had lost the dice in the snakes and ladders set, one of us had to go to the basement and retrieve one from my box if dice.

"Jim, I'll go get the dice and you prepare the game in the meantime. By the way, since I have to go through the trouble of getting the dice, I will decide the colour of the piece you and I will be."

Standing up, he replied with a cherubic smile," Well, in that case, I will get the dice,"

"Okay then, the light are on the right when you enter the door."

As Jim walked towards the basement, he gave me a thumbs up and I emptied out all the contents of the snake and ladders set. However, as I started to place the pieces onto the square marked 1, I hear a scream from downstairs.

"Tom, there's a cockroach in your basement. Does your family never clean it?"

Ignoring his screams, I continued placing the pieces on the board. After, I was done, I decided to rest on my beanbag as I waited for Jim to come back and start the game.

I waited and waited, but he still never came back. As I was lazy, I didn't bother checking on him as I thought that nothing had happened and that Jim was lost in my houses' big basement. Just the thought of it made me chuckle. How wrong I was. Moments later, Jim gave off the loudest scream he probably will ever scream. This time, the scream was different. It was more shrill than before. It gave the feeling that he was in pain and agony. It was way different. This time, I had to check on my friend.

As I stepped into the basement, I caught a whiff of a metallic smell. "Probably just some rusting metal." I thought. However, I was very wrong, again. As I walked further into the basement, I saw a pole connected to a stand. Like a retort stand in the Science laboratory. However, on the pole was a hangman's noose. However, on the light-brown coloured rope, it was stained red. At that moment, it hit me. The metallic smell was blood and Jim's last scream was because-

Out of the blue, a man wearing a black hood walked over to me, holding Jim's body in his left hand which was stained with blood from the other victims. At that moment, my vision became blurry and I passed out.

When I woke up, I was shocked to find out that I was no longer standing on the floor of my basement but on a wooden chair with a rope attached to my neck. Determined to find a way to escape the predicament I was in, I looked around the basement hoping to find a way to escape. As my vision slowly adjusted to the darkness, I saw a chalkboard in front of me. The only thing written on it was _____ _____.

"Hello Tom, I hope your'e doing well. I assume that you know the rules of hangman. However, in this game, you will lose your life if you lose. If you win, you will be free and I will disappear to find my next victim. I will give you 1 clue for the game of hangman that will decide your fate."

My head snapped in the direction the voice came from and I could not believe what I was seeing. It was a stickman. He had no flesh. He was just made of white lines like the ones drawn on a chalkboard. Although he could talk, he had no face, no hair. The only accessory he had on him was some round on his neck. As he walked to the chalkboard, he began speaking again " Have fun! Your clue is 'Ticket to ride'.

Too terrified to react, I could only manage a nod. As he took hold of the chalk, he started to wait for the letter I was going to choose. As usual, I started with the most common letters, the vowels. Among the vowels, the most common one is 'E'.

"E!" I announced my decision while stuttering.

"Relax, don't be so nervous. You got one correct already!" the stick man replied.

The man took hold of the piece of chalk and wrote an 'E'. Now, it was __e__ _____. After that, I gave a sigh of relief and thought of the next vowel 'A".

"A!"

The man walked to the board and started writing.

Now it was __e a_ __a__.

"Another word correct!" I thought as I sighed again.

The next vowel which came to my mind was 'U'

" U!" I shouted, expecting my answer to be correct.

However, instead of going for the where the letters were, he drew a head. "Crap!" I thought. Cold beads of sweat were formed on my forehead.

"Ouch!" I cried out loud. I suddenly had a splitting headache, which was a result of the man drawing a head on the chalk board.

I was desperate. I could not die. I was far too young to. I racked my brain for the answer but to no avail. "Too early" I thought. The next vowel which came to my mind was "I".

"I!"

"Good!" I whispered to myself. Now, on the board, it was __e a_

__ai_.

"O" I shouted out loud. The last vowel.

"Crap, it was wrong!" The man drew the body next. Soon, my chest tightened and it was harder to breathe. My stomach started to hurt like the sharp pain of appendicitis. "What should I choose!" I thought. Another common word which was not a vowel was 'H'.

"H!"

" A chill ran down my spine as I saw the man slowly drawing the line which represented my left arm. My eyes went wide open as I felt the pain from my fingertips right to the joint which connected my arm to my body. Unable to think from the pain, I randomly gave out a letter.

"T!"

Despite the pain, smile appeared on my pale face as I say him write it on one of the lines. Now, it was _tea_ T_ai_. In great pain, I could not think straight and I momentarily thought that the correct way of guessing was just random letters.

"F!"

Then, he began drawing my other arm and I felt the same pain from the other arm.

"L!"

"One chance left! You either guess all the correct letters in a row or you guess the word."

"Wrong again!" I thought. The man drew my left leg and my leg had a burning sensation which caused tears to fall out. Although, I could not think straight, I knew that I only had one chance left before I lose, before I meet my demise. At that moment, I suddenly remembered about the clue the man had given me. I had totally forgotten about it, focusing on guessing the correct letters. Ride to life. That was the clue. As I thought about it hard, the cover of the board game set appeared in my mind. I thought and thought. Then, I looked at the words. Nothing came to my mind. "It'd definitely something about the game. Surveying the man, I hoped that he was not the kind of people who would lie in critical times. When the man saw me look at him, he began walking to where the chair was. Once, he removed the chair, I was done. Ride to life is just about steam trains and stations. Nothing else. "That's it! Steam trains that was the correct answer!" My eyes went wide and my heart palpitated harder than before. The next 2 words I was about to say were words that would determine my fate.

"The answer is Steam Train. "

The man did not reply. He walked to the board and moved his hand closer to the board. I was sweating profusely and I could not think about anything. My mind was blank.All I wanted was to be correct and be set free.

"Well done! You got it correct!" The man said, in a rather cheery voice as he wrote out steam train. After writing it, he started to fade and before I knew it, he had disappeared. The rope around my neck disappeared and I was set free. At that moment, I cried, cried tears of joy.