The Humorously Horrific Adventure of Matthew and Daphne

Matthew Stranges let out a sigh as he entered the large mansion his family had dropped him off in front of. He had just turned sixteen a week ago and now it was his turn to complete his family’s coming of age rite, or as his father liked to call it, “Unhaunting a mansion.”

Now unhaunting a mansion wasn’t that difficult when it came to his family, all of whom were born with a special power that could aid him, all but him, whose special power seemed to be having white hair. His little brother had the ability to shine light out of his fingertips that chased away ghosts, but Matthews’s power was having white hair.Real fair, right? He had to do it the hard way.He had to find the object the ghost was attached to and destroy it.

Feeling a fist lightly hit his shoulder, Matthew’s blue eyes met a pair of glaring green eyes belonging to a dark haired girl by the name of Daphne Dritchel, his best friend who was acting as his partner at the moment.

“Stop sighing so much. You sound like an old man,” Daphne said, a small smirk crossing her face.

Matthew’s expression darkened at that. People often confused him for a short elderly man because of his hair and Daphne knew that it annoyed him.She was there when a five year old boy mistook Matthew as his grandfather.That wasn’t even the worst of it.When he was thirteen he had accidentally been left at an old age home, his family leaving with a ninety year old man who, according to his dad, ‘looked just like him.’

“Who’re you calling old, I’m still a spring chicken, and you’re a month older than me, so if I’m old, you must be ancient,” Matthew shot back. Hearing his friend giggle, Matthew let out an exasperated sigh.She liked to tease him about his age, or rather, the age people assumed he was. “Let’s just get this over with.”

Daphne nodded rapidly, her hands covering her mouth in an attempt to hide her giggles. “Yes... let’s.”

Stopping at the mansions lobby, the duo immediately noticed a pair of stairs that met at the top, leading to the second floor, a doorto who knows where under the stairs, a door to their left that appeared to lead to the dining room, and finally,a door to the right that led to a corridor filled with doors on the left.

“Sooo, which way should we go?” Daphne asked, glancing from door to door, but as her sight landed on the door under the stairs, it slowly creaked, opening inward as a cold draft blew through the house, making both Daphne and Matthew shiver.

“How about you go through that door?” Matthew pointed to the door that opened ominously, “And I’ll go investigate the kitchen.”

“Are you crazy?” Daphne hissed. “That door just opened itself.”

“It was the breeze,” Matthew smirked evilly.

“Maybe if the door hadn’t been closed and the breeze had been blowing at the door, not coming out,” Daphne replied furiously.

“Fine, if you’re so against it, we’ll start at the top and work our way down,” Matthew said as he took a step towards the stairs, stopping when a reddish brown slime started cascading down the stairs. “That’s not good.”

“You think?” Daphne yelled, rapidly stepping backwards as numerous tiny hands formed out of the slime, trying to grab her ankles as it moved around the staircase, entering through the door that had opened by itself.

“Maybe we should go to the dining room then,” Matthew suggested as he hurriedly opened the door, allowing Daphne to run through first, before slamming it shut behind them. “We should be safe for now,” Turning around, he was met with several knives,forks and spoons suspended in mid air, aimed at his face.

“You just had to jinx it, didn’t you?” Daphne sighed, but froze when the cutlery pointed towards her.

Matthew hummed, bringing the cutlery’s attention back to him. Silently waving to get Daphne’s attention, Matthew pointed to his face, silently mouthedthe word “Talking” before shaking his head.

Nodding, Daphne pointed towards a door on the opposite end of the room, before heading towards it.

Ducking under the cutlery, the duo swiftly, and more importantly, silently made their way towards the door. As they opened the door, it creaked loudly. Seeing the cutleryrapidly flying towards them, they swiftly closed the door, Matthew letting out a breath he didn’t know he had been holding.

“That... was too close,” Daphne panted, leaning against the wall. “Where are we, anyway?”

“The kitchen,” Matthew muttered, paling as numerous knives of all different sizes floated out of the sink, draws and cupboards.

“Nope,” Daphne said, before tugging the kitchen door open again. Grabbing Matthew, she immediately burst into a sprint, adrenaline fuelling her as she dragged her friend behind her. “Nope, nope, nope,” She repeated as she rushed back to the lobby, preferring to deal with slow moving slime rather than fast moving blades.

Closing the door to the dining room, the duo had no reprieve as a literal wave of slime crashed into them, sending them into the wall, before dragging them through the door under the stairs, down a flight of stairs and into the basement.

Spitting out a mouthful of slime which oddly tasted like a pair of dirty socks mixed with cough syrup, Matthew sat up, but was immediately forced back down as Daphne collided with him.

Wincing as she sat up, Daphne glanced down when she heard Matthew let out a loud groan. “Hey, Matthew, you alive?”

“Unfortunately, yes,” Matthew replied as he pushed himself up again.

“Ugh, this stuff stinks,” Daphne complained. “And this room is so dark, I can’t see anything.”

“There should be a light switch somewhere by the stairs.” Matthew groaned as he stood up, before helping his friend stand.

