I worked in the king’s castle. My job was to guard a small door at the lowest level of the dungeon. For two years nobody had come in or out of that door. I had seen and heard nothing, until that day when I heard a noise from the other side of the door.

When the sounds got louder and louder, I rushed up the stairs so fast that I climbed about 100 stairs in a few minutes. I went straight into the king’s palace. King Edward was the ruler those days. He was sitting in his courtyard with some of his ministers. I was stammering and trembling with fear. As I got nearer, I shouted, “Help!”

Everybody started starring at me with amazement. I shouted, “I am hearing strange noises from the dungeon. Sometimes I hear cackling and spooky sounds.”

Everybody started giggling and making fun of me and nobody believed me. They just said that I was trying to trick them. But the king was serious. He took me inside to his office and sat down on a sofa facing me. He then went on explain that there was a legend about a monster that lived twenty thousand years ago in that dungeon. A Greek warrior had captured it and put it in the dungeon.

Hearing this I became even more afraid. He continued, “The legend says that the monster is hibernating in the dungeon since it was captured.” “But is the monster still alive?” I interrupted.

”It is still alive because there was a witch who created the monster. The witch is still alive but invisible. The witch’s partner was killed by Greece warriors, but his soul is still guarding the door to save the monster from any kind of trouble,” the kind explained. He added that he would send more guards to go and guard the dungeon.

When I returned to my post by the dungeon door, the monster was banging the door. I was very curious about what was inside but the king had ordered that the door was never to be opened or something bad would happen.

Suddenly the door broke and out came the creepiest monster ever. It was a dark, terrifying and colossal monster. We almost jumped when we saw it, but we managed to keep our wits and started fighting with it. Long years of captivity had thankfully weakened the monster so we were able to defeat it soon.

With the monster gone, the evil spell in the dungeon also came to an end and there was no need for the door to be kept close or me to guard the place. The king was delighted with my bravery and he made me his personal guard.

Published in Dawn, Young World, October 20th, 2018