The Monster in the Basement

I’m in the bathroom, the phone rings…mom picks it… Knocks on my bathroom door…she says…. “Aathish is calling to check if you can join him in the library… He will wait in the ground floor lift lobby”

“Ok…” I shout back….

We have a small library in our apartment complex… Heard that they had got a new set of books for kids…. Aathish is calling me to come and check….

I rush and dress… jump into the elevator…… reached the ground floor… Aathish was already there…      

“Hi…”

Said while I was walking towards him. But he didn’t say a word and just pointed at the courtyard outside our building, it just started raining...

Aathish was concerned…!

“Maybe we should wait for the rain to stop…?”

 “No worries…! We can go through the basement… because the basements of all blocks are connected”. I winked and replied…

We both ran down the stairs behind the elevator…Soon we were in the basement, and it was deserted and dark in many areas…. Aathish asked …

“Okay smarty pants… now, how will we find the D1 block… and then the library?”

“Umm... Let’s explore…” replied me...

We both stepped slowly out into the jungle of pillars… and there came a skylight that stood tall all the way from the 12^th floor to the basement…we got curious and stepped into the light area… and that blinded us from the surrounding area…

Aathish made a cat cry, which echoed through the light hole above... I also tried imitating him… it was fun… few minutes passed, and we were done with the amusement of the skylight…

Then suddenly Aathish holds me back... Tight on my hands… I took my eyes from the top of the skylight and looked at him… he looks suspicious... And asks…

“Did you hear that…?”

“What…?” asked me…

He stood silent and so do I… trying to listen to the surrounding area… I was not sure of what he was trying to listen to… but I stood still…

After a minute or so... I asked again… silently… raising my eyebrows in question… “??”

Aathish softly told… “I heard some weird noise…!”

“I didn’t…!“ I replied…

Though not convinced… Aathish turned back… when we heard a squeaking sound… Both of us jumped back upon hearing this…

I looked at him... I could see a pale face in the skylight… we stood there waiting… trying to find the direction of the sound… and we felt more vulnerable as we were blinded by the skylight and stood light up in the there…!!

Seconds passed by and it looked longer… I regained our courage and I told Aathish…

“Let’s go back…”

We slowly step back… step by step... out of the skylight…and stood there for a second... watched around… there was a clear mess of construction debris on to our right side…

Corner of eyes crawled on to the debris… searched in a glimpse to see anything unusual… but couldn’t find anything…

Aathish took the courage to take a few steps towards the debris to have a closer look… I followed with soft steps…

Stood back as the area was darker towards the corner, where the debris were dumped… we stood as it didn’t look safe to walk further…

Watched every inch of the area… kept our ears sharp to capture even the tiny sound that comes our way… but nothing happened… it was all silent… and we stood staring at the debris…

Suddenly… A paint tin started rolling from one side of the debris…!!

We stepped back… and the paint tin gained momentum and started rolling towards us… and stopped when it ran over a water channel that runs on the floor….

We gasped… stood still… didn’t know what to do… looked at each other… I could feel sweat rolling down the forehead…

But Aathish wanted to go ahead and check... I could do nothing other than following him… we took soft steps… feet by feet... reached closer the tin…

Aathish stopped... we waited to see if there was any noise… it wasn’t silent… there was something in it...!!

Was it a groaning noise or a scratch on the metal strip… it took few seconds to take our next step… we came in a straight line with the open side of the can… It was dark inside… we couldn’t see anything…

We slowly bend down… Aathish keeps his knee on to the floor to have a straight-line look into the paint can… I keep my hands on his shoulder and bend down…

We stared inside… it was silent and dark inside… then…!!

Suddenly two glowing eyes turned towards us… staring from the darkness of the paint can…!!

We froze… and then came a scream out of Aathish…!

And then, there was no doubt… it was time to retreat… we ran to the staircase lobby shutting the metal door behind us…

As the door closed… we felt more secure… stood there for a second to gasp breath and Aathish tried to peep back into the dark basement through the peephole of the metal door… I joined him soon…

The paint can lay still on the floor still… no sign of any activity… we held our breath and then we saw… something coming out of the paint can…

It was nothing but… a house cat….!!!

We fell onto the floor in sheer relief and burst into laughter….!