***BROOKLYN’S POV***

I heard a piercing scream, and even though we were in the basement there was a window that peeked outside. My heart was going super fast, someone was in trouble. I ran to the window, it was dark down here, but I could see outside. 

And to my horror, it was Zeke. 

I screamed, “No!”

I watched as he was being drug by his hair, cringing, and feeling such remorse. I banged my hand on the window but it was no use… I could do nothing for him. 

My heart felt as if it had been ripped out, I screamed, and I felt Allison’s arms wrap around me. I felt the tears sting my eyes, the lump form in my throat. Zeke was struggling the best he could, but I saw his legs… 

There was nothing we could do. 

I pressed my head against the window, wishing I could do anything for him, but I knew the truth. I saw the axe rise into the air, and I shut my eyes as I watched it start to come down. I fell backwards into Allison’s arm and I felt the tears roll down my face, the realization and the fear, the remorse, it all hit me. 

Allison turned me around, wrapping her arms around my neck and pulling my face into her shoulder. I was shaking, I hadn’t even realized it till now, and I cried, “I can’t do this…”

She shook her head, “No… you can, and you will.”

She was staying strong but I could see past her façade, she was trying not to freak me out but she was freaking out in her own head. Staying strong just wasn’t possible right now, but I knew I needed to try or we weren’t going to survive. 

We were in the attic that I had found the evil dictionary in, but we had yet to actually explore it. I didn’t anyway, mostly because I was to consumed in the dictionary incident. 

I didn’t know where that man was, but I knew he was in the woods somewhere. I knew he wasn’t finished with us though… he was going to kill all of us, or try anyway. I knew this was going to haunt us for the rest of our lives if we survived though, which made me wonder if I even wanted to make it out alive. 

The trauma…

Then I felt Allison’s sweaty palm in mine, and I remembered the reason I was still going. 

My friends… what was left of them. 

I felt my eyes sting at the thought, feeling the pit in my stomach worsen with sadness, and regret, and everything else. 

If I would’ve spoken up… we might not have been in this situation. We might be somewhere else, not here, that was the important part. 

Allison pulled me next to her, “I’m so scared Brooklyn…”

I looked at her, I could barely make out her features, but I knew she was looking at me. I felt the swelling of my heart increase, she was terrified, and I was to. All I wanted to do was protect her… I couldn’t see her suffer… I could barely make it through Zeke…

I nodded, “Me to…”

Her lips touched mine, and I felt the stinging of the tears… 

What if none of us made it out of here? What if she didn’t? Or me? Could I live again knowing that five of my best friends… were murdered? In front of me? Or would I die for Allison? To selfish to have to live without her?

She whispered, “I’m so sorry for what I did to you… but I think… that I freaked myself out because… I started to really love you. I never told you that, and I’m so sorry that it comes out now… but if I don’t make it-”

“We’re going to get out of here,” I cut off her sentence, to afraid and enlightened to think about anything else. 

I didn’t want to die here. 

Her confession had almost sent me to my knees, I was so scared, but so sad at the same time. Allison… she was so afraid to die, but she was so afraid that she felt the need to confess something to me… because she had this set in her head that she was going to die. 

I couldn’t let that happen.

Knowing that she possibly loved me… well that was giving me all the more reason to fight on. 

Then I ran into something that felt like a human.

I screamed, echoing through this room that we were in, and Allison spoke, “Brooklyn, shut the fuck up.”

I gripped her hand tight, puling back and realizing it was a coat that I had run into. It was hanging on the wall and I suddenly had a feeling that being down here wasn’t a good idea. 

Basements never ended well in scary movies.

And I had a feeling this was going to be just like one, except I was in it. 

Then my hand found a door. 

I searched for the door knob, thinking that it was my way upstairs to find Lyle and Kate but it only led me into another room inside the basement. 

I pulled Allison behind me and she was close, and then my eyes slowly adjusted, coming to a realization that there was something off about this room. As I looked around, I noticed a desk, books, and the dim red light that gave this room a red tint.

Allison’s hand squeezed mine, reassuring me she was behind me, and I looked back at her. Her face held fear, but we were used to it. We had been living in fear for about an entire hour now. 

I pulled her into the room with me, feeling my heart rate pick up. My body was getting hot with fear, as I inspected the room, keeping my eyes away from the desk and noticed there was a trap door above us. The ceiling was lower in this room, it was almost like this room didn’t exist when the cabin was built. 