Stumbling towards the staircase, Daphne smirked as she found the light switch. “Much better,” She sighed, before glancing at the slime that covered her clothes. “Great, I’m completely covered in this stuff.”

“You’re up to your neck in it,” Matthew agreed.

“And you...” Daphne looked up at Matthew, before freezing, her face completely pale. “That’s a whole bunch of nope,” She said, before turning the light off.

“A whole bunch of... Why’d you turn the light off?” Matthew asked, flicking the switch back on.

Turning the lights back off, Daphne let out a strained laugh. “So I won’t see what’s in the room with us. I think we should just sit here in the nice dark basement where we can’t see anything.”

“What? Is the ghost down here or something?” Matthew asked, turning the lights switch on, before covering it with his hand. Turning around with his hand still on the switch, Matthew was disappointed to find that there was nothing in the basement with them, except an old shrub that had somehow sprouted through the slime covered concrete. “That... that’s it? It’s an old bush.”

Letting go of the wall, Matthew walked up to the bush, feeling a little glee at finally having something to tease Daphne over.She teased him for his hair, well, he would tease her about the time she freaked out over a bush.

Now that Matthew was so close to it, he could see that it had numerous large berries on it, grabbing one, he intended to show it to Daphne, that was, if it hadn’t suddenly opened to reveal an eye staring at him. “Oh,” Matthew muttered, taking several steps back as the vines lengthened, pushing the bush higher, before, what he previously assumed was berries opened, revealing numerous eyes around the eldritch being. “It’s not a bush,” Matthew finally said, taking several more steps backward, until he was standing flat against the wall.

“I told you so, now can we please go sit in a dark corner where we can pretend that we never saw it?” Daphne asked, her back to the creature.

A variety of emotions rapidly flew through Matthew in the span of ten seconds, first of all, fear for the creature in the room, secondly gratitude that his mom had made him use the bathroom an hour ago and finally, oddly enough, he felt curious as to why the creature didn’t do anything when he grabbed its eye.

Daphne determined to ignore what was happening, blocked her ears, humming a loud tune as she shut her eyes.

Seeing a vine come towards him, Matthew squeezed his eyes shut, expecting the worst, but what he got was a vine lightly tapping him on his shoulder, until he finally opened his eyes again.

“Um, aren’t you going to kill us?” Matthew asked quietly.

The eldritch being shook from side to side.

Matthew let out a relieved sigh. “So what do you want?”

A single vine touched the wall, scratching the rough image of a grandfather clock into the wall, before it scratched an X over it.

“You want to find a missing clock?” Matthew asked.

The monster shook from side to side.It pointed at its drawing and then slapped a vine against it.

“You want us to break a clock,” Matthew realised. “But even if I could get out of this basement, I wouldn’t be able to find it.”

The being drew a rough picture of a pair of staircases, with a clock on top of it.

“It’s on the second floor.”

The Eldritch being nodded.

“But I still can’t get...” Matthew began, but paused when a vine wrapped around him and Daphne, flinging them up the stairs, into the lobby.

“Ugh, what happened, have we been eaten yet?”  Daphne asked.

“Nope, but we...” Matthew began, but paused when a wave of slime rushed down one side of the staircase.Grabbing Daphne, he rushed towards the second staircase, determined not to be washed back down into the basement.

It wasn’t much of a climb as a leap as he and Daphne jumped over several steps with each step, but soon, they found themselves at the top of the staircase.

“So, what happened?” Daphne asked, panting. “One moment we were stuck with a monster and the next, it throws us out of the basement.”

Matthew scratched the back of his head as he considered how to explain the strange situation. “Well, it wanted us to break something for us, something on this floor. I think it’s a grandfather clock.”

“And if we don’t?”

“It’ll probably eat us,” Matthew replied simply.

“That’s as good a reason as any,” Daphne said quickly. “Are you waiting for, we’ve got a grandfather clock to vandalise.”

The duo swiftly checked several rooms, doing their best to avoid the room that was oozing an increasing amount of slime from the bathroom at the end of the hall. Just as they came across the last room, a new wave of slime rushed burst from the bathroom, almost catching them as they slipped into the final room.

Rushing towards the grandfather clock with the slime following close behind, they tackled the clock.

“Out the window!” Daphne yelled as she and Matthew wrestled the clock to the window. Leaning it on the windowsill, they gave one final heave, sliding the clock out the window, just as several hands made of slime latched ontoMatthew, attempting to drag him from the room.Latching onto him, Daphne heaved with all her might, but as the clock smashed on the ground, the slime lost all strength, causing the duo to fall to the floor, panting tiredly.

Taking a few seconds to catch his breath, Matthew let out a tired groan. “I wonder why the clock was both the object that anchored the ghost and what the hedge monster wanted destroyed.”

“Maybe the ghost was imprisoning it,” Daphne joked.

“Hey Daphne, we didn’t just get rid of a ghost and release a worse monster... did we?”

Daphne let out a tired groan as she sat up. “Stop a slime ghost and instead of a reward, we have to catch a monster that’s much worse!?”

“Let’s go.”