It was an early Saturday morning and the sun was hidden behind dense clouds. The weather was unusually pleasant and my family decided to visit a haunted house in the newly-constructed amusement park in the city. We had read amazing reviews about the new attraction in the city and so we thought of visiting it.

I, my brother and sister were just right for the age limit too. At around 7:00 pm, we decided it was time to go otherwise it would get too late and the place would become very crowded.

I was very excited to visit a haunted house, as it had always been a dream for me. When we reached the amusement park, I was delighted to see a huge place where there were plenty of fun activities and thrilling rides. Since our main focus was the haunted house, we quickly bought the haunted house tickets from a ticket counter and headed straight for what appeared to be an empty and an abandoned house, labelled The Haunted House.

My first step inside the haunted house was horrific and every bit of it felt real. A thousand wild thoughts ran in my mind and I stood startled next to my dump-struck sister and brother. My jaw dropped and I felt like exiting the area without further ado, but now there was no way to go back. I held on tightly to my terrified sister. Inch by inch I felt goose bumps spread over my body and I was shaking with terror.

As I turned back to look at my parents, I realised they had been following another path in the haunted house, my brother was following another path and my sister and I were following a totally different path.

Both of us were walking close to each other, hand in hand when we felt someone tap our back. It was a horrible-looking person with blood-like liquid oozing out of his hands and face. His large black eyes were jutting out of his face and he stood with a hammer in his hand. He wore ripped and torn clothes and had a tag written “bleeding scream”.

Our hearts pounded and sweat covered our pale faces. From nowhere a book rose high and from it one could hear screams. Blood-like liquid then splashed out of it and both of us screamed in horror. We panicked when we suddenly saw a cart coming towards us. We knew it was for us and we sat in it with terror. It drove along past ghosts, scary creatures and wizards who were bewitching human bodies. I and my sister could feel our blood curdle, spine chill and our hair rise straight up. It was indeed the most eerie place we had been to.

The cart slowed down a little and we could hear the roof cracking and blood like liquid dripping from the roof. From far away, we could see a man standing with a knife. Our cart was making us go nearer and nearer to that man and suddenly … our cart fell deep down into an underground place was filled with goblins. My sister and I held on to each other tightly. We could sense that our ride was finally coming to an end. The ride was zooming past horrifying figures. Ahead we could see an opening far away.

We saw our parents and brother waving towards us looking haggard and frightened.

A few moments later, we were off the appalling ride, our hair were all messed up and eyes were red with distraught. Sweat was dripping off our faces and our hearts were pumping very fast.

This was no doubt the most horrific and frightening experience that I had ever had.

Since that day, we have never thought about going in that haunted house ever again. Despite the fact that it was terrifying, it was an amazing and a memorable ride. That night we slept at the edge of our beds in great horror and trepidation.

Published in Dawn, Young World, November 24th, 2018