Without a word, I hurried down the staircase and rejoined Ava and Eden who hadn’t seemed to notice my absence. They were chatting amongst themselves, barely paying attention to the history all around us.
We continued the tour and once it was over, Mr Singh gave us thirty minutes to explore the grounds before we had to meet up again for an educational video presentation.
I followed Ava and Eden to a wide, stone staircase. They sat close together, practically intertwined, ignoring my entire existence.
Not wanting to endure their flirting, I ventured off on my own, returning to the darkness of the fortress.
The heavy oak doors creaked open, the light behind me casting a shadow across the worn stone floor, moss and lichen growing between the cracks. I wandered down the narrow corridors, smoke lingering in the royal tapestries lining the walls.
It was quiet, the only sound the echo of my footsteps as I turned a corner, almost colliding with Elysse Martina. Her hands clutched around my forearms as she steadied herself, a breathless gasp pulsing through the hall.
“I’m sorry,” I said, taking a step back to grant her space.
“No, no, it’s okay,” she assured me with a smile.
I nodded and made to step past her when she stopped me, fingers gripped around my wrist. “Want to explore together? I’m kind of scared.”
I glanced down at her hand, lip curling in displeasure. “Scared of what?”
“Ghosts,” she said.
“Ghosts can’t hurt you. They’re dead.”
She laughed as if I had made a joke, head thrown back so that her blonde strands fell down her shoulders.
“Come on, let’s go,” she giggled, dragging me down the hall.
I had only spoken to Elysse twice in my life.
The first was in year eight when we were assigned seats in French. She was quite popular, even back then. A dancer, a swimmer, a gymnast. We never really spoke until one lesson when she asked, in a panic, if she could copy my homework.
We hadn’t spoken again until a few weeks ago, when we passed one another in the hall and she complimented my new haircut. Ava, who had been beside me, snorted and made a comment about how Elysse had dated all the boys in her 'social status', so she was now branching out to the ‘losers’.
“We shouldn’t go too far,” I told her as the air grew thick, a cold dampness following our every move.
“Here is nice,” she said, pulling me into a small, windowless room with a wooden chest tucked in the corner, the only light coming from the flickering lanterns in the corridor.
By the door stood an armoured guard, traditionally decked out in iron, steel and chainmail. There was no person behind the helmet, but the figure was so tall and life-like that you could almost be fooled.
“I thought you said you were scared,” I murmured, taking in the small space. “This is a bit creepy.”
“But I’m safe now,” she beamed, shifting closer, “with you.”
I raised an eyebrow, backing away until the stone wall pressed into my shoulder blades. “I won’t exactly be able to protect you from ghosts.”
She giggled and shook her head. “Do you believe in ghosts, Augustus?”
I shrugged. “I have never really thought about it.”
“What do you think about instead?” she asked.
I think about throwing you off the side of this fortress, watching your skull crack open so you can never touch me again.
“Why are we in here, Elysse?”
“Because,” she said, placing both hands on my chest, “I thought we could have some fun on this boring ass trip.”
I opened my mouth to tell her it wasn’t boring, that we were standing amongst historical artefacts from the Middle Ages, when her lips suddenly connected with mine.