Then Allison whispered, terror clear in her voice, “Brooklyn…”

I tore my eyes away from the trap door and found Allison’s eyes, then realizing her eyes weren’t looking at me, they were looking at the desk. 

I turned, seeing exactly what she was looking at. 

TV’s, monitors, video cameras… my heart was slamming in my chest, I could hear my heartbeat in my ears. He was… recording it? He was recording our deaths? His murders?

There were multiple TV’s, as if cameras were set up all throughout the cabin, and outside… I felt a lump form in my throat, this was so wrong… so sinister… 

Then I saw Kate and Lyle, and my heart throbbed from either joy or relief. They were still alive! Oh thank God they were okay! Their figures moving silently on the TV screen…

Maybe I could somehow turn off the monitors… 

Allison whispered frantically, “Brooklyn, the keys!”

We were about twenty feet away from the desk, but I saw what she was talking about. The keys to the car were sitting right there on the desk, and my heart jumped in excitement.

Then I heart a loud bang, as if a slamming of a door, and I knew what it was. 

It was the trap door I had seen earlier. 

Everything happened to fast after that, and I grabbed Allison’s hand, scooting her back into the corner of the room. I held my hand over her mouth, she was crying, and I knew it was from the fear. 

He was here, with us, inside this room.

We were smashed together inside this little corner, and I noticed we were right next to the door that led us in here. Maybe if I opened it quiet enough we could get out of here with no problem, but I knew that probably wasn’t possible. 

Had the door squeaked when we opened it the first time? I couldn’t remember… 

Me and Allison didn’t dare speak,  we could so much barely breathe. If he turned around we would both be dead, and I don’t know if we could move fast enough to escape him if he did. He was holding his axe like a cane, and that was the freakiest thing of all. 

He was watching the screen, and he was replaying… was that Nathan’s death? I wanted to gag, remembering what I had seen before he barged into the cabin. The hatchet, the gaping slit in Nathan’s head…

This man… he was a monster. 

No telling how long this man would stay here, and I couldn’t continue to crouch in this position forever. My legs were burning, the sweat was forming on my brow as this tiny room’s heat wrapped around me. I knew the sweat could be visible now, my hair was sticking to the sides of my face…

I felt like I had run a mile. 

I moved silently, making little to no noise as I moved toward the door knob. I was pretty good at keeping quiet, but I kept my eyes on the man with the mask. Allison stayed still, holding her hand over her mouth which was keeping her quiet. She knew that if she made even the slightest noise we were done, and we were so close to freedom. 

My hand found the rusty door knob, my finger tips barely grabbing it, to afraid to make the slightest noise. I was so scared, if I turned the door knob and it creaked he would hear, and we would be dead. My body was shaking with fatigue, and I was so hot I might pass out. 

I turned the knob, deciding that if I stayed down here any longer I was going to pass out, and the door squeaked as I pushed it open. 

My heart stopped, but I didn’t, I grabbed Allison and shoved her into the other room, slamming the door behind me. I locked the door and panicked, we needed to find something to put in front of it before the man made it to us, “Allison help me!”

She noticed the bookshelf and helped me push it in front of the door, but not before letting out a small whimper of fear. 

Then the axe sliced through the top of the door, pounding on the top of the bookshelf. I screamed, and ran to the window that I had witnessed Zeke’s murder. I found a metal pipe laying there and I picked it up, I screamed, “Cover your eyes!”

Then the pipe was sent through the window, and I could hear the door behind us being beaten. 

We didn’t have much time. 

The window was tiny but me and Allison could both fit through it, I made Allison climb out first, and then she turned and pulled on my hands, pulling me up. 

Then the door behind me was gone, along with the bookshelf, and I heard the rapid footsteps. The hiking boots falling hard against the wooden floor. 

I screamed, and my side scrapped over the leftover glass that I had broken, slicing through my shirt and stomach. I felt him tugging on my foot, the other hand was absent but I knew it was holding the axe.

 I screamed, feeling the fear well up in my mouth, and I kicked my foot back, apparently kicking him in the face, and his grip loosened, then it was gone. 

Allison pulled me out of the window and I laid on my back in the damp grass, feeling a throbbing pain in my stomach where the glass had cut me. I sat up, feeling the aching in my muscles, but as I peered through the tiny window I realized the tiny room was empty. 

The man was gone.